Perhaps that's because I'm sleeping during the day and wide awake during the night.
This whole time change thing has me extremely off kilter. I went to bed at about 5 pm last night and woke up at about midnight. It's now 7 am local time, and I'm wide awake... still.
But I am sure I will adapt.. eventually.
I took my first trip around town yesterday. It's freezing cold, but a super cute town.
It's so similar to American towns, but for every similarity there is a striking reality that it's nothing like home.
We stopped into the electronics store to pick up an adapter for my computer, and I was shocked to see the sticker prices on appliances. For 300,000 yen you can have your very own refrigerator/freezer... which comes out to about 4,000 USD. Cameras and small electronics were much less expensive. Nice cameras run for about $80 or less.
We have to grocery shop just about every day to keep the apartment stocked with food. The refrigerator is very small... about chest height on me. I'm pretty sure I could lift it.
The grocery store was not what I would have expected at all. It's not this humid, dirt-floor market with dead animals hanging from the ceiling. It could have been a Winn-Dixie for all I knew. Except everything was in Japanese and I didn't know what 90 percent of the items were.
There were octopus legs, which were purple, and carrots the size of a paper towel insert. Not quite ready to get too adventurous, we selected some kind of sprouts, soba noodles and Japanese ice cream, which is nothing like the American version.. at least not the kind I bought.
The whole shopping process is somewhat different from in the states. There's no one to bag your groceries, and you have to purchase your own plastic bags. The cashier rings up your items and puts them back in your basket, then you bring it to this table where you load everything up into the bags. I always liked bagging my own groceries, to be honest.
They also sell complete dinners, just like your neighborhood Publix, and Ray has become quite fond of them (surprise, surprise.) He picked us out some chicken katsu (his favorite), which came with rice covered in some kind of seed. A delicious dinner.
I don't know that it was quite as good as lunch, which Ray made at home. Gyōza (ギョーザ, ギョウザ) is a Japanese version of Chinese dumplings. It's meat or veggies (in our case, meat) wrapped in a rice-type dough and boiled. Amazing. I hope to learn these recipes and take them home to the states... too good to leave here!
We tried to see Mt. Fuji from the rooftop, but the weather wasn't quite cooperating. In the absence of clouds, you can see Fuji clear over the horizon just to the west of the town. The entire city sits somewhat in a valley. I found out we can hike Mt. Tsukuba, which has twin peaks and a restaurant on top. It takes about 6 hours to hike up and down. There's also a running trail that cuts through the city that I hope to explore one of these days.. if my knee ever decides to recover. I may rent a bike... less stress.
We're meeting up with a couple of Ray's friends today to tour and explore Tsukuba in detail. I have no idea what there is to see or do here. Tomorrow, Christmas Day, we'll check out a church for a Christmas service and most likely head to Tokyo.
Being a Buddhist/Shinto, Japan doesn't celebrate Christmas as a national holiday, so everything will be open-but decorated. They celebrate the "fun" parts- gift giving and Santa Claus, and that's about it.
New Year's is their big holiday (not to be confused with Chinese New Year.. that's different), so I am looking forward to that.
The sun is up and the gym is finally open... the boredom of sitting and waiting for the sun to rise has ended!