October 25th, 2001. My first (legitimate) day off work.

This morning, I woke up feeling pretty down. No doubt it has something to do with the fact that I cannot get a good night's sleep. I wake up choking and gasping for breath at least two or three times through the night. I am starting to think that I should buy a mask to sleep with.

Anyway, I went to the local internet cafe (The Deep) to check my email and what do I find? 29 new messages from my friends and family! I was so happy, I could have burst right then and there. Thanks guys. You are the best!

I must have spent about an hour there just reading and writing back to people. I would have stayed longer, but I was running out of money. Man, I really need to get a phone line in this place so that I can get online. After I left The Deep, I felt so good that I ran straight to the supermarket and loaded up. Here I am cooking and eating. I got my appetite back! Woo hoo!


 

Making noodles. See all that garbage behind me? You probably think that I am some sort of slob because it's all piling up. I'd gladly throw it all out, but the Japanese have this really weird system of garbage disposal. See in Canada, you just throw all your trash in one bag and take it out to the curb the night before (or the morning of, if you are lazy/forgetful) pick up day.

But here, you can't do that. You have to first separate all your trash into burnable, unburnable, paper, metal and plastic. And they are all collected on separate days. When I say "separate days" I don't mean they take one item every Monday, another on Tues, etc. It's more like, the burnables are collected every second thursday from months that begin with vowels, and every third thursday for the other months. Plastic is only collected if Saturn is aligned with Mars.

So what happens if you throw out the wrong thing one day? Simple. Your friendly Japanese neighbours will root through the trash bag in search of something with your name on it and bring it all back to you. Guess how I know this.

Japanese food is all about presentation. The package, seemingly, is more important than the product. Well, I have tried to pick up this skill and apply it to my bowl of beef noodles.

It's a smiley face, see?

I spent so much effort preparing my Happy Noodles that I don't want to eat it just yet. Perhaps I will play around on my laptop for a while first. My Happy Noodles are still a little too hot anyway.

I just stuck my thumb into the bowl to check the temperature and it seems ok. Time to chow down.

The taste isn't bad, but I think I prefer my mom's cooking. I don't know how she does it, but she can even make instant noodles taste good. Wish she was here now.
 

I need a haircut. Badly. This is me psyching myself up to venture out to find a barber. Even the most trivial tasks here are an ordeal. I am thinking that it's going to take at least half an hour of charades and broken English/Japanese for me to explain how I want my hair cut, and even then, it's still going to look funny.

Hey something just occurred to me. Japan is going through a mad cow scare right now. Aw crap.