Delivery Day

February 23

Today's main event was the successful obtaination of my Nintendo DS. After spending the day at school, I returned home to find the package waiting for me. I happily opened it to see that which I had bought - in all its glory. Without a game for it, all that I could do was charge the battery. I wasn't sure when I would get a game for it, but all things shall come in time.

I was planning to make dinner at the dorm, but something told me to wait a while longer in case anyone was interested in going somewhere. Sure enough, Nabil showed up and wanted to know if I was interested in going to the ¥500 restaurant. I decided to pay for him since he paid for me last time. After we ate there, he expressed interest to do something on this Friday night of ours. Before long, we were on our way to Namba in Osaka to seize the night. Since Nabil didn't want me to pay for his meal, he paid for my transportation.

Once in Namba, we eventually ran into an area that I was familiar with from my last visit. We found a bookstore that I recalled had a game section downstairs, so I went to get a Mario game and a case for my DS. Next, we visited some arcades, though we mostly just looked around since we were tight on time.

On the trip back, we were getting to the end of the trains' running time. We were able to catch one of the last trains before they stopped. The best description of the ride that I can think of is that I had a real-life simulation of how Jews in the Holocaust felt while on a train - just in a more modern setting. There was standing room only, and even that was limited. For each mass of people that got off at a stop, there was an equal and opposite mass of people getting on the train. After we got off at Makino, we walked back to the dorm.

I played my new game for a little while once we got back. I had specifically chose Mario because I knew that it wouldn't require much reading. Fortunately, the instructions were similar to my Japanese class in that each kanji character had the pronunciation written above it. The game was obviously made compatible for young children who could not read many kanji yet. Everything in the game was in katakana, which means that the words are recycled English words that I could sound out. Just as I thought, the game was a good choice for someone who cannot read Japanese very well.