Living it up

This is one of the first times since coming to Japan that I've managed to have a fun weekend without depriving myself of sleep in the process. On Sunday I had my first play rehearsal in Yokohama. I met with my director and the woman playing the role of Madam Desmortes, because she is the character who I share the most scenes with. We read through our lines a few times and discussed our characters. I'm not going to lie, getting to Yokohama was a bit of a schlep and climbing up the gigantic hill to get to the country club where we met for rehearsal was no picnic, but it felt so good to be part of something that I love that the distance really didn't matter in the end. I really like my director, she's funny and creative and she cares about the actors. She said that she thinks it's important for the actors to be happy since we are the most important element of the show. Believe me, not all directors think that way, many believe that THEY are the most important element of the show. I am truly looking forward to working with her and really getting to work on the play.

After rehearsal I met up with Jenn at Yokohama Station and we strolled around a bit and found somewhere to get lunch. We ended up going to a Chinese restaurant. This was the first Chinese food that I've eaten in Japan and it was quite good. It's funny, before coming to Japan I never really noticed how extremely different Japanese food is from Chinese food. I was aware that there were differences and I knew that sushi was Japanese, but yesterday I walked into the restaurant and I could immediately smell the difference, let alone see and taste it! I'm sad to say though that while Chinese food restaurants are different from Japanese ones, they are also different from American ones... no fortune cookies at the end! I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway since the fortune would be written in Japanese.

After lunch we went to this enormous store named Tokyu Hands. The place seriously has everything you could ever need in life plus about 5 million random things that you would never need like natto (fermented soybeans) scented soap and 1 inch replicas of Redi Whip Cans. Jenn and I could seriously spend hours in that place, it took a lot of will power to force ourselves to leave. Every time we said we were ready to go something else would catch our attention and we'd spend another 10 minutes testing our favorite high lighter markers or searching for Hello Kitty vibrators (they had them at a different location we visited previously, Jenn wanted to send one as a gag gift for her friend). Eventually we managed to escape the clutches of that crazy store and I headed back to Takashimadaira for the night. I went out for gyu-kaku (the amazing cook your own meat place) with some friends. That's seriously my all time favorite place to eat in Japan. Sushi and ramen, yeah they're nice, but gyu-kaku rules over all! Plus my friend Ivan always talks about how gyu-kaku literally makes us high because of all the carbon monoxide from the smoke in the air. I know that sounds kind of unlikely, but honestly I think he's right, by the time we leave I always feel very happy and sleepy... more so than when I eat at any other restaurants.

Today was also a pleasant day. I slept in and then took the train into Jimbocho, the bookstore district. I actually wasn't looking for books, I was looking for air mattresses, and I found them! In addition to being the book district, apparently Jimbocho is also the sports/outdoor activity store district, there were tons of them! The annoying part was that all any of the sports stores sold was snowboarding stuff... not so helpful. Luckily I had done my research so I knew which store had camping supplies. On my way back to the station I passed tons and tons of book stores, they clearly weren't kidding about this being the book district, but I also passed something that I did not expect to see, I passed a bagel shop! This was probably the highlight of my day, I was seriously so excited. When I went in to buy some it was a little odd because each bagel was individually wrapped in plastic and I had to pick each one out and put it in a basket then ring them all up. Still, they were fresh and had I not just finished dinner I would have eaten one right then and there, I managed to resist the urge until I got home.

The grand finale of my weekend happened at home in my apartment. For the past week I have been working up the guts to call this guy who I went out with once, a while ago. I enjoyed our date but we just sort of lost touch after that, that is until he randomly called me at 10:45 pm a week or two ago. That ended strangely and I hadn't heard from him since then so I decided to take a chance and give him a call. I'm not exactly sure why I felt so nervous but it seriously was like something out of a corny TV show where they keep playing suspenseful music as the girl paces back and forth in front of the telephone. Well, there was no actual pacing involved here, but it did take me a good minute or two before I managed to press the send button on my cell phone. I was quite relieved to get his voice mail, on which I left an awkward, babbly (yeah, I know that's not a real word) message that vaguely conveyed the thoughts that had sounded so much better in my head. Apparently they were good enough for him though because he called me back a few minutes later and we're going to try and meet up sometime this week. I'm really glad, if anything I need a friend, it doesn't even have to go beyond that (though I wouldn't complain if it did). Living by myself is not terrible, but it is rather lonely and I find myself craving social interaction outside of the classroom, some days that barely happens. It's hard, there are times when I don't feel like dealing with the bikes and the trains and the constant language barriers, but I don't want to my waste my time here so I am trying my hardest to get out and see things and meet people and live the life that I know some people would die for.