April 10th, 2002. C'mon. Do the Monkey with Me.

The day came and went while I was still in bed.

It's my day off today and what better way to spend it than staring at my fingers, bored out of my mind. I hate the fact that I'm wasting my time here, especially since I'm leaving soon, but some days you just don't want to move. The day wasn't a total waste, I listened to all my jazz cds.

Twice.

Tokyo is a cool place, and when I stop to think about it, I can hardly believe that I have been living here for the past half-year. Before I came, I had a vision of what it would be like to live in Japan. I thought that I would be surrounded by really eccentric, funky people, well versed in karate, electronica and weird art. Instead, I find myself surrounded by other disillusioned westerners.

I got sick of being in my room at about 8pm, so I threw a sweatshirt over my wifebeater and went out for a walk around the neighbourhood. There are multitudes of small sides streets here, leading in every which direction. They twist and turn and go in circles, but there are no indicators anywhere to direct you. The streets are unnamed and there aren't any "you are here" signs with big red arrows on it. All navigation must be done based on memory alone. I have a terrible memory.

As I was stalking around the neighbourhood, I thought that I would duck into the local supermarket and buy some dill. Most establishments close at 8pm here, so I was forced to go to the Tokyu store, which charges ridiculous prices because it's the only one open past 8pm within a 7 mile radius. I'd never do any serious shopping here, but even if they marked up dill prices by 100%, it'd only cost me 200 yen.

I was about to step in when I caught sight of a nutjob student standing in the entrance, talking to someone she cornered. I made the mistake of accepting a sub shift at the Miyazakidai school (the local Nova school) a few months back, and met Crazy Yumi. She's pretty harmless, but will trap you and just talk/stare at you for a while. "Disturbing" isn't the word for it. Perhaps "macabre" would be better, minus the death stigma. Someone really needs to up her lithium doses.

Crazy Yumi is immune to body language and you practically need the Jaws of Life to get out of her grips once she has you. They told me to humour her at the Miyazakidai school, but I'm not paid to be nice outside of working hours. So I returned home empty-handed and had some rather disappointing salmon.

There are few activities I enjoy more than watching cartoons, the whole night through. Just finished with Batman and Superman, and I've got Johnny Bravo on the tube right now. I hated this show back home, but here, it's gold.

This new wave of cartoons, aimed at adults rather than children are great. They allow you to live out your childhood again, but don't bore you with tired cliches and one liners. The Cartoon Network: The epitome of late night programming.