I've been going to bed early so this crap won't be so hard on me, but I think it's starting to catch up.
Every morning and some evenings, my host father goes into the shrine room and chants for a long time and rings a bell a bunch of times. Every day, he wears socks with little toes knitted into them to work. Like gloves for feet. I want some.
Tomorrow is another buggering school visit. Wonder how painful this one will be.
School was uneventful. At break, I had a chocolate sandwich. It wasn't bad. After school, I went wandering and took some pictures. I've been putting it off because it makes me look even more foreign. I wandered around the harbor and in the bayside warehouses. They're really proud of them. All they are is a bunch of old warehouses turned into a shopping plaza. It was a bunch of crap. The only interesting thing I found among Xmas crap, American folk art, glass crap, jewelry, and touristy crap was a small selection of Chinese dresses and shirts. I wanted one really badly, but the cheapest one was 7800 yen and I didn't know what size to buy. I might go back later.
Then I went into Meijikan, which is an old post office turned shopping mall. The second floor is entirely music boxes. I didn't know you could turn so much crap into music boxes. I went into the fancy room with chairs and tables and was kicked out for not paying 800 yen to listen to the giant music box. As it wasn't terribly interesting, I decided to leave. They sell cd recordings of their giant music box.
From there, I went to a hamburger joint called Lucky Pierrot. I had a really bad tasting hamburger while horrible American 50's music blared from speakers. It's some kind of chain. They're all over Hakodate. You can get curry and ice cream as well as other stuff I didn't want to take the time to decipher.
I went into Boni-Mariya department store which is 2 seperate 7-story builidings connected at the top by a skywalk. I thought I'd find some more warm clothes to wear but it was all upscale crap. I looked at the dishes and they were quite expensive. I looked at lots of interesting clocks and bought a little alarm clock shaped like an egg.
I went into another department store called Wako which was full of ultra trendy people and crap. The noise was unbelievable. From every corner a different JPOP song was blasting. It was 6 floors I think.
My back and feet were really killing me by this time so I started home. On my way from the station, I went to a used cd/rental store. They will rent cd's, games, dvd's, vhs, and porn. There was a lot of hype about Mario Sunshine, which apparently comes out here next month. I picked up a few used cd's, including a karaoke one by mistake. Grr. I wanted to get some dvd's and games, but I have neither a modded PS2 nor PSX nor dvd player.
I came home and took more pictures of my family's house since no one was home yet.
My face and ears are sunburned and hurt. And these headaches...
After perusing the Nintendo catalog I picked up today, it appears that Natural 2 is available for GBA. Note to self: look for hentai GB roms when I get home. Japanese gamers get all the good games. Got a Mario Sunshine flyer, too. God, it looks good. God, I wish I'd stayed home.
I'm going to bed early not only because I'm exhausted, but because I have to do that buggering school visit at 9am tomorrow.
For dinner, we had salmon and some kind of sausage-ham-egg concoction and some other stuff I didn't eat. It was ok. Hiroshi went out I guess. I haven't seen him since he offered me some horrible American movies on VHS. He brought me "Hollowman" starring Elizabeth Shue and Kevin Bacon and "Addicted to Love" starring Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick. I haven't decided if I'm going to watch them yet.
I'm watching tv in my room as I write this. I'm watching some music program with some scrawny orange and blonde bitch yawling like Taylor Dayne. She was being interviewed before her performance and was having to be translated to. Had a horrible California accent.
Speaking of tv, Japanese tv seems to consist of A) the same people on most every show; B) inane variety shows all done in the same style; C) pop stars; D) advertising; E) Good-Morning-America-type shows all day long. Think that sounds bad? I'll bet you didn't know that they also have their own versions of "Weakest Link" and "Who Wants to be A Billionaire". Currently, I'm watching *another* variety/music program featuring what is apparently a very famous and old couple consisting of an Italian wife and Japanese husband called "Hide and Rosanna" singing some kind of Carpenter-sounding crap. Rosanna has a big nose. They're doing a cheesy dramatisation of their lives. I think Hide might be dead.
They have antibacterial Febreeze here.
A show about Crazy Horse.
A samurai drama.
A movie with Sylvester Stallone and Janine Turner. It has rocks. Is it CLIFFHANGER or AVALANCHE!!
A Japanese woman singing a medley of Broadway and German songs Ethel Merman-style. (???)
Hee hee, maxi pads for your armpits!
There was an eerily bright star visible tonight above the the lights. I was hoping it was the ISS, but it didn't move fast enough.
Bedtime.