You know what’s weird about Japan?  You always want ice cream.  No joke.

Today started out very strangely.  For whatever reason the whole world felt really surreal when I woke up.  It eventually went away, but it was a discomforting feeling.  Other than that, my day was fairly normal.  I went to this really cool little cafe that some friends and I had discovered, and the food was once again cheap and delicious, which made us happy.

There were several highlights of the day: the first was finding out where I can do ARCHERY.  YEAH THAT’S RIGHT, I SAID ARCHERY.  I saw a commercial last week where there was a two second shot of someone doing archery and I thought “you know, archery is really badass, I think I’ll do archery.”  So I asked the office staff today where I could do archery, so now I have to go there and ask if it’s possible for me to do lessons.

Second highlight of the day: I got paid.  Our postal accounts haven’t been set up yet, so we get paid in person until they are.  Our paydays consist of lunch money for the month, our freeman grant money (the grant is basically so we can do “cultural” stuff in Japan) and reimbursements for various class related-activities and essential travel expenses.  All of this came to about 56,000 yen, which, in addition to the 10,000 yen I was already carrying, amounts to a truly staggering amount of money that I was carrying around for the latter part of the day; more cash than I have ever had on my person at any given time in the past.  It felt good.

I love used bookstores.  They are one of the greatest things about Japan, and they bring me to my third highlight of the day.  I found and purchased an SNES, an original copy of Chrono Trigger, one of the greatest games ever made, and a copy of Super Mario Kart, all for 20 bucks.  God I love Japan.  I also love Nikuman.  They should replace the sun on the Japanese flag with a Nikuman.  You wouldn’t be able to see it though, becuse Nikuman are white.  And it would just look like the Japanese were constantly surrendering, what with the white flag and all.  Oh dear, I must be tired.

It is time to do homework and eat dinner.  Hopefully I will not have a case of insomnia like last night and get some sleep, especially since I can’t sleep in tomorrow.

~Shimon