Yesterday was kind of a blur, but I still remember what I was doing.<\/p>\n
I slept in until 8:30, ate breakfast with my SO’s folks, and set out for Book Off<\/strong> at around 10 a.m. I probably spent two hours there, just looking at books. All kinds of books. I was looking for some inexpensive light novels, some books about business etiquette, maybe some manga, anything, really, that was cheap and interesting.<\/p>\n I found four books on business manners, and a textbook that teaches business Japanese through role playing. That last one was a bit pricey, but it looks really interesting. The other books were cheap– $9 or so. Considering I’d usually pay three times as much, it was a bargain.<\/p>\n I carried my backpack with me for carrying any books I bought. I learned that in Japan. Backpacks rule for carrying heavy stuff, just make sure they don’t open up on you. Mine did that in Book Off. That was slightly embarrassing.<\/p>\n The Manhattan Book Off has a pretty good selection, but don’t expect to find that obscure book you’ve been searching for there.<\/p>\n Done with Book Off, I walked over to Kinokuniya <\/strong>again, because I didn’t get to spend as much time there as I wanted to yesterday. I looked at some more business books, and wound up getting a good book on keigo by Kotoba no Oji-san (sorry, that’s I how I know him), a book on Embarrassing Japanese (things people say in Japanese that are just bad Japanese, according to the authors), a book of business e-mail expressions, and a book on how to write proper business letters.<\/p>\n I also found a novel to read for later.<\/p>\n While I was in the basement, I found their stationery store. I love Japanese stationery stores. There’s so much interesting stuff to look at, I could easily lose track of time there. I didn’t. But I did find a good brush roll for my calligraphy brushes. The one I have is getting a little too full of brushes, and I picked up 500 sheets of A4 copy\/printer paper, so I can send of A4 stuff if I need to. (I’ve been looking for that!)<\/p>\n A lot of the stuff I went to the trouble to buy in Japan, I could have just bought at Kinokuniya.<\/strong><\/p>\n That made me want to facepalm a bit.<\/p>\n Okay, a lot<\/em>.<\/p>\n But at least now I know where to get all of this stuff. I wish they had an online stationery store. That would be great.<\/p>\n I headed back to the apartment, because I needed to hit the road soon, but I decided to stop off at Frank’s Pizza <\/strong>on 23rd Street to get a bite. Frank’s has good, fast cheese pizza, New York style, which is my favorite. It’s what I grew up on.<\/p>\n Frank’s pizza is great, but I burned the hell out of my tongue. I should have been more patient and given it a chance to cool, but I felt like I was in a hurry, so I roasted my tongue pretty good.<\/p>\n Pain aside, that was good pizza. But it’s hot.<\/p>\n I also had a genuine New York Experience. A guy walked into the store, which is kind of small to begin with, and started barking and howling like a dog. No idea why. That’s just New York for you.<\/p>\n With a lot of help, I got my car loaded up and I left the apartment building at around 3:30 p.m. If I didn’t stop for anything, I might make it home by 12:30. I got an e-mail from one potential employer who was interested in me, and wanted my English resume as soon as possible, so I didn’t want to spend the night on the road.<\/p>\n The traffic around the Holland Tunnel was heavy, so I didn’t get to the Turnpike until 4:30. I had to skip Mitsuwa. Sorry Sis, I’ll buy it online for you.<\/p>\n Traffic was pretty smooth all the way to Baltimore. I saw another photo speed zone, and saw the camera catch a guy ahead of me, so I made sure I pegged it at 55. I don’t want a ticket.<\/p>\n It’s a long drive to NC from NYC. While I was in Virginia, I noticed that at some point, those three yellow lights on the dashboard finally went out. So whatever it was either fixed itself or fell off of the car.<\/p>\n I got home around 1:30 a.m., and got unpacked by about 3.<\/p>\n I slept like a log after that.<\/p>\n All in all, it was a very good trip, and very productive. I’ll have to wait and see how it pans out with the various companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I ran around Manhattan and checked out Book Off and Kinokuniya, then burned my tongue on good pizza at Frank’s. After that, I high-tailed it back home. I got back in around 1:30 a.m., and got to bed at 3. Oof.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[573,23,899,25,542,895],"class_list":["post-1239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-book-off","tag-books","tag-food","tag-kinokuniya","tag-shopping","tag-travel","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1239"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1263,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions\/1263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}HOT!<\/h3>\n