Leaning Tower of Pizza Boxes! These aren't all mine so don't get any ideas! This is how much pizza we've had between the three Americans in the past week though, and I still have two boxes in my fridge to add to that pile later...
I didn't have much to do school wise today so I got up at 8 AM and kind of lazed around until Steve got up and suggested we go to the bookstore. It's aptly named "Book Off" while I could probably make some vulgar jokes about this Steve stopped me and told me of a hardware store...that's right, named "Hard Off" which is pretty much a joke in itself.
The bookstore was two levels and the first level was comprised of videogames, cds (lots of American music in there), and manga. I believe the second floor was more traditional texts such as fiction and nonfiction reading.
For those who don't know Manga is basically Japanese comic books that are done in black and white due to the fact coloring is an incredibly tedious process and this allows for quick release of a series. Now this sounds nerdy but I assure you while I was in Tokyo even a middle aged business man could be seen reading manga. Unlike comic books manga genres range from fantasy, to action, to love stores, and then even slice of life. I found four volumes of manga in the 100 yen section and one newer volume that ended costing me a total of about 7 bucks. When I say volume it's not like a twenty page issue of Spider-man it's about 200 pages per volume. I bought three volumes of a series called Amon about a boy who has been possessed by a demon during the end of times and struggles to take control of himself in a decaying future. Then I got one volume of Majin Devil, which only had one volume because the artist ended up getting a deal on another of his series, it's almost the same premise as Amon yet set in current times and takes a twist on what Vampires could be, and I actually read this one in English a few years ago in the states.
Lastly, I got one of my favorite manga which is supposedly being made into a movie in American called Berserk which takes place in medieval times in a fictional place. The setup is that this guy, Gutts (actually Gattsu if pronounced phonetically from the manga), goes through a horrible series of events during his childhood (including prostituted out at one point to another man) that ends up hardening him to the core, but find a group of friends that ends up taking a liking to him and he settles in. Later the leader of said group of friends, Griffith, betrays his commrades in arms by agreeing to let them be the sacrifice to demons so that he can gain God like power. The main character, Gutts, ends up surviving the sacrifice but is branded for life and evil will always seek after him, a women they both cared about also survives but is traumatized to the point she's completely insane (she was raped by Griffith during the sacrifice). So it's basically a story of revenge in which Gutts travels the world in order to find Griffith although as powerful as he may be now and enact revenge on him. It's a very cool anti-hero story and while Gutts is a typical badass who wields a sword larger than himself he has many layers as does the story itself. If done right in America it could possibly be one of the best action movies made. However, we know this won't happen, therefore I'm going to hunt down the writer of the manga and make him sign over the movie rights to me...
After buying manga we rode back to campus where we met a group of students from Australia to go to a picnic across town. We rode our bikes for about 4 miles or so on the other side of town to where we were treated to my first view of Fuji. I ate fries (very popular item here in Japan and sold hot at most convenient stores) as well as katsudon (basically chicken nuggets), and Pocky for dessert! After eating one of the girls threw out a blanket and we just relaxed and talked about things we like and how horribly racist Corbin is. After chilling out for an hour or so we hopped back on our bikes and road around the park to see what was there. It was very clean and a very nice place to relax. We took a side road and found some cool looking decor outside of a home on a hill, but Kofu was the opposite way so we turned the caravan around and headed back towards the dorm.
After what seemed like the infinite bike ride we made it back and I had a thought to go to the onsen up the road, but no sooner did I think that Steve said we'd be leaving for it in 10 min. So we grabbed our bathing necesities and hopped down to the onsen again. I weighed myself again after all that work and then sitting in hot water which made me lose more water weight now doubt, and I weighed in at about 180 lbs. Hopefully I'll hit my goal of 175 soon and then I can start working out again and perhaps gain back what little muscle mass I once had a few years ago.
The bike ride back from the onsen is almost as refreshing as the onsen itself because it's completely downhill on bike the whole way back and gives the body a nice breeze to cool down with. So after getting back to the dorm I figured out a way to get points on my xbox live account with my sister's help. Now I can once again buy songs for RB2 which I love doing. Thanks Kim and the first song I got with a few of those points was of course "Under the Bridge" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers's album "Blood, Sex, Sugar, Magic". Kim was the one that originally got me into them years ago and now they're one of my favorite bands, too bad I never got to see them in concert though. Who knows though...maybe they'll be in Japan sometime!
Paying my deposit on my dorm tomorrow and activating my national health insurance card here (a whopping 20 bucks a month for uber awesome health care!). More over I need to study for my placement exam which I will no doubt do horrible on Monday...
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