cold, windy day

I still haven't adjusted to the time zone yet. I woke up at 6am this morning and couldn't fall asleep afterward, so after lying there for nearly two hours, I finally gave up and got up to shower. Then, in the middle of the day today, I was suddenly really exhausted and just wanted to fall asleep.

I left two hours early to go meet Max, since I wasn't confident in my ability to get to Roppongi Hills, and it was probably a good thing I did, even though I had about half an hour left before we said we'd meet. First of all, when I got to the bus stop, I couldn't figure out the bus schedule, even though I knew what nearly all of it said. The way it was set up was just confusing. I waited for what felt like a long time, and started getting really cold, and then when one bus came, I got on and asked the driver if he was going to my stop, and he told me the next bus would. Sure enough, the number finally matched up with what I wanted. I of course missed my stop because I forgot that the buttons you press light up after you press, and not when you're allowed to press them. I just got off at the next stop, though, and it was no problem. I found Roppongi Hills just fine as well, but I had half an hour to kill before Max would show up, so I went into the West Walk and got a Strawberry and Banana juice from Starbucks because I was really thirsty...and it was SO windy outside! It was like a wind tunnel, and when I walked out of the building, the wind literally pushed me back. It was also so loud that my ears hurt. I saw three different people lose their hats, haha.

Max brought a Korean friend with him (I honestly can't remember his name, and I feel really bad about that), and he was really nice. I've never met such a polite guy before. He was explaining that in Korea, it is very normal for guys to hold doors open for girls and let girls do things first, and always make sure they're all right...things like that. I'd heard something about that before, when watching a Japanese interview of DongBangShinKi, but I thought they were exaggerating. Anyway, Max's friend was very funny, too. Every time he decided that he was putting too much effort into figuring out how to say something, he would go, "Nevermind!" He said he loved that expression, and Max warned him to not say it too often.

First we went up to the 52nd floor of the building at Roppongi Hills to look at all of Tokyo. We could see all the way out to the harbor, and then all the way to the mountains. The first picture here makes Tokyo Tower look a lot taller than it is, I think. When I'm at campus, which is really close to Tokyo Tower, it's really easy to lose when it disappears behind a building.

The gallery we went to was very cool. Some of the work was average, but most of it was awesome. For instance, one artist used all neon colors to make these really intricate acrylic paintings, and another used stacked slides to make 3-D images of things like leaves, water, people, etc. Another used tons of metal drills and plates and cylinders to make what looked like a futuristic city.

After the gallery, we went to Shibuya, where we had lunch because it was past 2pm and I was starving. We went into this Italian restuarant and had personal pizzas that were apparently baked with beer? I'm really not sure, but I tasted it in the pizza. It didn't taste bad, but my radars went off, lol. I couldn't finish the whole thing, and both Max and his friend were happy to finish it for me. Once we had lunch, we went to Shibuya 109 to get my boots, but there were no black ones left, and even though I tried on the brown ones in their "large" size, they were too narrow. How did I know that was going to happen? Oh well.

We looked around for a bit, but they wanted to go to Harajuku at 4 , and I wanted to get home, so Max helped me get a train ticket back to Jiyugaoka. The train ride was fine, even with the change-over at Futako-tamagawa, but I then I got lost walking back. It was so frustrating, because all the fancy huge houses look the same to me with their stucco walls, flower bushes and gates infront of their expensive cars. I retraced my steps back to the station and then found my way, but I was really cold, tired and not in a good mood by the time I got back to my apartment. Emily's not here right now, so it's kind of lonely, but at least it's warm in here.

This is my apartment, standing in the front door shoe area. To the left is the toilet room, to the right is the shower/bath room, then there's the kitchen (with the trash separated into "combustible" and "non-combustible" by the wall), and then the bedroom, followed by the terrace. It's small, but I like it. I'm also happy about having the bottom bunk since I had the top all last semester at Marlboro.