Let's see...I woke up.
Every morning, my host father drives me halfway to school. He makes me leave before the time I would leave if I were walking, so I get to the station about 40 minutes early each day. There is another student living near me who also walks to the station. Occasionally, we see her walking and stop to pick her up. Well today, my host dad decided we would pick her up at home. I tried to stop him, but it was futile. We were driving around in circles looking for the right house, when he spotted her behind a glass door. After we were let out, I apologised to her and explained that I tried to stop him. I don't know what to do about this. I'm pretty sure she wants to be left alone, but what do I say? I wish he would forget about it.
When school started, the teacher made us move to new seats. This really pissed me off because I was becoming extremely interested in the guy sitting next to me. Naturally, my new neighbor is female. I HATE BITCHES.
At break, I went looking for my creme bun, but the woman didn't come. Since I ate lunch, a bun, and 2 pocari sweats yesterday and was planning to use public transportation in the afternoon, I decided not to buy lunch from the cafeteria. I'm tired of noodles and curry anyway.
After school, I rode the streetcar to the Goryokaku area to look for Intaanetto Himoba. The streetcar was pretty cool. It was also a long way, around 3km. I had a bit of a hard time finding it because it is located in an extremely congested area and on the second floor over a DoCoMo store. While I was hunting, several huge airplanes flew very low overhead. Once I found it, I was the only customer there. I told the guy that I had my own computer and asked where I should sit down. Turns out that they don't, in fact, have spare ethernet ports for people to use. He was very obliging, though and pulled the cord out of an XP pc for me.
Now, this place is quite different from Hot Web, where I've been going. To start with, Hiroba wasn't a cafe at all, which is not what we heard. In Hot Web, everyone sits at tables in a large room which is very public. Everyone can see what everyone else is doing. Like a computer lab at a college. At Hiroba, there were several computers on an L-shaped table with dividers between them, but there were also private booths. I mean, they were extremely private. You had to walk through a tiny hallway to get to the computer. Each computer had a set of headphones and if you paid money, you could print. I had a booth. Since I was the only customer, I dropped my stuff in the booth the guy took me to, and checked my mac.com mail on another computer. Then I set about mailing out my diary. Once that was accomplished, I talked to friends on IRC for the first time in nearly a month. It felt good. I'm going back Monday. Also, at Hot Web, there are people everywhere and smokers. Hiroba is where I'm going from now on.
After I left, I went to the bus stop that the HIF people told me to use. To get to it, I had to cross a large intersection. But I couldn't see any crosswalks. Just staircases that went underground like the entrance to a subway. I was confused because Hakodate doesn't have a subway, so I went down one. THAT was the crosswalk! Tunnels went under the street in 4 directions. Now that is a good idea.
The bus stop was really crowded. As a bus approached, the directory board would announce which route# it was. I was looking for #33, which was supposed to arrive at 3:21. I showed up around 3:40. I was about to leave and take the streetcar back to Hakodate station when it showed up. The bus ride was pretty cool but a bit expensive. The streetcar had been 240 yen, the internet time was 588 yen and the bus ride was 330 yen. All in all, it had been rather high, but it was only my first try. Next time, I'll try to find Goryokaku station, which is nowhere near the Goryokaku area. But it will save me money.
I got off of the bus as soon as the area started to look unfamiliar. I rode past Kikyo station a little ways, and when I thought I was close to Nanae, I got out. The bus was going down the street parallel to the one I walk down, so I was unsure how far I could ride without getting lost. I didn't do too badly.
I got home before my host mother so I ate 2 bowls of Frosties (frosted flakes) and drank milk, did laundry, and took a picture of the inside of the refrigerator. It's completely filled to capacity with little containers of who knows what and I always wonder when the stuff in the back was last spotted. It smells terrible inside the refrigerator. The taste gets into every single thing in there; the milk, the butter, everything.
Today is another cool, cloudy, windy day. I have to wonder if it ever becomes sunny and cheerful and warn here. They say it does, but I don't believe it.
Today I got mail from grandparents containing a five dollar bill. WTF am I gonna go with that here?
Dude! Hamutaro r0x0rs! Hamutaro is this goofy anime about a family of hamsters that live with a little girl named Ryoko. It's INSANELY popular here right now. I gotta find some before I go.
I watched Doraemon tonight for the first time ever. Doraemon is plastered all over everything related to JR (Japan Rail). It's really old and I didn't like it nearly as much as Hamutaro. I taped them both to take home.
[Doraemon is a blue robotic cat with no ears who befriends a little boy and "helps" him out of jams by producing implausible gadgets from his stomach-drawer. These never work as planned, to humorous effect. It's probably the longest running animated television show in Japan, if not the world. It's been on since at least the 1970s]
I also found the good music program. Tonight's episode featured the group with the current #1 song. They are a hip-hop rappy group called Rip Slyme *snicker*. It's a catchy little tune called something-Baby. I couldn't catch the first word.
Morning Musume [probably the most popular girl group in Japan now that SPEED is no more; has consisted of anywhere from 5 to 13 members (more now?) of varying ages, all from Okinawa] is up to like 50 members and has been subdivided into groups called Happy7, which is the little ones, Sexy8, which is the hot ones, and Odoru11, which is the other ones. They occupy this week's #4, #3, and #2 spots on music charts. #5 was the World Cup theme song. Man, this Happy7 song sucks. And this Odoru11 song is just weird. It's enka-style but they're all wearing blonde and copper long, straight wigs.
The other night, all of Morning Musume's 90 members were on a variety show where they had to answer questions correctly to get out of "jail". Then their respective groups sang songs. They were wearing the exact same costumes, had same hair, and did the same dances.
Some Japanese cars have cameras in the back and project an image onto the LCD screen in the dash when they are in reverse. These little box cars are really cheap. You can get a brand new Honda one for around $7000. Today, I saw a gigantor Dodge full sized pickup. The steering wheel was on the left side.