Kinyoubi

12-28-07

got up slowly and waited for wes so he could drop off his crap in the room. he came with oka and then we went out to eat breakfast. chris and i went to the bakery again, and oka and wes went somewhere else. i got ahold of the andersons, the family who's kids i taught at the montessori place, and chris and i met them in meguro, where they live now.

emi picked us up at the station with their 4 year old boy, kaina, who i used to search for bugs with, and drove us back to their apartment. kaina talked about ultraman the whole way, about how many kinds of ultraman there are, what they do, what their names are, and when we got to the apartment, he showed me his new christmas present, an ultraman video game action chop 'em up.

meguro's mostly residential, has a few parks and a lot of families. we talked for a while, and then walked to one of the local parks, which was having a little matsuri. there were a few small shrines in the park, a bunch of food stands, and matsuri games like fish scoop, a pachinko type bingo game, and a pellet gun game. kaina got an ultraman mask and we tried some deep fried mochi - damn delicious. after that park, we walked to another one with a playground where noe and kaina showed me all of their physical feats on the climbing equipment.

next, mikey and emi took us all out to a place that is apparently one of the best ramen joints in tokyo, somewhere past the site of the tokyo olympics. we all got big bowls of tonkatsu ramen with gyouza and a cup of banana ice cream. the ramen was really good, creamy almost, and they make the ice cream there in the shop.

on the way back to meguro station, kaina fell asleep in my lap with a sucker poking out of his mouth, and noe and i played a game where she said something in japanese and i would have to say it in english. it was really cool to see those kids using japanese with their parents, with me, and with the people at the restaurant. they're so lucky to grow up with two languages.

after all that stuff, we met up with serena in ikebukuro, where she was waiting for family to show up and to check into a hotel with them. there wasn't much to distinguish ikebukuro from the other major areas of tokyo, i guess it's known for its department stores or somesuch? sat in a cafe there and talked whilst sipping a frothy thing, serena's aunt was retrieved, and chris and i came back here to chitose-karasuyama.

sat in another cafe for a while, waited for shannon to show up, got rained on, poked around this cool little bustling outpost some more, and then returned to the room for the night. there are 4 people crammed in here now. we marvelled at the ridiculousness of our living arrangements; the weird heater, the massive draft, the water heater panel with no on button, the lack of a shower curtain or the ability to turn around in the bathroom, the strange landlady who's always sleeping, the bizzare lack of any other tennants, the toilet that sounds like it's blasting through the roof when you flush it, etc, etc... fell asleep around one am knowing we'd be getting up at 5 am to get to the fish market when all the zaniness is at its peak.