Written: June 17 at 8:51pm
I’ve been usually writing my updates in the afternoons of the next day about the previous day, and that doesn’t quite make sense when it comes down to remembering details. I am, now, writing my entries about the same day before going home. As such, this entry will include both yesterday and today.
My day was very normal. I can’t remember many special things about it, other than everything is special in the same way it was the first day at work. Everyone keeps being nice, I talk a lot of Japanese with fun people, and I miss my friends and family from Boston & home. What was different about yesterday was that I went home early! 😀
I went home much earlier than usual. I went to get dinner by 7:30pm, and then just went home so I as home by 9:30pm. I stopped at Mister Donuts to have, well, a donut, and realized that having a donut there at night makes me save money. Here is the reason, a donut there costs about 105 yen (that’s what mine cost me last night) and it includes FREE WATER if you stay in to eat it. With a donut I am more satisfied about my dinner (so I am not tempted to buy an onigiri (a 105 yen rice ball) at lawson), and because I have free water I have no need to buy a drink either (~150 yen), so there you go, I saved 150 yen and sat at Mister Donut for a while. I decided that if I was thirsty when I got home (and if it was before 11pm) I would go to Mister Donuts and eat a donut instead of buying a drink at the vending machines or lawson.
I also noticed something else, Japanese men, as in grown-up men wearing suits which are probably in their 30’s, play PSP against each other at Mister Donuts. It was funny to sit there and just notice that someone next to me was too excited about their PSP game, and it was quite a shock when I actually looked and saw that it was two grown-up men playing PSP. I thought I had entered a different dimension in which it was normal to care more about winning a PSP battle than getting home or actually talking to your friend sitting next to you.
That being said, after eating my donut I ran home, and there I bathed, shaved, and went to bed. I slept over 10 hours! 😀 I didn’t wake up until 8:30am, and I had gone to bed by 10:30 I’m quite sure. It was so nice to just wake up and feel energetic. Well, actually, I was quite tired for some unknown reason and couldn’t just wake up, but after a bit of a fight with my comforter I got up and felt good.
Today I came to work and I have actually been working most of the day. Usually I have long periods of times in which I’m doing nothing, and usually after 5-6pm I do absolutely nothing but my own things or talk to people. But even now, as I write this at 9pm, I’m staining an SDS gel. It’s been a busy day. It seems that even though I didn’t plan on it, it was quite a good plan to sleep so long last night.
There are a few other things I’ve noticed in Japan that I don’t think I’ve mentioned. First, I think that my face and my presence reminds Japanese kids of their homework, particularly their English homework. I’ve been able to experience how some Japanese kids that sit next to me or across from me, soon after looking at me with a face that reads something like: “Where is this gaijin (foreigner) from?!”, they reach for their bags and take out their English homework. I think it’s their own way of saying “I’m making an effort to understand your people.” Maybe they just want me to do their homework for them, but I never talk to them.
Another thing, as I was walking home yesterday I past by this old lady and she just stopped, right there, on the sidewalk where there was nowhere to go, and she just kind of looked up the rest of the path, as if wondering if it was worth it to keep walking, and then after a long pause she kept walking. I wondered for a second what was the motivation behind that little ‘break’ right in the middle of nowhere, it was kind of odd. Maybe she just stopped to re-calculate the number of gaijin she had seen in her life, I’m probably one of the first 10.
Anyway, lastly, something that I’ve found awesome is just walking down the street and hearing on the random radios by the stores music I like such as Lady Gaga (yeah!), Beyoncé, Jason Mraz, and even some Mariachis! I think it’s great. Also, my supervisor finds it extremely weird, as in incomprehensible, that I talk to my mother almost every day. Over lunch he kept saying things like “Every day?! What is there to talk about?” I think it must be really difficult for him to understand this cause as he says most people here in Japan talk to their parents only a few times a year (once every couple of months) once they leave their parents’ house. Now if I do that, that would be unforgivable to my mother.
So that is my update for yesterday and today, it’s not 9:20pm so I’m going to see how’s the gel doing and see if I can head home soon.
Thank you very much for reading. 🙂
御丸
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