first weekend

First weekend in Japan turned out to be THREE DAYS thanks to a Sports and Health national holiday.  Why don't we have this at home??

A few highlights.  Well, here's what I took photos of:

American breakfast.  Yum.  Oh look, there's a little bit of my apartment!  A tiny bit.

My setup before I officially unpacked.  My WLAN cord is about three feet long and impossible to remove from the wall so I'm stuck being tethered three feet from this particular wall.  

Japanese soccer, anyone?

Apartment, from the street.  Not my scooter.

Found a park!  And this delicious canbottle of coconut juice.  With chunks.  Mmm.

Shopping in what was probably the plus sized section of a department store.  I'm just happy to have work pants that fit.

I bought a bike!  The actual purchase process was probably just as awkward as the sight of me wobbling on this thing as I drive toward oncoming traffic.  Have I mentioned that cars drive on the opposite side of the road?  Read, not intuitive for me to anticipate a pedestrian/bicycle/car's next move.

Power walking around Ibaraki city center.  The sun sets around 7pm.

Found a mall!  With a movie theater, Gap, and huge bicycle parking lot.

Not sure that I would be able to find my bike if I parked it here.

Yummy dinner of premade sushi from the grocery store.  Love.  With my own personal chopsticks!  Ha.

Another American breakfast.  Comfort breakfast for sure.

My coworker picked this mug out for me at the store.  Because "it is strong."

Venturing out to the park on Sunday morning.  At 6:30.  When I woke up.  Naturally.

I was one of many people there for exercise.  However, I was probably the youngest by a good sixty years.  I was also the only one wearing what I'd consider "exercise clothing."  Apparently any type of casual clothes constitutes as exercise clothes in Japan.  And by exercise I mean strolling around the park and swinging your arms around.  

I cut into this potato and discovered that it was in fact, a sweet potato.

This did not dissuade me from going ahead with my plan to make home fries. 

I love sweet potatoes. 

Ate some day old sushi.  Yum.

The yellow stuff on the upper right is cooked egg.  Not sure what it's called but it's a pretty common addition to sushi or bento boxes.

Bought a tube of liquid eyeliner in an attempt to feel more Japanese.

The stuff is fun but DANGEROUS.

Came out of the store and was so happy to see that my bike was still there.  Love my bike.

The next few photos need a bit of a preface.  Before I left for Japan, my friend Alex suggested that I join the Couch Surfing network and use it to help meet people in Japan.  I joined up and ended up going out to a bar in Osaka on Sunday night to meet other Couch Surfers.  It was a really fun night and I ended up exchanging info with a few new friends!  Two Japanese ladies that live in nearby cities each invited me to visit their hometowns for sightseeing at some point over the next few weeks.  

Also taking place over the weekend was the continual decline of cash (yen) in my possession.  I had come with about 12,000 yen leftover from a trip this past summer.  Not thinking that ATM's would be an issue (because they hadn't been on my previous trips), I didn't withdraw any at the airport like I'd done in the past.  Well after realizing my cash situation was looking low, I found a few "international" ATMs around town where I thought I would be able to get cash and proceeded to fail miserably at each one. 

So by Monday morning, the national holiday, I was down to around 200 yen on my reloadable transportation pass and 500 yen in cash.  I had made plans at the Couch Surfing event the night before to meet up with a German guy in Kyoto for some sightseeing and wasn't sure how much the trains would cost to get there.  I did some online research on travel blogs and even called my bank (no help- and I quote "we can't really do anything, just keep trying until you find an ATM that works") and found that some travelers had luck at Citibank ATMs, since it's an American bank.  I found one in Kyoto near the train station where I was supposed to meet my new German friend.  This means I was banking on the fact that I would be able to withdraw cash, since I would inevitably spend all (and more) of  my cash getting to Kyoto.  Tricky, I know.  

Well it turns out that halfway to Kyoto, I needed 310 yen to take my last train and only had 302.  And no credit left on my train pass.  So I put on a brave face, put all my coins in my hand and walked over to the train station conductor staff man.  I explained my situation (by explain I mean we walked over to the turnstile and I swipe my empty card, walked over to the ticket machine and pointed out where I needed to go, and let him count the change in my hands to see that it wasn't enough) and he kindly asked me to hold on please while he conferred with his colleagues.  After I waited and sweated for a bit, he came back out and handed me what was essentially a train hall pass and said that I should show it to the train ticket man at my last station.  So nice.  Sometimes the ignorant tourist thing can be a very good thing.  I'm so thankful that he didn't leave me trapped in limbo with not enough change to get anywhere.

After arriving at my station in Kyoto where I was supposed to meet my German friend, I found my way to the Citibank ATM (after asking for directions and going the wrong way a few times).  After five attempts at withdrawing money with no success, I was seriously about to cry.  No money for sightseeing, food, a train ride home.  Of course my credit cards work but in general, public transportation and small shops require cash only.  I started getting creative with the ATM and instead of hitting "withdraw", I tried "balance inquiry".  For some strange reason, this allowed me to see my account balance.  So if I could see the balance, why couldn't I withdraw?  It asked me after the account balance inquiry if I wanted to do another transaction, and I hit withdraw.  Amazingly, it worked and allowed me to withdraw in amounts of 10,000 yen.  So I got out about as much as I thought was safe and ventured on to meet my German friend.  Luckily when I walked out of the bank he was standing across the street so I didn't have to get look for long.

He's been living in Japan for around six months, working as an English and German teacher and living with his Japanese girlfriend.  He'd been to Kyoto already sightseeing but wanted to see a few more things and didn't have anyone to travel with on the holiday.  We walked all over (with him navigating, I did no prior research since I was stressed about the whole cash issue) and saw a big castle surrounded by moats and gardens as well as a beautiful shrine overlooking the city.  

We had lunch at a burger place in Kyoto called Blue Seal.  Avocado burger = delicious.

He also suggested I try this sweet called mochi I think... mochi is a rice paste or something.  There was a sweetened red bean paste in the middle of the mochi.  Interesting taste and really good.

Such a fun day of sightseeing.  Also really nice to be able to have easy conversation with someone who speaks great English.  You don't realize how much you've missed that until you have it again, ha!

Most exciting moments:  Seeing my first white person in Ibaraki.  He was working at a bike shop in the big mall.  Okay, this was not so exciting as it was surprising.  I didn't say hello.  I thought that might be awkward.  Riding my bike and not falling over, getting run over or laughed at.  Much.  Finding a really dark Japanese beer that I like.  Don't remember what it was called (not helpful, I know) but it tasted like Guinness.

Most exciting Japanese speaking moment:  Saying good morning to a lady at the park.  Having her respond, start talking to me and smiling and motioning about what I was there doing.  I just laughed and kept saying "good morning" since that's about all I can say in Japanese.  I guess I could have started counting to ten but I'm not sure what that implies in the Japanese culture.

New goals:  Ride on the back of a scooter.  I don't know anyone with a scooter yet so this might be tricky.

Best purchases:  A public transportation reloadable card called ICOCA.  You can swipe it on the bus or train and you don't have to buy individual tickets each time.  So nice.  Gray skinny jeans in a size that FIT.  Great find.  Japanese bag that can be a shoulder bag, hobo, backpack or messenger.  I wanted a backpack-like bag for when I'm on my bike.

New Japanese words:  Kawaii means cute.  Apparently girls tend to say this about everything.  But if you're a guy, you don't really want a girl to say this about you as it's not so masculine.  Moshi moshi is how you answer the phone.  Don't really understand this one but I'll go with it.