書いたことがたくさんあるね

Several individual bits today.

Minor random observation: Japanese prices come in different increments than American prices, and I know why.

All right, to explain what I mean, if something costs less than a dollar in America, it's probably going to be priced at one of three values: $0.25, $0.50, or $0.75. American prices go by 25-cent increments, generally.
Japanese prices, though, don't. They go by 10 yen increments. You're more likely to see prices like 70, 90, 230 yen.

The reason for this? The quarter. There is no 25-yen coin; it goes 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500. Thus, there's no reason to arrange prices by 25s.

Okay, now that I'm done incoherently rambling, let's move on...

Yesterday: Was awesome.
The brunt of yesterday's activities was going to lunch and Karaoke with two of my new Japanese friends, Shizuka and Kanna.

...okay, I'm going to take a moment to ancitipate a line of questioning that I know for a fact is on at least a few minds in the audience (hi mom). I believe it goes something like this:
"But Alan, you unstoppable force of raw charisma, every friend you've mentioned in this blog is a girl! Are you some kind of ultimate ladies' man or something?"

The short answer: No.

The long answer: There's a number of factors that lead to this gender discrepancy. First and foremost is that I just tend to get along better with girls than I do with other guys.
Beyond that, I've noticed that there seems to be a HUGE gender gap at Oberlin. Just looking around, something like 70% of the student body is female. The same ratio holds up among the exchange students, and the Japanese students who signed up to help the exchange students are, as far as I can tell, all female. So, even if I made friends completely indiscriminately, I'd have mostly female friends.

I do have a couple male friends; they haven't made it into the blog. For the record, I have no intention of getting involved with any local Japanese girls, so rest easy.

*cough* where was I?

Oh right! Lunch and Karaoke.
Lunch was Okonomiyaki, which I had never had before. It was all very Japanese-style, with sitting on the floor at low tables and cooking the food ourselves on the table, which had a stovetop in the middle. It was also quite delicious. If I can get in touch with Kanna, I'll post the pictures she took.

After lunch was Karaoke. In the past, I've not really been big on singing, but it's possible that something has loosened me up tot he notion, and I actually had a blast. I mostly stuck to English songs with them sticking to Japanese songs, but I did manage to pull of one Japanese song with a decent level of competency.

A fun time was had by all, and we intend to get together again at some future time for more antics.


Photos: I went on a walk today! I have some pictures of Machida.


Machida is a vertical city. In the rare event when an establishment isn't multi-floored, the space is filled with five or six different businesses stacked on top of each other. Space is a commodity, and they make the best use of it they can.


I don't really have anything insightful to say here, I just like the name "Book Off" for a bookstore chain. Makes it sound like some kind of fierce competition.


How grand! Japan really loves its Pachinko.
I'll pass, personally.


At first galnce, this looked like an awesome little park, but upon entering it immediately became apparent that every single person in the park was smoking. I beat a hasty retreat.


Japanese advertisers really go overboard sometimes. This (fully 3D!) elaborate monster sculpture marks the entrance to an arcade. Not even a particularly awesome-looking arcade, aside from this sign.


Now this was interesting. These two guys were out on the street, performing something not entirely unlike traditional Native American music. To be fair, I don't have the slightest idea how close or far they were from the real deal, but it was at least interesting to see it in Japan.


Just as a random note to close on, this is the view down from right outside the Muramatsu residence. We're on the 14th floor! It's kind of scary!