October 8th: The first of my days off this week was pretty uneventful. I went shopping, bought some art supplies and some How-to-draw-manga books. I'm going to practice like crazy and see if I can't figure it out.

October 9th: Fujiko and Kazuko came from Tokyo to see me. It was so good to see them again! I met with them at my apartment at about 9 am, and from there we went to Inuyama. First, we went to Jo-an, a very old (about 450 years(?)) teahouse and garden. It's a gorgeous place. They were having a special event, so everyone was dressed in kimono and having tea ceremonies. I had a good time watching. The women looked beautiful in kimonos, and young guys in hakama...well, let's just say guys+hakama=yum. I'm sure that's not the reaction you're supposed to have, but it works for me. We wandered around and sat in the garden, a thoroughly luxurious experience; I can only imagine what it must have been like when it was first built. Afterwards, we went to Inuyama Castle. The castle there is amazing! It's the oldest original castle still standing in Japan. There was a very nice tour guide who spoke English who took us around. The stairs, like in most castles, are horribly steep and narrow; good for keeping out soldiers but bad for a person trying to climb them in socks, especially me. The castle contains a variety of antiques and some awesome samurai armor. After that, we went for lunch; miso-katsu and kishimen. It was an excellent day.

October 10th: Back to work. Wierd stuff happened today. On the way to work, we passed a pair of men (two cars) parked directly in the middle of the one lane street, having some sort of shrieking, arm-waving argument (I think one of them must have run into the other) What surprised me was all the people around...the other cars just paused until they could go around. That seems a typical Japanese reaction. Can you imagine what would have happened in America if people were blocking the road like that? There would be an all-out brawl in the street by the time it was over. Later, I got to work and had observers in my rhythmic class. They were identical twins, dressed exactly alike. Fortunately they had name tags. Very sweet little girls, but the whole dressed alike thing was a little difficult.

October 11th: Any day you get new Cowboy Bebop anime is a good day. The new movie is just as incredible as the tv series, manga and music. So happy.

October 12th: I went to Kanayama, to a CD shop that Tomokazu recommended. I'm STILL searching for the Silent Hill soundtracks and art DVD, and still didn't find them. *Heavy sigh* The CD shop was pretty cool. They had lots of interesting stuff. One strange thing: they had a track, a movie track, I think, playing over the loud speaker. At first, it sounded like the sound effect track to Resident Evil. But then I thought, hmm, horror movie. And, listening to it a little longer, thought it sounded like porn. I have no idea what it actually was, but it was strange. Keeping in the strange vein, I walked back toward the station. An old guy stops me, and we have this conversation (in Japanese):

Man: (English) Hello!

Me: Hello.

Man: (in Japanese) Do you know what time it is?

Me: Four o'clock.

Man: Is there a coffee shop nearby?

Me: Sorry, I don't know.

Man: Hmm. Would you like to go out with me?

Me (brain goes into total error mode): What?

Man: A date.

Me: Uhhhhh. No, thank you.

Man: Oh, okay. Well, have a nice day.

Me: Thanks, you too.

Just weirded me out, totally. It's like when Miyaji hit on me at the bar; except this guy was a lot nicer about it. I just have absolutely no idea what to do when that happens. Oh well, makes life interesting, right?

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