{"id":26,"date":"2007-10-25T23:36:23","date_gmt":"2007-10-26T04:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/?p=26"},"modified":"2014-08-18T17:18:05","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T22:18:05","slug":"me-and-the-buttbuster-9000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"Touring Around Okazaki"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fun day today. I got back on the ol’ Buttbuster 9000 and did some touring around Okazaki. I’m going to miss that bike… okay, no, not really.<\/span><\/p>\n

I managed to send about 20 lbs. worth of stuff home for only about $60. Fortunately, it’s all stuff I won’t need for the next 8-10 weeks, because that’s how long surface mail takes. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sending stuff from Japan is so much easier than the US. The customs form is built into the giant address label you fill out.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I stopped by a book store. I’ve been trying to find the Doraemon Kanji Dictionary<\/em>, but with no luck in Okazaki. I guess I’ll have to try again in Kyoto or Tokyo. <\/span><\/p>\n

To explain briefly, Doraemon is a cartoon robot space cat from the future with no ears, and kind of reminds me of Stimpy from “Ren n’ Stimpy,” except Doraemon is actually sort of smart. He gets involved in wacky scenarios trying to save a useless boy from his own stupidity and sloth.<\/span><\/p>\n

I want the dictionary for various reasons, but there is an actual educational purpose in it… well, okay, the real reason is that it seems that everyone at Yamasa has this dictionary, and everyone says that it’s useful. My curiosity has been piqued.<\/span><\/p>\n

If I can find it cheap somewhere, I’ll grab a copy.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I managed to get a room in Hiroshima for the 30th and the 31st. I want to visit the Peace Museum and then visit the islands outside of Hiroshima. I haven’t been able to get a room in Nara yet, but I’m not too worried.<\/span><\/p>\n

I keep forgetting to take pictures of the restaurant that serves suppon<\/em>, or snapping turtle. I think it’s around 5,000 yen for one snapping turtle meal. I guess it’s one of those “It’s a delicacy” things? I think I heard somewhere that certain bits are an aphrodisiac (why else would anyone eat a turtle?)<\/p>\n

Those Aren’t Churches<\/h3>\n

After class, I did some more bike touring, and I saw this row of these huge churches… that aren’t churches at all. They’re wedding halls. Apparently they love church-like buildings for weddings here. It was too dark to get a picture off, and I was kind of distracted. Trying to stay on that bike is hard enough with two hands.<\/p>\n

I also went and bought some underwear. They even have foreigner sizes now. I guess the Japanese are starting to get a little chunky like the rest of us, huh? The people at the store were very nice, they even offered me a point card, but I don’t think I’ll need it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I almost forgot the best part of underwear shopping: Sissy underwear for men. Yes, that’s the brand name. Sissy. Yeah, wear those to school in the States, I dare you. Yikes.<\/p>\n

Then I went to the local Book-off.\u00c2\u00a0 (A used book store chain.) It took me a while, but I think I finally figured out how to find books in bookstores… sort of? It’s hard, because my kanji is still too weak to find some of the trickier names. I probably don’t need to be buying books yet anyway. I’d just load up and then have to lug them all over the country.<\/p>\n

All I Do Is Sleep and Eat…<\/h3>\n

Nearby was Kappa Sushi, which has 105 yen\/plate sushi. There are these rows and rows of conveyor belts, with a bar on one side, and booths on the other, and there are 4-5 rows like that. Then there’s a little call box at the table, and you press the button and order stuff if you need beer or tea or something not on the conveyor belt. I got out of there for 840 yen. Not bad. I had a juice box of “Hello Kitty Apple Juice.” Not by choice. I just didn’t feel like tea or beer.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I went back to the dorm and napped for a bit, then went to Zig Zag later in the evening for my last trip there. I’m going to miss this place. I know I had some difficulties at first, but it has really started to grow on me. Maybe I can come back again sometime and work on my Japanese some more. I think I’d like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tomorrow is going to be nuts. I have to check out, return the bike, pack, and get to Kyoto. Oh, and I still have classes, too.<\/p>\n

I should have Internet in Kyoto, so if I get some downtime, I’ll try to upload more pictures.<\/p>\n

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fun day today. I got back on the ol’ Buttbuster 9000 and did some touring around Okazaki. I’m going to miss that bike… okay, no, not really. I managed to send about 20 lbs. worth of stuff home for only about $60. Fortunately, it’s all stuff I won’t need for the next 8-10 weeks, because […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[148,23,204,203,894,827,15,100,895,205],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan-trip","category-travel","tag-bicycle","tag-books","tag-dictionary","tag-doraemon","tag-japan-trip","tag-japan2007","tag-kanji","tag-okazaki","tag-travel","tag-wedding-hall","category-3-id","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\/26","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=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/1526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}