Hmm. I had another boring week. I'm not sure I have a lot to say.
I guess the fact that I feel like nothing exciting is happening is sort of a good thing. I definitely feel pretty settled into my life here. My biggest adventures this week involved a) finally getting a cushion for my chair so that I can stop complaining that my butt hurts, and b) washing my shower curtain (which was pretty grody). It never occurred to me that I could just WASH my shower curtain until I was in the store and ready to buy a new one, and saw on the package of the new shower curtain that it was washing machine safe (or at least that's what I assumed that the little cartoon meant). It came out of the machine still splotched with mildew, but the mildew came right off when I rubbed it with a sponge. I am sure that this makes for riveting reading.
My apartment is generally freezing cold in the morning and in the evenings these days. I don't have the control of a heater in my apartment, and actually, looking around, it occurs to me that there isn't actually a heater in my room (though there is an air conditioner, which I turned on once this summer). The heat is controlled by the management staff, and I heard that last year they didn't switch on the heat until November. So I bought a few sweaters at the second hand store this week, because I am tired of freezing to death! Now I am toasty warm, I am less likely to contract a weird disease from my shower curtain, and my butt is comfortable. Life is good.
I definitely feel like I am missing the opportunity to try some exciting new foods while in Japan. Damn my vegan-ness! Because the past weekend was a long weekend, a lot of people did some travelling and brought back snacks to share. Someone brought some green tea-flavoured mochi filled with red bean paste and wrapped in a (non-edible) bamboo leaf that was DELICIOUS. Someone else brought back CANNED BEAR MEAT which I thought was kind of insane. Apparently it tasted like beef. The can was just chilling on the lunch table for a day, and it kind of looked like cat food. That... did not make me regret being a vegan.
I think I'm going to be awfully sad when I can't use my bike in the winter. In Canada I almost never rode my bike because I felt unsafe riding on the road, and the cops in Guelph were pretty strict about giving people tickets for riding on the sidewalk. But here in Japan the sidewalks are generally VERY wide and you are allowed to ride your bike on them (and only hardcore super speedsters bike on the street). I have only been almost run over a few times (mostly on one eventful day when everyone spontaneously forgot how to drive or something) and it has been really convenient to be able to zip to the far grocery store in 10-15 minutes; from the time a few months ago when my bicycle tire exploded as soon as I left the grocery store (and I was thus forced to walk my bike full of groceries home), I know that it's at least a 30 minute walk to that store, which is also right beside a cheap department store, a video game store, and a 100 yen store (and, depending on your route, isn't so far away from the best second hand store). Alas!! But other than the impending loss of bicycle use, I am excited for snow. The snow bugs were clearly misinformed because it has been a week now and there haven't even been flurries yet!
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