I slept till about 12:30 when Youko, Chrisser's friend from Victoria, gave me a call. We arranged to meet at 4:00 on the platform at Kita to go in search of Thai food. I did some laundry and tidied a little bit. I read for a bit and then fell asleep for about another hour. I met Youko at the station and we decided to go and try and find the Thai place that is supposed to be one stop up and has a Sunday buffet dinner. We actually found it pretty easily and enjoyed a really great dinner. I've decided she's my new friend.
After dinner we walked around a bit and found a second-hand store. All sorts of randomness in there. I bought an electric fan. Then we went to the grocery store to find bleach or something to kill mildew, and some water cause we were thirsty. I love that she can read things. I hate being illiterate. We found some fabulous killing spray. She laughed when she read the label. It's says to wash your hands and your face and your eyes after touch the bottle and to keep a door open. She read it and looked at me and said "Maybe you will die. I don't know." We laughed. We walked some more. Found a Uni-Qlo (!!!! a fabulous clothing store that carries sizes for beings who were created to be larger than a tent pole) just down the street from the station. Like a 20-25 minute bike ride from my house. How exciting. I'm going back, maybe on Tuesday to spend some time trying to find more shirts and jeans and pants. We thought we could head back to Kita via one road. We got turned around in a neighbourhood and so ended up, eventually, back on the same road we were on. We decided to just go back the way we came and then follow the tracks back to the Kita station. I said good bye to her there and promised to call again soon. We were talking about going to Kamakura sometimes soon.
Emboldened by our success at finding mildew cleaner I decided to hit the drug store by my house to see what else I could figure out. I managed to get a dust broom thing, those new ones with the disposable cloths. I used to be unilaterally opposed to them. But since Stephanie left some of the cloths and I can't find a regular broom anywhere, I decided that they aren't so awful in this place and are actually quite handy. I've decided that I've been trying to hard to battle living here, "No I'm not going to buy this or that because I can clean different ways", but really it's not working and they have some wonderful cleaning products that I just need to spend the money on and be clean and happy. I also got some drain bags for the kitchen sink so I'll be able to clean it out easier each week, and then the roaches won't want to come in here. Yeah! No roaches. I'm fearing the day.
It has gotten hot here. Today was the first day that I was just at home since the humidity has soared. Everything is sticky. I don't like that I can get a shirt from my closet and put it on and it feels like it needs another 15 minutes in the dryer. It was dry at one point. Now it's not. It's only going to get worse.
