Relaxing Day

Today we decided to relax. Well, Greg and I did. Jen was already gone with Dan to see the campus and run errands this morning once we were up and functioning =) I slept in till about 11:00 which was woonderfulll. Our lovely 3 piece futon sets are the best! I slept on towels as pillows but that was fine. When I woke up, I had been having a complex dream, so I had a few seconds where I wasn't sure where I was at all. I think that's an interesting feeling, so somehow even when the back of my mind started to figure things out, I tried to keep that unsure feeling for a few more moments.

It took a long time to get moving this morning, or rather, there was too much to do so it was hard to get myself to stop doing that and go get a shower. I unpacked pretty much all my stuff and got some of it put away, and then got too hungry to keep doing that and decided to get a shower. After Greg and I were both ready to go, we decided to head out towards the station to get some lunch. Unfortunately we ended up really confused as to where we were, because we found ourselves at the Yaoka Marketplace (the store that had the McDonald's from yesterday), which we were pretty certain was on the other side of town. We decided to stop and get some groceries while we were there anyway. I got some water and a good-looking orange drink, two chocolate-based snacks, some rice crackers, and some croissants that were on sale! We decided we need some snacks in our rooms, and definitely some drinks. Somehow Japanese people don't seem to drink much at restaurants, but then there are vending machines everywhere on the streets. I got a big bottle of water, but I'm afraid it'll be gone soon. (We found it for cheaper at the Shop 99 though!)
After our directional mishap, we decided to go back home with our stuff and try again. This time we took a street we knew and ended up at the station area. We went farther on a street that we hadn't been down yet to try and find a place to eat and saw an Itoyokado department store, AKA the type of store we carried our bedding home from last night, a good 30 minutes from our area. I said to Greg "We're going in here." I was sure we'd find the exact same bedding and feel ridiculous, but we didn't! There were other 3 piece sets for about the same price, but none of them were as good-looking as the ones we bought, so we felt justified. We also bought pillows while we were there! Greg found a nice flannel one and I found a fuzzy one that looks just like my bed set! Most of them had this weird bead stuff inside for some reason....
After browsing the store a little longer and making fun of shirts written in English, we went back downstairs and saw that they had a little ramen place inside the store, kind of food-court style, so we thought we might as well eat that! I accidentally ordered a ramen set, which I thought was just the thing I had been looking at (a bowl of ramen), but it costs more and comes with a mound of rice. That was kind of a bummer because I couldn't eat it all and I paid extra, but now I've learned to say no to sets, unless you know you want extra stuff. Greg got a melon soda which is a bright green drink. I remembered seeing it on Sailor Moon all the time and I was tempted to ask for some, but he paid so much for so little, I didn't want to take any. I'll definitely have to have some while I'm here though! =)

Since we had completed our objectives, we headed back to the DK House with a quick stop at the Shop 99 store. We were hoping it would be a regular 100yen store, but it was mostly groceries. We did find that all the groceries were much cheaper there than they had been at the Yaoko Marketplace, and it was closer to our apartment. Greg got some soap and we went back home. Jen still wasn't back so we just took care of little things we needed to do. Then when Jen got back around 5 something, we all started blogging... and didn't stop until about 9:00 when we realized how hungry we were. We met up in Greg's room and lamented the fact that we had to leave and go out in the cold to get food, but we're the sannin darnit, so we headed for the station area.

After passing several drunk salarymen, we found a place called Sukiya. It seems to be the same kind of fast food type place as Yoshinoya, but it serves curry and donburi (items over rice). We all ordered curry with an egg on it for 440 yen each! The service was awesome, one guy came out with our trays, the other with something else, and then he rolled up the check and put it in its little container with a flourish. It hopped back out somehow and he had to do it again, and he did it and said the same thing the exact same way, it was like a performance. It really reminded me of Mary Poppins when they're inside the drawing, and Mary and Bert go to get tea or whatever and all the penguin waiters start running out, haha.

We took an uneventful trip home (stopping once to find that our Itoyokado store is only open til 10:00pm, not 11:00pm, so Jen couldn't get a pillow) and now here I am blogging about the day =) Oh, on another note, today we kept noticing that on all of the signs for our city, Warabi City, there was this weird rabbit mascot. We kept seeing them and wondering about it, until Greg finally noticed today that one of the signs said it was a wallaby. That seemed even weirder! Then about 3 hours later, it hit me that the mascot was a wallaby because we're in Warabi City. Duh. Crazy Japanese.

Since I didn't really take any pictures today, here are some photos I took of the sakura trees right from my balcony! This is what I wake up to in the morning, folks =)