Week 34

This week whizzed by but also seemed exceedingly long. I was sad to have to leave one home but it feels good to be back to the other home.

After finishing last week's update mom and I headed down to Eastern Market in search of a giant Toblarone for my girlfriend. Unfortunately it seems that Eastern Market is closed on Mondays. Fortunately, however, (after a few stops at some thrift shops downtown) the elusive candy bar was found in a neighborhood grocery store near mom's house. Lunch that day was Taco Bell, dinner, Buddy's Pizza, thus crossing the last two restaurants I wanted to visit while home off my list. In the evening I met up with some old friends one more time.

Tuesday had an early start to a very long "day". After checking in at the airport I had breakfast with mom and dad before saying fare-well and heading through security. Two hours wait by the gate, an hour flight, two hours by the gate, a twelve hour flight, two hours by the gate, an hour flight is how the rest of my "day" went. I decided to upgrade the long section of the trip to "economy plus" for an extra 5" of leg room (which was nice) and as a bomus, seemed to get upgraded to business class for the last flight into Osaka. The middle section was bumpy the whole way (the captain hardly ever turned off the fasten-seatbelt sign) and we had to fly around a thunderstorm on the way to Osaka (though that was cool to watch.) Safely in Osaka my girlfriend met me at the baggage claim. It gets a little fuzzy after that. I think dinner was involved. I do know that I crashed had when I got back to my apartment and slept late into the next day.

Thursday my girlfriend took the day off work so we went together to Costco in Amagasaki (between Kobe and Osaka) and I signed up for a member ship. There were an amazing numer of people in the store for a weekday buy we managed to wander around for most of the afternoon. In the evening we went out for sushi at the local sushi-go-round place.

Friday I had one last day off before going back to work and took the opportunity to clean my apartment, do laundry, and get my hair cut. In the evening a bunch of my friends came over and we played some of the board games I had brought back from the States.

Saturday was my first day back at work and wasn't too bad. After managing to stay awake all through the work day I had some long awaited curry for dinner. After dinner I caught up on a bunch of the stuff I "Tivo-ed" while I was gone.

Sunday, as with Friday and Saturday, I was up at the crack of dawn and ended up with a few hour to kill before my early shift at work (so watched more TV.) In the evening I had some friends over again and we played some more of the games we hadn't gotten to play earlier in the week.

Again, while it's sad to leave home, it's nice to be home.