Day 11

Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy.  Enough to sleep an extra 2 hours past my alarm, which is surprising, because up to the alarm, I'd had about 8 hours of sleep.  Is it sickness?  Is it last year finally catching up with me?  Is it that milk I drank?  I really don't know, but as I'm writing this post, it's hitting me again, so I apologize if it begins to make little sense a bit further down the page.

So, I got up at 10:30, took my shower, had cheese and crackers for lunch, and since I wasn't in Tokyo, I went over to the Yamasa II building to do... homework.  That's good, because I really didn't want to do it tomorrow - I'd rather spend time walking around the Jusco department store or the arcade near it.  All it really was was one of those essays describing what we think our lives will be in 20 years.  Me?  A physics professor at Berkeley.  Indeed.

Finishing my essay, I came to the point of why I had even gone out to the Yamasa II building today - it's half way to the bike shop, and I need a bike if I really want to go anywhere.  It was easy to locate on the map, but difficult to find on foot, because the roads are labeled strangely over here.  Price for the bike - 5000 yen used, but it won't be ready until tomorrow, as they're putting new tires on it for me.  For free, I believe.  How nice.

At this point it was 4 and I was feeling a bit famished again, so I went back to the dorm and had some chips, and proceeded to relax a bit more, given that the temperature inside of my room was a bit more livable than outside.  Today, it must have been, what, 90 degrees fahrenheit?  Really difficult to walk around an

d stay dry.  But inside?  Holding at a steady 45-50 F.  Comfortable, indeed.

So, what for dinner?  The new guy in the dorm took me to the student village to meet his friend from last year, and we all went out to this dinner place not far from the student village.  The friend is staying here for a year, and just got in yesterday.  The food was tasty and very cheap, much like all other food I've had here (except for the pizza, which only different in the field of price), and was definitely a good choice.  I even learned a few things about restaurant etiquette that I'll be using later.

So, I'm back here, tired again, and will give you a picture with an explanation, and then be heading off to bed.

This was the dinner for the night, kimchee ramen.  Ramen, you ask?  No, not that crappy block stuff you get for 16 cents per package in the states (well, that's a form of ramen, but not like this).  But yes, kimchee and ramen all together in a soup, and the entire thing for only 630 yen (water was 105 yen, which was a bit of a turn-off).  I'd suggest this if you're ever over here, just up the road from the Yamasa Student Village.  Just as a note, the contents of the bowl (when full) would be roughly the same volume as half of a basketball.  Yep.