Dec 20: I went out with Tak this evening. We went to this cool Mexican restaurant (Japanese-style Mexican food...quite interesting) in Kasugai and went to this little variety store across the street. Strange shop; sells American goods, lots of manga (including the more...underground porn manga). I went around a corner, looking at some American books and came on an aislecap of: bondage gear. Collars, handcuffs, leashes, the whole nine yards. A serious what-the-fuck? moment.
Then, Tak and I drive around for awhile, exploring, and at about 1 am decided to go to the port. (I don't know why; we just felt like it) So at about 2 am we wandered around by the ocean, which is gorgeous at night. It was cool and misty out, and the water was calm. It was technically closed, so we only saw two other people there.

Dec 23: I had a Christmas party at my friend's house. She wanted apple pie. Of course, lacking a) a pie plate and b) an oven, it was quite the experiment. the microwave doubles as an oven, and it was too small to hold the square pan, so we had to prop one end on a tea cup to get the door to close. It took forever to cook and sorta burned on one side. Still tasted good (Keiko practically licked the plate) We then exchanged presents; I drew Keiko's. As a joke, she brought a lil Christmas tree, so I now have a glittery tree in my kitchen. It's cute.

Dec 25: I went out to lunch and to see Gangs of New York with Sumiko. At lunch, we met a couple at the table next to us who chatted with us for about an hour. The guy didn't speak English, but the girl did, so we used both languages in the conversation. Then we went to the movie, which was too long but still good. I really enjoyed it. After that, I went back home and then to dinner with Atsushi, who's very nice and lots of fun to talk to. We went to a yakiniku restaurant near my house. Not very Christmas-y, but still really fun.

Dec. 26: I went to Ousu with Aki. He's a sweet guy and we had a really good time. We went out for lunch, then to the Nagoya towers, then to Ousu for shopping and cake. Early in the day, we'd been talking about music, and he showed me some of the CDs he'd been listening to on the train from Gifu. About three hours later, he pulled out his current favorite CD (the new Hikaru Utada CD, quite well loved by the looks of the case) and gave it to me as a gift. It is fabulous.

Dec. 27: Today, I went to an izakaya in Sakae with Kazuhiro. We had a really good time; another nice guy. I ate all sorts of strange things. He speaks excellent English and we had a great time talking. On the way home, I met an elderly man from Afganistan on the train, who had fled to Japan when the Taliban took power, and we had quite an interesting conversation. When I got to Komaki, I discovered Matthew was on the same train, so we walked home together. A very fun day, but I'm sleepy...

Dec. 28: Spent a quiet, easy day cleaning. Met a Japanese Jehovah's Witness, of all things, though he was very polite and left quickly. Then I guy from NHK showed up with a reciept record from everyone who's ever lived here before and asked for some money for...something. I'm assuming it was my cable bill but now I'm not sure. Oh well, if I got stiffed I'm only out 1000 yen (and I do know for sure that it was NHK)

Dec 29: I ran into Jonah while I was getting the mail, and he invited me out for the evening. We met up with our friends and went to dinner, then bowling, then to karaoke. I didn't think I'd like karaoke, but damn is that fun. I sang a ton of songs, and actually sounded remotely decent. Jonah and I sang "I am the Walrus" together, to mess with our Japanese friends' minds. It worked wonders. ^^

Earlier in the day, I went to my local manga shop, and found a hardback FF9 art book, the companion to the gorgeous FFX book Rachael gave me. And cheap, too--only Y700! YATTA.

Tomorrow, I finally get to see my parents. Yeah! But Yoshy got sick,;_; so I don't have to go out to Fushimi as early. I'm bummed that I don't get to meet Yoshy.

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