I didn't sleep well at all. I was awake for much of the night. But then again, I haven't gotten much good sleep since coming here. Even the days I don't have to get up early, I'm treated to a serenade of construction noise accompanied by host mom's door slamming. Also, my throat was still sore.
We left around 10:30 and drove for a while before stopping at a huge Daiei out in some remote area of town. All large department stores here sell food. They have grocery storers, restaurants, various cooked food stands and all throughout the food section are people trying to make you eat samples of stuff, including wines.
At Daiei, I bought a pattern and some fabric to make a Chinese style dress. I'd seen some in stores, but they were too expensive and I didn't know my size. I think this will be better. The fabric is emerald green with gold flowers and was quite stunning. The pattern is in Japanese, of course, but I think I can handle it.
I also bought a piece of cheap luggage since I bought so much shit already.
From there, we went to a huge, Wal-Mart like store and then to another. By this time, everything was kind of starting to look the same. From there, we went to some huge complex called "Cowboy" with a grocery store, clothing, 100 yen store, and restaurant among other things. Apparently every large shopping area has a 100 yen section, which is full of crap.
Host mom took me to the restaurant in Cowboy. It was a huge foom filled with tables with built-in grills. You pay before you go in, and then you load up your plate with raw meat and cabbage, a bowl of rice, bowl of soup, and then you get cooking. Among the raw meats are chunks of beef fat. This is your oil. When you sit down, the waitress turns on your grill. By the time you get back, it is hot. You melt your fat and cook your food. It was kind of a lot of trouble but the food was really good. I had a lot of underdone and overdone meat. There was kimchi there, but it was ridiculously hot and hurt my throat. It was host mom's first time at this kind of restaurant, so she asked the people at the adjacent table how to do it.
We left and went to 2 more large shopping areas which were more or less exactly the same. At the second one, some Japanese guy started talking to us at a cheap watch counter. I thought he was a salesman because he was wearing a white shirt and tie and dark trousers and it seemed to me like he was trying to sell me a watch. He would grab my wrist an drape a cheap watch over it and give me some line. As it turned out, he was just some loser pervert. He asked us many questions and told me to pick out a keychain watch. I didn't know why I should, so I asked. He said it was a present. I said "that's ok". I didn't have a choice so I got the least ugly one, which was a beaver or racoon or something. Then he started trying to clip it to my pants and shirt. That was a bit excessive, so we made our escape. Host mom didn't know what to make of him, either. At first, I thought they knew each other because he kept talking to her. She'd never seen him before.
From there, we went to a hospital. I got really nervous because I was only a little sick. I certainly didn't need to be at a hospital. We were actually there because her mother is sick and she was going to visit. Her mother was some withered little woman with no teeth and black hair. She was also quite deaf. Fortunately, we weren't there long. There were 4 old women in beds in the room. All the doors were open and it looked like all the other rooms were the same way.
Then we came home.
I am not at all looking forward to tomorrow.
That was most decidedly unfun. Dinner was that yummy pork and potato roast thing that she did shortly after I came here. It's basically pork pot roast only you don't get to use the gravy. They save melted ice cream but don't eat yummy gravy. Want home food. Bad.
Anyway, after dinner, they said some kind of festival is going on and there would be fireworks. It was 8:00 by this time, and I was pretty tired, but I said I wanted to go anyway. We went to a Shinto shrine where there were food booths and people everywhere. It looked to be nothing more than a cluster of food peddlers, occasional junk tables and a huge karaoke stage. There were, however, no fireworks. Now, we'd just finished a rather large meal, of which I ate quite a lot, and they were STILL trying to make me eat. I did not want food. I did not want a sample of food. I did not want to think about food. ENOUGH with the fucking food.
We didn't stay long as there was absolutely nothing to do. I thought we'd just spent a rather painless evening out and were going home. Wrong. It had been too easy. We went to some distant relative of host dad's. There was an old leathery man and old withered woman, who each looked to be about a hundred years old but if you subtracted the cigarette damage probably were in their 70's. Then there was a young man who was in his 20's (I think, remember my park golf experience judging age). The young guy passed out rather large single serving tubs of vanilla ice cream because it was so damn hot in there. The house was really dumpy and strangely arranged. It had no floor space for sitting and had many chairs, which is not something I'm used to in a Japanese house. There was a tiny wood stove directly in the middle of the sitting room with a pipe chimney that curved several times in order to maximize the headroom it used up. I guess the house was like any old people's house. It reminded me of houses I'd been in in the states.
Well, I didn't want any ice cream but didn't see as I had much choice, so I ate it really slowly. The old woman was bathing when we got there, so we had to wait on that. When she finally came out, they started talking and after a while she said some nonsense like "how does that foreigner like Japanese ice cream". Well, old woman, there wasn't much Japanese about it. It was completely standard vanilla ice cream, which I do believe is not Japanese at all. It wasn't even all that good.
It didn't take long for my ice cream to melt in that room. I was glad because I didn't think they'd have to save melted ice cream. Wrong! Host mom wrapped it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer when we got home.
If there is a bright side to this story, it is that school starts on Monday. 4 more long weeks left.
So in the stores today, I heard muzak versions of completely brand new pop songs. I didn't know they pounced on them so quickly. They were probably made at the same time. For example, one of the members of SMAP has a new cd which I thought was brand new, but I heard the muzak version today. There was also a version of this song which I can't stand called "Endless Love". The singer is some scawny bitch with silly makeup and hair. Yesterday, I heard the fucking song 9 or 10 times. It was in every store I visited. Well, today, I heard the muzak version. I think that was better, because it didn't have her stupid voice in it. There was also a muzak version of "Eyes on me" [the lyrical theme from Final Fantasy IX] which was WAY worse than the midi version.