eto.. Konbu onigiri ii desu!

It's all gloomy and rainy today. No one is out doing much except going to the convenience store and registering for classes. Done with that. Yknow, the great thing abot the whole no shoes in the house thing is that not only does it keep your house clean..BUT you know who is home or not based on whether or not there are shoes at the door step. Ah yes so I went to the convenitnt store( basically a 7-11). I got be some konbu onigiri (the BEST). Plus now I know what the kanji for konbu is now. I also took a phot of what appears to be a mini wind turbine. Wouldn't surprise me if it was. Some of the houses here have solar panels. BUT with all this energy conservation in energy and such they DO have their missteps. For example: Alot of their food is OVERLY packaged. They package individual fruit for crying out loud! Do you know how much waste that produces? Alot. The bananas I got seemed to be the cheapest fruit they had.

I honestly do not know how ppl avoid scurvy aside from the coccasional kuzu and other cold weather citrus.

Dietto!

Today we went to the mall. AEON mall isn't just any old mall however. It has a Grocery store in it..which is GREAT. I've been here less than a week but it feels like I'm at fat camp and we're all on diets. Not that I'm overweight or anything..not even close. But it's the SAME THING every day. Gohan, miso, ocha and then the really wierd stuff that I have no idea what it is. Gor breakfast it's always toast, gohan, miso and tea. And some wierd mishmash of bastardized American food. I don't touch it. I finally bought some real food. Ykno, fruits and vegetables. I swear..how the HELL do ppl not get scurvy?
In general Japanese people are tiny, waif like even and not just the girls. The guys too. They have no bum whatsoever. Although I did see a few chubby bunnies whilst I was traipsing through the mall. I was at a book store and there was this book dedicated entirely to crazy ways to get skinny. some of them were rediculous things like creams others were temporary things like control tops. Others were these meal plan boxes like "perfect body diet" or something wierd like that. Japanese women are obsessed with dieting. Even the school cafeteria has te Kcal underneath each food serving..wierd much? The worse part of it is, is that it's affecting some of th more selfconcious American students namely Jakurin(Jaquelyn). She's way to uptight. She's to afraid to talk to any of the Japanese male students (they are cute). But that's no reason NOT to talk to them. Second she's freaking out about her weight (she's not fat just average). She bought some diet version of a fruit smoothie. I couldn't help but snicker. It's rediculous. Besides, a better way to control your weight is to NOT buy Baskin Robbins ice cream(which she bought). DUH! Yes there is Baskin robbins in Japan. There is also a KFC, a McDonalds(which she bought) and some other American crap that I don't eat. Not because I'm on a "diet" but because I don't support cow rape, battery caged chickens..and um obesity and heart disease etc etc.
Even my roomate who is born and bred Japanese is chubby. Can you believe it? See not all Nihonjinn are skinny little toothpicks.

Suiden Suiden!(so many ricefields man!)

I finally Arrived at Akita after going through hell to get here. My flight at Dallas was pretty dang late. So when I arrived in Tokyo it was too late to catch the flight on account of th fact that you have to take a 75 minute bus ride from Narita Kuko no Haneda Kuko. They told me the next fligh wa at 8 am . So I ended up sleeping at the terminal with all my lugage. On account of the fact they said the flight was to early and they couldn't afford to put me up in a hotel. So I'm smelly and sleepy and it's very not fun since tokyo is SWELTERING!. Come Monday morning it turns out the flight has been pushed to 3 pm. TERRIFIC!. So instead of waiting for a flight that may or may not come I hopped the Train to shinigawa station.. THEN I had to switch over on a train that took me to tokyo terminal and THEN I had to wait on the Ungodly hot platform while I drank some Pocari sweat(Japanese Gatorade) to replenish all my electrolytes. Oh by the way some chick fainted and she was being taken away in a gurny. Another woman was being pushed around in a wheelchair because she must have been feeling light headed (she wasn't disabled or anything like that). So FINALLY the train came. Trains are always on time in japan ( side note: I missed the first train trying to carry my majorly heavy suitcase around. so I had to pay like another 70 dollars for a new ticket( The lady at the desk had really bad dermatitis). So I finally got on the train where I could relax (somewhat). I had been drinking all that (nasty) green tea to keep me alert. All I could think about was taking a shower. I finally arrived at Akita and I called a Cab. I didn't know the Cab ride was so costly. Akita is really up there in the hills and stuff. I paid like 60 bucks. Checking in a t the school was pretty quick and efficient. One of the guys helped take my stuff to my apartment. I was to tired and in NO condition to carry it any further. It's a nice apartment but the way it's set up. the rows of apartments look like a bunch of storage lockers at the Uhaul. The people at Komachi say it's terribly cramped in their dorms. I wouldn't know. I haven't seen them yet. I also have one of those magic toilets (The one with all the buttons and stuff) I don't know how do anything but flush it, that and make it so the toilet seat is warm enough to sit on when it's cold. The shower and bath are seperate from the toilet which in retrospect is really a good idea considering I'll have a roomate soon..when she gets here. For now I'm enojoying my solitude