Weekend 2

I had a relatively interesting weekend these past two days. I was looking forward to lots of time to explore Okazaki and possibly its surroundings, since it is a 3-day weekend (Monday is Sports Day, go figure). However, Yamasa took the opportunity to assign us a boat-load of homework, about 4 times as much paper work and 3 times and much studying. Weeeeee! Of course, this didn't stop me from spending some time out, as I delegated part of my work for today, part for tomorrow.

So yesterday (Saturday) I slept in, bought some eggs and butter to make scrambled eggs and breakfast, and the stove incident occured (see previous post). So I had a couple of pieces of bread to tide me over and set off on a bike ride, hoping to explore, and figuring on stopping somewhere on the way. I headed south along route 248, since I had already seen a good bit of north earlier in the week. I quickly discovered that I am on the southern fringe of Okazaki, as I was out of the city and in farmland within 10 minutes. Between long stretches of farmland, I went through the towns of Kota and Gamagochi, until I came to a sign pointing to "Gamagochi Port" which sounded quite interesting, so I continued in this direction. Then, roughly 25 km south of Okazaki, I came to what seemed to be a factory of sorts, and the road dead-ended, no port or water in sight. At this point, I had been going long enough that I figured I ought to turn around, so that I get home with plenty of time before it got dark.

Then the hard part began. I had noticed on may out of Okazaki that there was a strong wind, despite the sunny, cloudless conditions. It was so strong, in fact, that it could push me up a slight hill without my assistance on the pedals. Well, now that I had turned around, I was heading straight into this wind, and all I can say about it is, damn (sorry Mom). I don't think I ever got much faster than running speed, as my bike is used and only has 1 speed. It was so vicious that I could hardly move on big uphill slants, and would have to get off and walk my bike, much to my shame. I persevered, though, and after a multi-hour 25km struggle, I arrived home, out of shape, out of breath, and quite satisfied. It was the most exercise I had gotten in a long time, and the journey through the Japanese countryside was quite beautiful. I had hoped to get pictures, but my camera was out of batteries, which is smelly. Next time, for sure, I will have pictures for you all.

Today, my mini-adventure, which began after doing about an hour of work, was confined to within the Okazaki city limits. On my way home yesterday, I noticed a previously unseen building in Okazaki, 5 minutes walk from my apartment, and I knew I must return to it as soon as possible:



It turned out to be not the gigantic extravaganza I had expected, because once inside, I discovered that the Japanese like 3 types of arcade games more than any other: Fighting games, Soccer games, and gambling games. I had no interest in the latter two, but I did find the game Virtua Fighter 5 there (roughly 2 readers of this blog, max, will care about this), and that game is not out in America, so it was a lot of fun to put a few rounds into it. Afterwards, I left for a different arcade I had seen before, which I knew had some items I was interested in, most notably Mario Kart Arcade (again, maybe 5 people will care this time), which was suitably fun and quirky, a bit of a departure from previous Mario Kart games. Apparently Namco made it, and Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man, and the Ghost are characters. Also, the game takes a picture of you and gives your face the features of your selected character. This was amazing, because I picked Luigi, which meant that I now had a green hat, huge round nose, and a fatty italian mustache. Excellent.

However, the day's highlight came with the discover of a game called "Drum Master" which is not unlike the Donkey Konga bongo game that many of you have observed or played at my home in Chicago. As a result of my experience with said Donkey Konga game, I had a lot of inherent ability with this game, and quickly was conquering some of the hardest songs on the hardest setting. This drew the attention of some surrounding young Nihonjin (Japanese), who were likely thinking "who is this gaijin (foreigner) and why is he encroaching on our extremely Japanese game territory?" Particularly, there was one girl, she was no older than 4, who just loved watching me and decided to join in. At first, I thought she wanted to play, but I didn't think it would be responsible to give her some money, I don't know what her parent/guardian(s) were like, so I just but in another ¥100 and started again. It seemed this girl understood the basics of the game, though and she was playing along with me, correctly (which surprised me), but poorly, and this seemed to entertain her perfectly. After a few more songs, I was ready to move on, so I put down the drumsticks, said "arigatoo" to the little girl, and headed for the exit. To my surprise, the girl followed me, and I was worried she would try to leave the store with me. I turned, waved, and said "sayoonara" announcing my intention to (sadly) leave her. She understood, waved enthusiatically, and said "bye-bye!" in english, which surprised me, and was incredibly cute. I smiled and walked out the door. When I turned and looked through the window, she was still smiling and waving, which was so cute I could hardly stand it. What an adorable little girl, she absolutely made my day.

Afterwards, I hopped on my bike, and headed north, having heard of a sushi place and wanting to scope it out. I found and passed it, as I was on the other side of the busy road. This took me to a CD place, where the Mars Volta's "Amputechture" was surprisingly on display. On a whim, I bought it, wondering if there were any aesthetic changes to the Japanese version, and also to test out my credit card, which I had yet to use on this side of the ocean. It worked, and the CD did indeed have an extra booklet in Japanese. I look forward to the day I can translate it and see how off it was.

I headed back towards home, stopping to look at the sushi place, which wasn't conveyor-belt style as I had heard, and had an intimidating Japanese menu, so I decided to save it for a later time when I knew what I was doing. On my way back, I made note of Pizza-La (motto: We Give the Highest Priority To Taste"), because I love seeing foreign resaurants in Japan, as well as Mos Burger (motto: Japanese Fine Burger), where I ultimately decided to have dinner. This was my first Japanese-made American meal. The verdict: decent burger, nothing special, great Chuckwagon-style fries, but on the whole not worth another visit, as my other real Japanese meals have been healthier, tastier, and more filling. Afterwards, I headed home to vegetate AKA play video games. Vegetation needs fully satisfied, I have recounted my action-packed story to you all, and now must return to study my lengthy list of vocabulary, as well as the mysterious Katakana. I probably won't have anything to write about tomorrow, as I expect it to be mostly a work day.