Lots of things happened today. I had a health check, which was fine, albeit sketchy. I also got a huge stack of papers to read (on top of the ones that I got yesterday -_-). I also spent many hours loading an English version of Windows XP onto one of my workstations. I will be using three (THREE?!) computers this summer. One is Windows XP Japanese, and is for 'office work' (read: email), one is Windows XP English, and is for software development, and the third is Linux to be used for goodness knows what. There's not much room on my desk because of all the hardware, although there is a neat switcher box that lets the monitor switch between two of the computers.
Tonight was a sort of Ladies' Night Out - Seto-san, Yamamoto-san, and I went out to dinner at the same restaurant that I went on my first night here. Seto-san has a five-year-old son, so she usually has to go home early to take care of him, but today was special because her husband would come home to take care of him, so she could stay late for dinner. So she requested to go to the place that we went the other night, because Yamamoto-san recommended it. During lunch, plans for the evening were discussed, and Seto-san jokingly invited Yui-san along with the stipulation that he would have to cross-dress in order to join us. Yui-san, of course, declined.
We enjoyed a delicious dinner. I think I'm acquiring a taste for raw fish, if only because I can stomach fish better than conch or sea urchin, or other oddities that induce a gag reflex. ;~; Ugh, conch is awful... Katasugimaaaaaasu! At the end of dinner we got 'pineapple saabisu' - dessert on the house. Presumably because I was a cute foreigner or something. ^^; It was delicious, but what can I say? Girls like fruit. And fresh pineapple is one of my favorites.
After dinner, we went to a video rental store because Seto-san and Yamamoto-san were worried that I would be bored without anything to watch (they have no idea how much unwatched anime I have on this computer), and we spent a pleasant while wandering through the anime section. Unfortunately, there are very few DVDs, and many of the VHS tapes are very very old (they had Heidi, and the Dog of Flanders, and other similarly old series. We did find the DVDs eventually, but most were Miyazaki films that I've already seen, and the others were things like Pokemon and Godzilla films from the 60s. In the end, I settled on a few DVDs, but none of us could check them out because neither Seto-san nor Yamamoto-san had proofs of address on them, and I don't have my Alien registration card yet. Yamamoto-san says that she will rent the DVDs later and leave them in my mailbox for me. So kind of her! o~o
I was planning on getting a cell phone with a camera to make up for my lack of a digital camera, and Bitoh-san and I spent much time walking around Kokubunji station yesterday looking for a store that sold the model I wanted. The model I am interested in is a prepaid cellphone, and is sold only in convenience stores (something to do with the increase in theft and misuse of prepaid cell phones and phone companies not wanting to take responsibility o_O;), so you'd think it would be convenient, but it was not! We could not find the correct phone anywhere. Eventually, we had to give up.
Today, Bitoh-san brought in an old digital camera that he does not use anymore, and offered it to me. The battery cover is broken, so the battery is held in place with tape, and the rechargeable battery was also lost, so it has a normal nonrechargeable battery in it right now. The camera's resolution is only 1 megapixel, but that's 1 megapixel more than what I had before, so I'll run with it. ^_^ Hopefully this will encourage me to be good and take lots of pictures. The pictures are stored on a compact flash card, so I also borrowed an adapter card from Hitachi. This means I should go and buy a rechargeable battery, an adapter card, and a cheaper cell phone without a camera. Oh, and some sort of nice thank-you present for Bitoh-san. ^_^;
I took a couple pictures already and you can find them here. Just my room, for starters, since it's the middle of the night and I can't see anything outside. Plus, I decided to be all multimedia-happy and bring my tablet into the pictures... Well, you can see for yourself. I wish I could take pictures of the Hitachi campus, because it is really beautiful, but doing so is forbidden. ;~; At least there are plenty of other parts of Japan that I can photograph.
All right! Time for some sleep so I can go sightseeing tomorrow. My first point of interest is Shinjuku, one of the major metropolitan centers of Tokyo. It is well-known for its skyscrapers and department stores. Should be exciting - I'll be sure to take pictures!
- Flykyr Skysong
Current song: Zeratul - Chrono Trigger - Blue Minded God (Yet another excellent track that you can find at OC Remix)
Current mood: Exuberant
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