We started the day doing something we definitely had not planned on having to do. We stopped by a vodafone shop to ask about getting our keitai (cell phone) repaired. Eleanor did most of the talking, since it was one of those "glad we weren't relying on a phrase book" moments! We talked to the lady there and found out that we had to wait until Kataoka-san got off work so he could ok the repair, since he had been the one to purchase the phone.

It was interesting talking about phone repairs.
I had never talked about that sort of thing before, though I had a pretty good idea how to go about it...

Then we set out to find out what was in our own neighborhood. We walked around and saw a group of Red Cross volunteers, all in matching jackets, setting up for a member recruitment drive. We saw fire department trainees in bright orange jumpsuits lined up in formation for their morning drills. We found a couple hyaku-en shops (100 yen shop), similar to our Dollar Stores back home. We bought a few items there then wandered on...

Not to mention we found a "Less than 100-yen shop." 

We finally found a supermarket! We'd been living on convenience store food up to this point. The supermarket was called Seiyu. At first glance, it didn't look terribly big, but the food section continued up to the second floor. Third floor had discount items, fourth floor clothes, and the fifth floor had household and drug store type items. It was nice to add a little variety to our larder. ^-^

We got a box of frosted flakes from there... It was about the size of a Ritz cracker box. They had a lot of other things that were compact as well. 

We got some Japanese style cocoa. (Bitter!) It was a very different experience from our  highly sweetened marshmallow type cocoa thingy's... I guess they like their cocoa Black. 

That was also the day I began my quest for a good crow picture. I have always liked crows and ravens, and Japanese crows looked like an interesting combination of both. I just had to get a picture of one! I saw several of them that I tried to photograph in a local cemetery - but not today... I think my camera's wind function was too loud, because they kept flying off every time I'd turn it on.

Every time mom tried to get a picture of a crow, they'd fly off a distance then taunt her. There was one we saw in a small park type area, that moved only small spaces at a time, but just enough to avoid having a good picture of it. Then it taunted us again.
I finally got a picture of it in a tree, but after we developed our film, we found that he'd foiled us again and was camouflaged by the tree branches. 

We walked a bit more, then went back to Yadoya for a while to relax and do laundry. Yadoya has a small washer outside that it lets everyone use at no charge. We hung the clothes in the room to dry because it was too damp outside. During the summer, I think everyone hangs their clothes outside. Even during the winter, I noticed on nicer days that many people in Japan hung their clothes outside.

After a while, it was time to go back to vodafone. They reached Kataoka-san and gave us a loaner phone to use while ours was being fixed. It wasn't as nice as ours, but at least we were back in communication with everyone.

They took the phone for repairs after we got Kataoka-san's okay and gave us a loan out one to use in the meantime. The loan out phone was one of the most obnoxious and ugly phones I'd ever seen. It was a pearl-ish pink with really...um...interesting characters that themed the phone. We couldn't turn them off, and they got really annoying really fast. The ring was also annoying, but we were (thankfully) able to turn it off. Makes me think that loan out such an obnoxious phone so that the people it's being loaned to won't try to steal it.  

He met us that evening at the Asagaya station Starbucks (the usual spot) and we went out to dinner at a Lotteria near the station. Lotteria is a Japanese burger chain. I ate a shrimp burger. (yum!) Kataoka-san ordered Na-chan apple to drink with his meal. I'd had Na-chan orange, but hadn't seen the apple flavor yet, so I ordered it too. It was delicious. It had a kind of apple cider tang to it that I really liked.

I got a sort of barbeque burger and Na-chan orange.

After dinner, we went to Shinjuku because we hadn't yet been there (outside the eki). It was interesting. At first glance, it looks a bit like Akihabara with all the lights and huge TV screens, but walking through had a very different feel. There was a huge wall full of movie posters just outside the eki. Walking through the shopping area revealed a lot of discount outlet stores. We went in a few. We also saw an interesting advertisement truck with giant cup ramen on the back. We also found an overabundance of pachinko parlors and shops aimed strictly at men and their desires, so we went back to the mall attached to the eki.

I hadn't liked Shibuya very much...
I didn't like Shinjuku at all. If Shibuya was Mall City, then Shinjuku is Redlight City. Kataoka-san said that Shinjuku was run by the Mafia. There were men in suits with earpieces looking really scary around every few blocks, so I believed him. 

There were several nice shops in there. Eleanor, of course, headed straight for the manga. Kataoka-san and I headed for a stationary shop with some absolutely gorgeous traditional papers. He bought me a set of traditional papers and some postcards with sakura blossoms all over it... he had pointed out the sakura ones to me because I am involved with Sakura-Con. ^-^

In the manga store there were Gensou Maden Saiyuki stand-ups.
It was pretty cool seeing the characters taller than me, rather than 7 inches tall on the TV screen. There was also an original page on display of one of my favorite manga, Ha Ou Airen. (The Crime Lord's Lover.) I asked if I could by it, but they said it was only on display, and not for sale. I bought a few mangas to console myself. 

In the eki, there were some coin lockers we found that were covered in zebras. We figured Becca would kill us if we didn't take a pic of them for her, so I used up the last couple pictures on that film roll there. (BTW, Becca is my second daughter and an absolute zebra fanatic.)

There were also some lockers with tanuki, and something else I'm not remembering right now...

We had a lot of fun. I was glad for this last chance to meet with him. He gave Eleanor her forgotten snacks... and a few more, then he headed back to Chiba and we returned to Asagaya. Tomorrow was to be a busy day...
peace