Day 17 in Japan – HYAKU-EN-ONANZA

Today started like any other normal day (except that I had to walk to school because my bike got left there yesterday), but ended up being quite a different work day to what I’m used to.

Firstly, I was approached by a chemistry teacher this morning, who with very limited English asked me if I wanted to go and do an experiment with her. Of course I said yes! I have been starting to miss the labs a little (although not the responsibility), and was itching to see what facilities Akashikita has. It was a pretty basic chemistry lab, and the “experiment” that I did was tie-dyeing some handkerchiefs with onion skin dye. They turned out totally sweet, and I made some new friends doing it. When I got back to my desk, another teacher (this time the third grade head teacher who is an English teacher) decided it was his turn to take me to lunch. This is truly great, this being taken out by various teachers thing – today’s lunch was McDonalds (ha ha ha), but we also made some pit stops to do various bits of shopping at discount and hyakuen stores around the place on the way.

So, I hear you ask, What’s a Hyakuen store? Hyaku means 100, and en is the shortened version of yen (it only had 3 bloody letters in the first place – why shorten?), so it’s like the Japanese equivalent of a $2 shop. But good. With kick ass stuff. That you didn’t realise how much you needed until you see it all plastic-y and pristine sitting on the shelves, saying “I'm only 100 yen. You really need a tube organiser for your refrigerator shelves/floating lint filter for your washing machine/tiny donuts individually wrapped in a bag/crazy long spoon with bent handle for sitting on the side of jars”. Anyway, several hundreds of yens later, we have a bunch of nifty little things and decorations for our house to play with. Being me, they are mostly boring cleaning supplies and space-saving doona storage bags, but I feel a little bit cooler nonetheless.

But wait, the hyaku-en-ing doesn’t stop there. I found ANOTHER hyaku-en store with Sam after work, so the hyaku-en-palooza continued. The store name is Daiso, and I found one only a 10 min bike ride from our house. I also showed Sam where the UNIQLO and Tsutaya (DVD and manga rental store) are, and my new cool bike shortcut to get there. Ended up staying out until way after dark, and I discovered that my bike has a light on it! That only works when I’m pedalling, which is why I didn’t find it before.

Our modem came today – boding well for imminent internet at home. Which means Skype, peoples! Will put out a call when we are actually online, but I have my fingers crossed for soon. We have started watching Dr. Who for an hour or two before bed, and are loving it (unsurprisingly). I am enjoying Eccleston as the Doctor much more than expected, although I am really looking forward to some Tennant in my evenings.

Food highlight of the day: Gyoza (fried/steamed Chinese-style dumplings filled with pork and vegetable mince) and kim chi for dinner, cooked (well, warmed) by us. I am going to cook gyoza from scratch before I leave here, you mark my words.