Week 45

A pretty good week last week. Mostly owing to the three day weekend.

Last Tuesday I was a bit lazy (other than meeting my girlfriend for dinner, nothing got done) but I got up off my couch on Wednesday and went for a bike tour of Asuka (the location of the oldest "empire"in Japan) with some friends. We left Osaka at 10:30 for the hour and a half train ride to the middle-of-nowhere Nara. Arriving at the tiny station I went to prepare my camera and realized that the battery door had fallen off at home. I suppose I enjoyed "the moment" more, but there were a lot of missed photo opportunities. After the inevitable map mis-read, wrong turn, and cycle up and down the same mountain twice we got on track and saw all the more famous of the hundreds of tombs and monuments scattered around. Worthy of note is that, as happened when I rented a bike in Ise, my back breaks didn't fwork all day. This made the hilly terrain particularly fun to navigate. Around 4:30 we headed back to the bike rental shop and hopped on a train back to Osaka stopping in Tennoji to get some KFC for dinner.

Thursday was "Culture Day" and I had originally planned to something culturally relevant but as my girlfriend was still recovering from a bad cold we decided to stay in and catch up on videos instead (I like to think it was celebrating a part of American culture.) We met for lunch, hit up the video store, and stopped by the 100yen store for snacks. We ended up seeing "No Strings Attached" with Ashton Kutcher (a date movie at best), "The Mechanic" with Jason Statham (pure action, but her pick), and "Skyline" (a terribly written sci-fi piece.)

All this was followed by a nice short work-week this week. After my shift today it's already the weekend again. Nothing too exciting on the docket (it being a "laundry weekend" and all) but if the weather's nice I may go out for another bike ride (around Osaka this time, on my bike who's breaks work.)