Finally the weekend…

In my town there are 3 other assistant language teachers (ALTs) with the JET programme.  2 of them are 2nd year ALTs and live about 10 minutes away (by bike of course) and the other one is a first year ALT like myself and he lives beside the apartment above me.  One of the 2nd year ALTs (Raph) offered to show us around during the weekend.  On the Saturday, he took me and the other 1st year (Aaron) to one of the neighbouring towns, Satte, to look around and do some shopping.  Satte is about a 30-minute bike ride at a brisk pace.  From what I remember, the only thing I bought is a thermos because man is summer in Saitama hot, and the thermos is great for keeping drinks cold.  There were a few other good stores and restaurants along the way but it’s kind of far. 

Sunday morning was the first morning I realized my apartment-mate was going to be a handful.  A few days earlier, Raph showed us the way to his apartment, which was important because that’s where we can park our bikes for free then walk to the train station.  (At the train station, you need to pay to park your bike over an hour or something.)  Anyway, on Sunday, we had to find the way to his place by ourselves.  I had gone the one time at night, and Aaron had gone once before me, so I was hoping he had a better idea of how to get there.  I knew we had to cross a bridge, then… hahaha.  Aaron thought we had to make the first left after the bridge.  But I was sure we never went that way.  He reluctantly followed me straight, but I had no idea where I was going, and neither did he.  We tried calling Raph from a payphone, but they weren’t working for some reason.  So we rode around for about 30 minutes.  We passed the train station and the local grocery store that I was sure was close to Raph’s house.  In the end we turned back and rode home to call from Aaron’s apartment.  Turns out if we had turned up the street beside the grocery store, we would have found it. 

So, we ended up getting a late start to the day.  Our first stop of the day was Ueno (I think).  Ueno is an area in Tokyo.  We walked around and looked in a few shops.  Didn’t buy anything from here except for a snack, pineapple on a stick. 

After that, we hopped back on the train and made our way to Shinjuku (where Tokyo orientation was held).  We looked around one of their department stores/malls and this one huge bookstore that was 6 or 7 floors high.  I bought a pocket Japanese-English dictionary. 

For lunch, we stopped into a curry place in the train station.  I got the chicken curry with an egg, and added spinach.  It’s very hard to find good combinations of carbs/protein/vegetables in Japan.  I was also surprised at the filter system for their water jug, a piece of charcoal. 

Last stop for the day was Akihabara, the electronics district.  Not only do they have tons of electronics, but they have lots of anime stuff too and Aaron just had to see it all.  I think we spent about 3 hours in Akihabara, maybe only 15-20 minutes of which on stuff I needed.  I ended up spending over $400 on 3 things.  I bought a 1 GB USB key for like $20, a 500 GB portable HDD for just under $200, and a dehumidifier for around $200.  All were worthwhile investments as I use each of them everyday (not so much the USB key, though).  Before the dehumidifier, my apartment was stink.  It smelled so musty.  I turn it on about 4 hours a day and it pulls out about a cup or more of water every hour.  Here are some pictures of Akihabara.  Oh yea, when we first arrived at Akihabara, there were girls advertising things in costumes and would even pose for pictures.  Also, the Japanese seem to be very space efficient in the big cities as they build their buildings very high to maximize their volume and using little surface area on the ground. 

That was the end of my first weekend.  I didn’t get much housework done and I would have to go into work again on Monday.