Rainy Day

A short day. I did go to Shinjuku and Harajuku, after all, but only at 5 o'clock. I overslept.

So, after connecting briefly in the common room to download some stuff (I bought Keyword Manager! And OpenOffice.org 3 is installed as well), then I went out. Not really having planned my outing out, I just went to Harajuku (hint: "I wonder if anyone wrote anything about this Harajuku...") and Takeshita Doori was just in front of me. I didn't even know it was Takeshita Doori - I just figured, well, if everyone else is going that way, it's good enough for me.

Of course, not being a camera freak like almost all my friends, I did not take it out until it was already too late (read: the two gosurori entered a purikura, where I did not really want to go). And also afterwards, I was not really feeling comfortable shooting innocents, so there are rather few pictures from there. I think... maybe... about... two. In one, I was trying to capture a cute outfit being sold in one of the shops, then all of the sudden two people jumped right in front of me. Luckily, me being a giant, the costume is still visible. The second one, I was actually trying to record a movie, but I had the camera setting wrong. After that, I did record a couple of movies. They sucked (the camera was pointed too high, and there were too many lights), and the most interesting things always happen either just before I start filming or just after I stop, so you're not getting them.

After that I thought I'd take a walk to Shinjuku, it's close...

Well, it's close on the map of Tokyo, which, given that Tokyo is bloody huge, is not really saying much. After a longish walk, I managed to get to Yoyogi station and then I took a train home.

Or at least, that's what I thought. I remembered from the map I got about my dorm that, besides the Komaba Todaimae, there are couple of other train stations nearby. One of them, to my recollection, was Higashi-Kitazawa. So I thought, why not get a bit more flexibility - if I want to go to Shibuya, I already know where to go. But if Shinjuku is my goal, then maybe going directly might be better than taking the train from Komaba Todaimae to Shibuya, and then switch to one for Shinjuku.

Just as I boarded my Higashi-Kitazawa train, it started to rain.

Now I'm somewhere I've never been, I'm all wet, I have no clue where I am because it all looks different from what I recollected of my imaginings from when I was looking at the map, and there was almost noone on the streets. All I know is, I have to turn right somewhere, but everyone just said "you'll see it on the right". Well, I didn't - I turned twice at a wrong place, before a kind gentleman finally managed more precise instructions (and even then I was not 100% sure, for "more precise" and "precise" are not quite interchangeable terms).

So I'm home now, hoping I won't catch a cold (I did get soaked, but it's still rather on the warm side outside). I thought I'd take some photos of the travel brochure I found ("Croatia", which details how nice Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and "Bosna i Hercegovina" (sic!) are), but it got wet too (not so much from the rain as much as from the leaking bento with which it shared a plastic bag). Maybe some other time.

At least I'm getting plenty of walking exercise.

As far as my home supplies are concerned, I've bought two bento. I've also decided to risk buying Fruit Punch, after being reassured by the salesman there was no sake in it, and seeing as how it might be turned into a can for Cedevita (I have a kg package, and was kind of scared to use it directly from the huge bag); however, it has chunks of Real Fruit, it's not expensive, and it proved Yummy. I also bought 2 kg of rice, in hope someone will explain suihanki to me soon.

In other news, my Pocari Sweat is almost gone, and I've switched to Vitamin Water.