Went back home, grabbed a used blanket from the "I don't need it any more" pile, and crashed again. Some time in the middle of the night, my jetlag decided it was a good time for me to try out my shiny new dijikame. It's cute, but some options will have to wait till I can get a nice English manual. Then i fidgeted some more, slept some more, fidgeted again, and decided it's gotta be late already on the account of birds singing and sun shining, so I threw on some clothes and went to pick up my suitcase which had arrived while I was having fun spending money in Shibuya last night. In the end, I was grateful noone went katana-tonic on my ass for showering at 6 in the morning.
So, I wasted some more time lounging about, I ate some cold frankfurter soba, and went out. Frankfurter soba was not as bad as it seemed it might be, but nothing to write home about. And yet I did. How funny is that? Oh, and I drank a can of Calpis Soda. I decided I liked Calpis Soda quite a bit.
I was supposed to make an appearance in both my intended faculty, and in my research lab. So I thought going in the morning would prove advantageous. However, enter Shibuya, yet again. I wasted some three hours grabbing lunch (350-yen mountain veggie udon), chatting with the two udonya obaasans, changing my mind a lot, getting a map of Tokyo from a bookstore (damn the books in English are expensive! Algoritam, I take it back...), crossing the intersection about 6 times, trying and failing to buy a keitai, and finally getting repeatedly lost in Shibuya station. Once I managed to find the bloody Ginza line, it went quite smoothly, and I made my belated appearance at my faculty-to-be (FTB, for short). It was not really belated, because I could have come any time I wanted to (it's still the arrival week, noone expects anything serious, and even if, jetlag is a great excuse). Then the lab, where I met lots of people not wearing shoes. The lab fellows are a truly international bunch, we got Swedes, Koreans, Chinese, a Croatian, a Finn, apparently, and half a dozen (or a full one?) of other nationalities I can't remember just now. I'm pretty sure Ruben is not Chinese.
A researcher brought cookies which had nothing to do with her having had her birthday on Tuesday. They were... yummy as well. Like princess donuts. How do you even say that in English? "Princess donuts" somehow does not sound quite right.
I'm going home now. But I fear Shibuya will again stand in my way. The things
AT (for "afterthought", "post scriptum" just does not work here): What's up with those oversized boots?
AT2: My wallet is scared. I spent so much just in 2 days...
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5 comments:
Well, for starters..
http://www.portablegear.nl/media/handleidingen/olympus-mju-1060_engels_basic_manual.pdf
Now, I know you write about Japan and you know a lot about Japan, but how about a little translation of japanese words you keep shooting our way?
Konibini, keitai, nikuman...
And wtf is Frankfurter soba?
B.
Soba with a piece of frankfurter in it.
As for various expressions, I'm not really showing off, rather they are that Japanese in my mind, the japanese word comes much quicker and easier to mind; besides, some of those are quite contextually deducible. Keitai is a mobile ("phone" elided on purpose in translation, to keep in line with the original); konbini is a convenience store (or kind of a general store, but we don't really have some things they have in konbini, and probably vice versa); nikuman is a steamed meat bun (one of the things we don't have in convenience stores); and finally, google is your friend (why should I do all the work).
Thanks for the link. It was not really a question of finding the manual, as much as finding a computer and time to read it. I have a computer now, in the lab; one out of two ain't bad.
hm, you only need to google the words and look the pictures :-)
This blog is worthless without pics! , well k I enjoy reading it, but c'mon start snapping!
I did start snapping, but I couldn't upload anything yet: the first entry was written in a manga cafe, and the second one in the office, and in neither case was there a convenient USB cable hanging around for my perusal. This will change. Read the next installment (still pictureless, but slowly getting there).
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