Quiet

For the first time today, I went out by myself and wandered around a little bit.  I had been out with just Tina before, which was different than being carted around or hanging out in a group, but I had never really been able to just go wherever I wanted.  Today was the first time I did laundry, and although I have a washing machine in my apartment (utilities included--YESSS!) I don't have a drier.  It is not yet fitting weather for outdoor line drying, so I had to take my clothes to a laundromat to dry them, and that was where my small adventure began.

I found at the laundromat how lucky I really am to have a washing machine to myself.  Although price depends on the load size and washing time, I think the cheapest was 800 yen for a small load for about 30 minutes.  That's over $10 for a mini load of laundry, my friend.  Luckily, drying isn't nearly as bad.  You can get a medium-sized load of clothes dried in 20 mintues for 200 yen, which isn't great, but isn't bad either.

After laundry I went to the yakitori stand that Tina and I had been dying to try.  At 100 per stick, it isn't the cheapest food ever, but it is probably the tastiest.  Waiting for it to be cooked also gave me a chance to stand in silence, people watch and breathe in the smells of the mountain air and of my incredibly tasty food being cooked.  In Japan, one isn't supposed to eat and walk at the same time--it's just culturally weird--so I was extremely pleased to discover that directly behind the yakitori stand was a clean bench that I could sit on (and another vending machine, go figure).  Overall, standing and waiting for yakitori and then eating it was the most pleasant experience I've had all day, one that I'll be eager to repeat.

From there I went to Bukka, the bookstore (that from my perspective is on the edge of town even though I don't think it really is) that Nanami took us to two nights ago.  Bukka's manga section is vast, probably 7 to 8 times the size of most bookstore's manga sections, though Borders, which unfortunately closed, had one maybe half the size.  More amazing still, is that I realized this time around that aside from very popular series, Bukka only stocks the last volume of most manga.  That means that most every shelf is packed with about 20 different manga titles.  The Japanese do like their comics.  Incidentally, Joe, London, they had volume 5 of Onii-chan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne.  I should take a couple pictures of this manga section, and perhaps I will the next time I'm there with Tina.

Well, that's about it for today.  I'm getting to the point where I feel I can dedicate an entry to Tsuru city in general, so I'm looking forward to that.  Thank you for reading my blog!