New bike, rice cooker, dissapointment

I woke up, took a shower, ate some scrambled eggs, and left my room. I was given the pleasure of seeing Kyle walk down the hall naked in some bed sheets.



Some of the guys apparently got trashed last night. Seeing this made me laugh.

I had to go to the university to get some paperwork taken care of for my student ID. I went with Brad since we were in the same group for that. We ended up being late because we missed the train. That was mostly uneventful.

After we were through with that, I started heading over to the Inage Ward Office to get my alien registration card taken care of along with insurance and other things. I met a girl that was participating in the chiba exchange as well. She is a 3rd year Japanese major from Maryland. Her name was Melody. Her Japanese was impressive. We had an uninteresting conversation. She seemed like a nice girl though.

Once we came across a McDonalds, I went to go eat because I was hungry. Melody kept going on her way. I decided I wanted to try this teriyaki burger that everyone is raving about. I got it with fries and a strange drink I haven't seen outside of Japan. The burger was gross. Along with the beef patty, which is covered in teriyaki sauce, there is mayonnaise in the sandwich. The whole thing was kind of gross and slimy. I would not recommend it. The drink and fries were good however. They serve you slightly differently at this McDonalds. Instead of waiting at the cashier area for your food, they give you a number and deliver the food to your table. The service seemed to be slower than that in America.



Right as I was leaving the McDonalds, I saw Atilla (An Australian guy from my floor). He invited me to coffee with him and Anna. We had a nice talk about Japanese, placement tests, kanji, and how I apparently talk with a monotone voice. Do I do this all the time? Or is it something I just do with new people that I am not familiar with yet?



After that I decided I wouldn't go to the Ward office since we would be going as a group tomorrow. My new mission became searching for a bike. I found all the local bike shops in the area in google maps with a "自転車店” search. The first place I went to had 1 bike at a price of 18000円. I was aiming for 1500円 and under, so I moved on. The next shop I went to was more a bike for custom built bikes and sport biking. The third shop I stopped at had some bikes in my price range. I decided to go with the cheapest bike there. It is a nice baby blue bike with a basket, wheel powered headlight, kick stand, built in lock, fenders, etc. Everything I wanted. It looks kind of girly, but it is still cool.



I sat in my room for an hour or two studying and soon became hungry. It was time for dinner. I wanted to get a rice cooker for a few days now, so I went and searched for one. At first, the selection I found had a price range from 99,000円 to 13,000円. I had no idea rice cookers could be this expensive! I ended up finding one for about 6,7000円 up one floor. It works pretty well. It made me my first batch of sticky rice I've made on my own. It was an adventure figuring out how to work it with Japanese instructions.

I also bought some salmon, rice, a big jug of tea, soy sauce, sugar, etc... I fried the salmon with some olive oil. Boiled some broccoli and added some sweetened soy sauce with some toasted sesame seeds. And cooked up some rice. It was actually a very disappointing meal. The salmon was sub-par. The broccoli had too much soy on it. The tea had a very offensive woody taste to it. It was very frustrating since I put some effort into making the meal. I can't stand the tea, so that is a wasted jug....





I was so disappointed by that meal that I went out to get something that never disapp0ints... beer. A tall Asai "super dry". I must say, it isn't as good as I hoped. But it was much more satisfying than that dinner was.

I'm off to finish up my set of kanji for the day and going to sleep. Good night!