My phone does do Japanese!

When I applied for this job, I said one of the things I liked about Japan was that it seemed everywhere you went, you could just walk to where you wanted to go.  Much beyond that, you could take a bus or train.  Yay for public transportation!  Coming from the countryside and a small town like I do, it's such a novel idea to be able to walk like I did last time I was in Japan.  I loved it!  So where do I get located?  Somewhere I have to drive.  Now, when you're driving, nothing is very far away, but the point is that I specifically SAID that I really wanted to be someplace I could walk!  D:

Today it was cold and windy again, so I really didn't want to do anything.  I washed two loads of laundry in my small washer (which will be sufficient once I'm not washing all of the clothes I brought at once) and hung them out to dry.  They managed to not blow away, but I put extra clips on them so they wouldn't blow off the hangers, which I was worried about.

In the late afternoon, the sun by my back door looked great, so I put a blanket down and took a cat nap in it.  I was sad when I woke up and it had moved.  :<  At that point, I decided to venture out and see if the udon shop I noticed yesterday was open.

When I walked by, I didn't even see a sign.  I SWEAR there was a sign yesterday.  Guess they're not open.  So I walked around for an hour trying to find a place for dinner (preferably a cheap place with some sort of noodles because they're the easiest to get a vegetarian version with) and found nothing as it got darker and darker.  I finally gave in and got a milkshake at McDonald's (even though it was cold I really wanted something sweet!).  I asked for strawberry, but I think he gave me 'American Cherry.'  Either that, or the Japanese version of strawberry tastes like butts.  :<

I swung by the conbini and got some junk food that I don't need and some surprisingly not bad zaru soba and inari-zushi set (for y'all not in the know - this means I had cold buckwheat noodles which you dip in a sauce and there were sweet fried tofu pockets filled with sushi rice) for a decent price.  I at the soba, but covered the inari-zushi and put it in the fridge.

Tomorrow I'm going in to Hamamatsu to hang out with some people.  I guess we're going to ACT City, which is a nifty multi-purpose building with concert halls and swanky meeting places, but we're going to the top floor which is an observation deck.  It's the only sky-scraper in Hamamatsu.  Then we might go to the zoo or a cool temple and shrine I looked up online.

The best thing that happened today was after I got back from my walking adventure failure, I discovered that my phone can, in fact, still type in Japanese.  I don't know why the chick at the store told me it couldn't. >.<#  It's REALLY HARD to get used to texting in Japanese, but it's not so bad...  It's better than typing out the romaji!

I'd prepare for school if I knew what the heck I needed to do.  <_<#  But so far, all I know is that my first say is the 9th, and I guess that's the school opening ceremony.  :I

I need to decide which historic figure I want to research.  Although I'm a 'fan' of the Brogun (my nickname for Tokugawa Ieyasu) due to his portrayal in my favorite video game, I'm not such a fan of the actual guy.  Like the old addage, he really did just come in at the end and take the credit and reap the rewards of everyone else's hard work.  Jerk.  That said, I'm sure he had to have some real skills or whatever to get to that place... I think I'd like to research someone else like Brandon did with Akechi Mitsuhide.  Not really for a thesis, but as a pet project.  I love the Sengoku Jidai and find it fascinating.  As much as a video game is a jumping off point for getting to know names to research, it really isn't historically accurate, so it's fun to learn about the real people.  I'm looking for someone who really catches my interest.  I'm considering Date Masamune... or Chosokabe Motochika... or idk... suggestions?  <3  This is really the best time to do this.

On the subject of Date Masamune... XD  Have a picture of me I LOVE that Sean took a couple days before I left for Japan.  *sigh*  I want to cosplay~~ but finding fabric seems to be the real problem.  TT^TT