There is a Wendy's Picture at the end of this post.

It rained today!

In other words it was about 20 degrees cooler and I was very much grateful.


I met up with a boy named Takuya the otherday. He had stayed at my house during the summer when I last came to Japan. So I had never met him before. (Most of these meetings involve free food for me, so I'm always up for it). We met up with his friend (his name is escaping me) and they handed me a comically small bike and off we rode to have some lunch. Riding a bike around Tokyo has been a frightful affair. The roads are much too small, the cars move too fast, and I always look the wrong direction for traffic. Nevertheless, I risked my life to take some of these pictures while on the move.


Lunch was ramen of the salty variety (as opposed to the Miso or bitter variety). I remembered to take a picture of my food this time before I ate it. Enjoy, I know I did.


After lunch we ran around for some shopping (I took this picture of a fake lacoste shirt - family turn away!), drank some coffee, and stopped by a bakery. All in all I felt like quite the metrosexual. Then I met Takuya's grandfather, who I must say is awesome. I unno, he'll be commented on another time (I was invited back for dinner on a later date!)


Pictured here is my cell phone. As far as useful features go, it has two clocks (one I set to east coast time), it has a handy little swivel camera, it can text in English, Japanese, and Korean, and lastly its nice and slim. Technically the phone is Korean (and not Japanese) but its still nice nonetheless. I probably use the conversion feature the most. (What are these metres, celsius, and kilograms that everyone is speaking of???)

Oh and the other day I went to a restaurant all by myself. I know. Big deal. It was for me, there is a 90% chance that I won't be able to read anything on the menu in most cases (which is why I've gone with friends before). But I pulled through and without an ounce of english. Go Daniel.


Around the house, I helped my homestay sister with her english pronounciation. I never realized how hard it is to determine the pronounciation of a word in english. There are far too many exceptions to our pronounciation rules to call it a real system in my opinion. I think she'll only get better with experience and from hearing the words pronounced. Also I spent alot of time explaining that fear, fire, fare, and far do not sound the same.

Last night, I stayed up til 1am building a bed for my homestay mom. This was no ordinary bed either. It is like a cabin bed with a secret compartment that you can hide in if there is a break-in or more importantly an earthquake (the bed supports 2,000 kg of weight!?!). Then it had a swivelling headboard so you'd still be able to access the closet in the room and some fancy captain's bed type drawers. I guess my main problem was that there really wasn't any manuevering room to do all this. But it was nice to feel useful, and I always did like playing with legos.

In terms of studying. I purchased these sweet children's books to learn Kanji (Chinese characters adopted by Japan). Though I feel ridiculous when I break them out in the library among all the other students who are using 'real' textbooks. But as a bonus I can now say things such as 'Today is opposite day' 'I arched my back and dodged the ball' 'and 'Yesterday I was digging and found a dinosaur fossil.'


Well I guess thats it for today. Tomorrow I'm tracking down some toothpaste, school supplies, and relaxing before I get back into the grind with classes (I'm 4.5 months rusty at this point).


Oh and here is a Wendy's.
Japan hasn't yet been graced by the Triple Stack or the Baconator yet.
But I'm sure it's coming and they'll be all the heavier for it.