Last week I got a package.



I unpacked it with gusto. The contents never seemed to end! I got food and pajamas and comfy things for my futon and reading materials and all sorts of wonderful things.



I filled my cupboard with lovely American food (bottom shelf) as opposed to stupid Japanese food (other lame shelves).

Yay, things!!!













So to Mom, Dad, Sar-Sar, Mister, Nada, Christina, Grandma, Aunt Pie, and Aunt Kiki:



I will be enjoying your gifts and thinking of you (especially during the sad, sad time my last Pop-Tart will be getting eaten in between sobs). Love yous guys!

I went to Nagasaki this weekend! I'm way too tired to write about it!

I had my second Japanese lesson this week and while the lessons are based heavily in "usable" conversation I am still required to study some elements of grammar. The small portion I've studied thus far continues to be a conundrum wrapped in an enigma and shrouded in mystery. I keep expecting a Buddhist monk to show up at my apartment to send me on a three-part quest so that I may finally gain true enlightenment of negative sentence structure.

I can write my name in katakana though. Anyone? Anyone? No? Alright.

Anyway, on Thursday I will have been here for eight weeks. Zoinks! As such, I decided it was time to get more familiar with Kashii, the area I live in -- I know my immediate surroundings well enough like where the post office is and the hospital and all that. But what if, say, I needed to know where the intricately baked and decorated super expensive cake shop is? Well, now I know (through downtown, over the canal and on the left). Neighborhood exploring super picture fun time:











I also wanted to test out walking to the grocery store housed one station over in Chihaya which didn't seem terribly far away by train but whoever knows. Not I said the fly. It did turn out to be quite close and seems to be a potentially great running route -- the path I took to get there is in a developing area with mostly brand new apartment complexes and very few businesses -- lots of flat, wide sidewalks and very little people traffic. Joy!

Also I went to the 100 yen shop and bought this memo pad:



FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, LET'S WRITE IT DOWN BEFORE IT FORGETS!

Miss you all.

1. I lost the key to my bicycle which is impossible. And all the fantasies of riding around Kashii on a hot summer's eve or twelve have disappeared along with it.

2. I found a chair that I want as I am more than finished with sitting on the floor but the chair is three train stops a transfer and three subway stops away and having it delivered would more than double the cost. PUH-HUH.

3. I always had thoughts of hanging freshly laundered and sweet smelling linens and trousers and such in the afternoon sun and whistling while I worked and sipping on lemonade while the fabrics dried. Really though it's a pain in the rump as I have no patience and my Japanese laundry soap isn't scented and real lemonade doesn't exist here and everything is wrinkled beyond belief after taking years to dry and if there's one thing I hate it's ironing stiff lint-laden button-down shirts. My only condolence is that I'll be able to tell my children and grandchildren "in my day, people in Japan didn't have robots to do their laundry like they do now." (And they'd better, because if not this work will have been all for nothing.)

4. I've been thinking a lot lately about all my kiddos from student teaching. This time last year started bringing about the changes and it still makes me cry and long for what was.

5. Yesterday I went back to Dazaifu to re-explore.


View while dining on udon tempura.


Japanese garden in Komyozenji (a buddhist) Temple.


Me inside the temple. And to the right a man who found true tranquility and is further proof that Japanese can sleep anywhere.

• I have very little food.
• I have a bicycle with a basket.
• I haven't properly exercised in days et days.
• I might know how to get to the grocery store that is one train-stop away not by train.

Hopefully the melange above will coordinate into some sort of aliment acquiring action adventure.

If not, I can only blame the bicycle for not having a big red horn, handlebar streamers, nor a baseball card or two in the wheel spokes. I mean really, this is Japan. The baseball card thing should be more than standard.

japartment

I was going to write that I need to get a haircut and buy a curling iron because my recent lack of coification had made me feel blegh but I ended up giving myself bangs so I'm fine now. HERE, SELF. I PRESENT TO THEE...BANGS!

And now for some photos of my Japartment.


First you come in and take your shoes off, you filthy animal.


Then you enter the hallway.


In said hallway you can find the bathroom...


...which is NOT to be confused with the washroom.


The washroom is for washing clothes in the need-for-hamper-eliminating washing machine...


...as well as for washing Laurens.


After washing whatever needs to be washed, take a look around!


Just don't touch anything.


The big folded thing on the bottom shelf of the closet is what I take out to sleep on every night. It is quite comfortable.













It is probably both bigger and smaller than you think. It suits me I think.