From 8-8

Sitting here in my new apartment. On the porch. With on of the worst typhoons to hit the area in five years somewhere nearby. I don't know If it will hit here, but the wind is picking up a bit. Thankfully, it's cooling down also. I thought I was going to pass out the other day. I think I've lost several pounds already from being in this constant sauna. I'm not kidding. Checking in to the apartment, doing the paperwork, I looked down at my sleeve and was shocked to find that it was soaked with sweat. In fact, all my clothes were soaked through.

So I'll start with today and work backwards. Brief.

Just took my first subway/train commute by myself. Got a little out of sorts a couple of times, but daijobu desu ( it's OK). The subways so far are no problem, as long as you can find a station. In fact in comparison to navigating on the street, subways are a piece of cake. Up there? Forget about it. Street names? Half the damn streets don't even pretend to have them, and of the ones that do, most people don't know them, or they're unmarked, or if they are, you can't read them anyway. I asked one of my senseis the name of a major street here, and he didn't know it. Neither did anyone else in the car. "This is a big street." Address? What's that? Blocks are irregular in size and shape, and seem to be labeled in accordance with some japanese-type cabbalah. Building addresses are assigned in a first-come-first-served fashion, so the first building built on the block gets a "one", no matter where it is on the block, and the second get a "two" and so on... so you basically have to have lived in a town from the date of its creation to know where anything is.

The trains are not so bad, but the maps tend to oversimplify things a bit as I learned this evening. Thankfully, after asking direction form one sarariman (businessman), he actually took the train with me to my stop, making several changes, before hopping on a train in the opposite direction. He knew his trains, too. And these things run ON TIME, and I mean it. Anyways, I made it.

I have this fear of being lost, as most of you know, so every step towards knowing my way around, or towards dealing with being lost is a great achievement for me. This evening I was even guiding other JETs around on the subways, so I guess I felt pretty good. A bunch of us went out to Den Den Town... mostly to shop for electronics. I bought nothing. Yet. But I saw some shit, I can tell you. crazy shit. Resolutions and features you gaijin at home could only dream of. Not cheap though. But nice.

So yesterday. I'll be short. Arrived in Takatsuki via taxi. Hyaku en fare. ¥10000. Met two of my teachers, who helped me with everything, then went on vacation. One is going to Seattle for two weeks.

Went shopping for the first time, which was a kind of experience. I bought the following items: a clock, some green tea, some beer, edamame, blue cheese, pocky (like cookies), corn flakes and milk. Plus some "croquettes", which are the same here really. Breaded potato deep fried.

Ok, that's it for now.