Full of Failures

Yesterday, I was full of Japanese food. Today was full of failures D: (<--- Possibly an exaggeration. Possibly.)
But anyway, I like to think of it as a... "journey of mis-adventures"! Yes, that's how I make myself feel better.

Today is Saaaaturday! And so we take our first day off to go grocery shopping and explore the area a little.

Gorgeous sidewalk thing! This is right by our dorm.

It's maybe a 25 minute walk to the grocery store, but we took longer since we stopped at another store and also to look at other things along the way.

There's this walkway that's right behind our dorm/house (I'm just going to refer to it as dorm from now on), and it's lined with cherry blossom trees and other bushes and plants. Too bad the trees aren't in blossom, I can only imagine how amazing it would be.

Our dorm is also right by an elementary school, so since it's a Saturday, there were little kids having a sports game there (I think it was baseball). It was a bit hard to see since the fence, which separates the cherry blossom walkway and the school, is covered in vines. But as we walked by, I could hear a lot of "Oiiii!.... Oiiiii!.... Oiiii!" How interesting, I wonder what that calling's for.

We also passed by a park where some toddlers were playing in the  fountain under (presumably) their mom's watchful gaze. There are actually a lot of parks around here. I don't know if that's Japan in general or just the area I'm living in now,  but I feel like I see a little park at least every few streets or so.

Then we head to the local fruits and veggie store. So cheap! Look at those enormous carrots, they're only 88 yen! And those mystery bags of light brown, hard, spherical... fruits? Only 98 yen! I only wish I knew what they were! Haha.
Part of the store was outside and part inside. Everything was packed close together, as most Japanese places are in general it seems. But oh man, this store had some cut watermelon that looked so, so juicy and delicious. Mmmm, imma cravin' me some watahmelon nao.

And finally we go to the grocery store. But the grocery store was inside a building that had 3 floors. 3rd = 100 yen shop, 2nd = clothing store, 1st = grocery store. And this place was huuuuuge! I think Nile and I wandered around just the 100 yen shop for an hour, and I feel like I still didn't really see everything there.

Why yes, that does, indeed, say Horse Fat.

Soooo cute!

After getting some essentials from the 100 yen shop, we go downstairs to the grocery store. Oh my god, I don't even know what everything was, but it all looked delicious. I didn't know what to buy tho because I wasn't sure what it was and how to prepare it, and it would be such a tragedy if I got it and ruined it. So, I only got some meats on sticks, some kiwis, bread, jam, eggs, and rice.

After a long time shopping, we finally head back home, and decide to get something for lunch rather than cooking it (so... tired...). For some reason that I can't remember right now lol, we decided to get Domino's for lunch after passing by it on the way to the supermarket. But we didn't really understand how it worked (it was actually a "delivery only" store) or how very expensive dairy is over here I guess, so here comes FAIL #1. We ended up paying 2000 yen for a medium pizza +some "free" sides (FYI: 2000 yen ≈ $24 (-__- )....). Not only that, but since we had our groceries with us, we had to walk back to the dorm, drop off our food, then walk back to Domino's to pick up our pizza. And if we wanted to have it delivered to the dorm, we wouldn't get the free sides anymore.



AWWWW HEOOOO NO, I WILL GIT DEM FREE SIDES.

 It looks puny, and we were pretty hungry, so I thought we would devour those 2 boxes in their entirety(maybe the cardboard would expand in our stomachs to make us feel fuller and think we got our money's worth). But we actually couldn't finish it, and so left the rest for dinner. This makes me feel better in that I actually spent 1000 yen for *two* meals, so huzzah! This Fail has been remedied.

Coming soon to Really Long Blogs (according to Daniel...) near you! Fail #2! Hey, that rhymed, what a good slogan.
After lunch, I started to feel pretty tired and sleepy. Maybe it was all the carbs I ate. Maybe the sadness from a bad deal weighed heavily on my mind. Maybe I wasn't used to walking for 2.5 hours straight then carrying groceries all the way home. Maybe the new and unfamiliar environment was more taxing on me than I thought. Maybe it was because I hadn't gotten more than 5 hours of sleep a night since I got to Japan. Maybe I was knocked out by a gremlin and thrown into a plane where I was given hallucinogens to make me believe myself a rabbit (okay, that one was a reeaallly specific inside joke, haha...).

Whatever it was, I lay down to take a 30 minute nap at 4:30pm local time.
And I woke up at 10:20pm local time.

... Ok, so maybe I had jet lag.

So there it is. FAIL #2. Of my limited number of completely free days, I wasted half of it away asleep in my bed. (T~T) Now sure, you could say, "What are you talking 'bout, man, sleep is great!" I agree, sure it is! BUT I COULD DO THAT ANYWHERE. I wasted daylight, guys, daylight!! As in the light in the day with which to see this new and foreign land!

Oh, but I did get this at the supermarket. Some kind of grass(?) mochi filled with redbean! It sounds weird, I know, but it tasted pretty good. The skewered things drenched in brown stuff is dango. Delicious! I ate them throughout that day, and it filled in the hole from the "bad deal shank".




Sorry for the late post, I've been busy exploring and traveling and doing new cool things instead of writing about old cool things. This just means I'll have more to write about later! I hope I can catch up soon...