Night of Fury continued...

Monday morning: nothing stirs as Suzanne packs her shit to go get her gaijin card (aka Alien registration card for living and working in Japan). While Ryota, Kara, and Luke sleep soundly, Suzanne tries to remember how to get to the Metro...

Once I got home I had forgotten that I bought some cool shit in the days before while bored and killing time in between classes. Including some cool hashi (chopsticks)...

OWLS! Aren't they the coolest?

So after unpacking my stuff and de-compressing a little from the intense craziness that happened the night before I set out to the Midori Ward office that takes care of official business for Urawa Misono residents. As I walked, I tried to take in my neighborhood because my daily routine doesn't really give me a chance to see where I live. Even though my neighborhood is just outside of Tokyo it's still very rural and the people there have pretty big houses compared with the relative closets in Tokyo. This picture says it all:

In the foreground you see rural (maybe community?) gardens and I even saw a pheasant wandering through the patches of vegetables. Everyone seems to have their own area for growing various things for personal use as I would think anything commercial would go on for acres. In the faint background you can see where I work: Aeon mall and then even further is the Saitama soccer stadium that held the 2002 World cup. To the right there's a lot of construction going on, but for what I'm not sure. This scene reminds me of my childhood back in Florida because when my family moved out to Land O' Lakes it was doing this same kind of rural/suburban straddle that now has too much suburban shit for my liking...


So I got on the bus okay to the Ward office (I was very proud of myself, thank you), BUT then got lost- OF COURSE! DAMMIT! And encountered my first real asshole since moving to Japan: a bus driver. What a dick this guy was! I got on the wrong bus, he basically waved me off when I showed him the address of the place I needed to go in Japanese, but he just pointed to the fare meter and then to the door. WTF? On the bright side there's something comical and reassuring in knowing that dickish bus drivers aren't just found in the good 'ole US of A. I take comfort in that fact, actually, and it leads me to a conclusion about bus drivers in general. You must have to be a schedule person to drive buses and if someone fucks with the schedule (as I was) then there's Hell to pay!


The good news is the last stop was at a Metro station and after a few minor mishaps I got home just fine....

One for the road...

I saw this advertisement on the side of a drink vending machine. I mean, what the fuck is that expression his face because it doesn't look like happiness....constipation maybe? If I were Suntory I'd ask for my fucking money back.