After my experience last week, I was looking forward to relaxing weekend before starting classes again. I had just that - Saturday I actually did nothing, and Sunday I was equally lazy before going to play soccer with a bunch of people in the afternoon. The field was kind of far away, but we went with some Japanese people who live at the dorm and have a car -- they drove the girls while the guys jogged over. It was pretty hot so I wasn't complaining too much... But we finally all made it to the field, and after some wandering around we found a place to play. It was more or less the first time I've played soccer in like 3+ years, but I still did pretty well. I didn't go back in the car because I thought we were going to jog some to cool down, but we ended up just walking the whole way, which was still nice. But then I was sore for the next three days... definitely should have actually cooled down.
Monday was pretty uneventful -- I did have to renew my commuter pass for the next three months, which was an adventure. I went with some other CIEE students, and one of them went before me so then I just told the clerk "onaji" (same) and it was pretty simple. The rain started on Tuesday, and has continued until now (Thursday night). But, on Tuesday I was feeling pretty rested, so I braved the rain and went to Shibuya with a friend. We window shopped in some high-end clothing stores, and spent a while wandering around this really nice food market. There was sooo much yummy-looking food and I ended up getting a delicious salad with spinach and corn -- I haven't had much salad since being here so I was pretty excited about it. The rain wasn't too heavy going back home, so in all it was a great day.
Wednesday and Thursday brought more rain. Wednesday afternoon I went to pick up my "gaijin card" -- proof that I am registered as a foreigner in Japan. I took the train out to Warabi with a friend -- we had been to the office a few weeks ago to fill out the application, so we thought we would recognize where to go, but we had to ask directions from the koban (police box). We weren't sure what the office was called so I took out my passport which had the temporary application stapled in it -- we tried using that as a reference and the policeman said "this is a piece of paper, not a place." It was pretty funny. Eventually he figured out where we were trying to go, and he gave us a map and we found the office without too much trouble. Unfortunately it was raining a lot, but we're going to have to get used to it considering it's the rainy season!
Wednesday night I had my NGO management class, which was pretty interesting -- we talked about stakeholder theory and how managers should decide who/what to pay attention to. After class I went to dinner with a friend in an early celebration of my birthday! We went to a place called "Asian Kitchen" which actually turned out to be Mexican food... but it was still really good. I finally made it home by 10:30 or 11 and pretty much went straight to bed.
Today (Thursday) was more rain, and I came back home after class before going to meet a friend to do some shopping in preparation for tomorrow!!! In case you missed the memo, it's my 21st birthday (Friday the 13th), and it's the first time I've ever celebrated my birthday in Japan (the country where I was born)!! I'm pretty excited about it -- it officially starts in 53 minutes! It's also supposed to be SUNNY tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to a great day. One of my friends gave me a panda-shaped breakfast pastry as an early birthday present, so I'm really looking forward to waking up and eating it. Oishii. Tomorrow night I am going out to dinner with a bunch of people and then going out later, so actually should be sleeping already... good night!!
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