Do It Yourself

First, let's do a little catching up. On Thursday, I entered into my long day with three classes almost back-to-back. It wasn't as bad as it usually is, although each segment of time seemed to go by slowly. At dinner, I went with Albert, Yusuke, and their friend David to Roro. I ordered Ebi Doria, which was shrimp and rice covered with cheese and oven-baked. It was very good, but surely unhealthy. At night, I found a person that I met on the Japan website on gmail, so we chatted until it was time for bed.

On Friday, I met up with Keisuke and Kim for lunch. From there, I went back to the lounge with Keisuke and was eventually joined by Kimie and her friend/my classmate, Maya, and then her friend Megumi. From there, I worked on my homework and conversed until it was time for class. In Negotiation class, a question about uncertainty avoidance (risk) came up. The teacher wanted to prove his point, so he gave the opportunity for people to make a bet. The bet was to guess two out of three coin flips correctly in order to get 100% on the next test and not have to take it. If the person lost, they would get 0% with no questions asked. The first person to try was a Japanese person who guessed correctly the first two times. From there, two others volunteered and also got it. After that, two people in a row failed and no one else volunteered. The teacher actually recorded the names of the people who won and lost and gave them their respective grades. I figured that I had a better chance to take the test than to gamble my grade.

For dinner, I ordered a hamburger at a restaurant called Gasto. The hamburger tasted like a real hamburger as did the fries. Ironically, the meal cost only $5, which is much less than I can get a real hamburger in America. After dinner, Albert had me join him for a short exercise session. He started teaching me how to box at the end. It was an interesting experience since I have no experience fighting. Sadly, my session with Albert was ultimately more helpful than my year in Tae Kwon Do. It's a wonder what you can get for free. I talked with my friend online again until it was time for bed.

On Saturday, the real fun began. I was going to meet my first friend from the Japanese site today. I had to wake up at 8:30am in order to get to Hirakata station at 10:00 since I did not want to take the bus. Once at the station, I waited for a while to meet my new friend Kazuki. He was about ten minutes late, which isn't that bad to an American, but he thought it was a horrible thing. After we were able to get past the time issue, we made our way over to Kyoto to go to Arashiyama where we would try making Ocha (green tea) ourselves. There were a few nice sites to see on the way to the tea shop that I am sure you would like. Once at the shop, we were given instructions on the step-by-step process that is required to make Ocha. The tea came with some Japanese sweets. Mine was made out of red beans. The tea was very bitter and the sweets were sweet. Overall, it was a very bitter-sweet experience. Ironically, it appeared that I was better at making the tea than Kazuki was. He kept forgetting steps and where to put things after using them.

After finishing the tea, we sought out lunch. Kazuki realized that he had not brought enough money with him, so he had to borrow from me in order to eat. After lunch, we had to go to Umeda, Osaka for Kazuki's job interview. I started asking him interview questions to help him prepare. He obviously was not ready for what awaited him. He had not even researched about the company. When we got to Umeda, it became apparent that he would not make it on time. After finally reaching the building about 20 minutes late, Kazuki went inside, but I had to wait outside since I did not have an appointment. I spent my time buying and eating onigiri (rice wrapped with seaweed with a filling). By the time I was finished eating, Kazuki came back outside. Not having been long enough to have had an interview, I asked what happened. He said that he had to reschedule since he was late. I thought that it was a very fortunate occurance since it would allow him time to properly prepare.

After the interview, we went back to his appartment so he could get money to repay me. It was fairly small, but bigger than he described it. Once we got the money, we went to a game store that he had told me about. This time, we used his car. This was the first time that I had ridden in a Japanese car. It was fairly nice with a built-in GPS/TV. The TV would switch back to the GPS whenever the car was moving as to not distract the driver while in motion. After looking at the game store, we went next door to a Chinese restaurant to eat dinner. Chinese restaurants in Japan are like Chinese restaurants in America, except they serve more Japanese-style food instead of American-style food. After dinner, Kazuki took me back to the dorm, which wasn't that far at all. From there, we said our farewells and I went on to do my laundry and type this blog.