Toukyou

When you spell out Tokyo in Hiragana, and then romanize it, it comes out actually as toukyou.  Basically the two instances of "O" in Tokyo are supposed to be long "O" sounds, thus the "u".

Got up around 9am this Sunday, took the 10:20am bus, and I got to Meguro church a little late as usual, this time during the responsorial psalm.  After that, my Tokyo-based Filipino friends/colleagues and I ate lunch at Plates & E.A.T., the "Italian" tabehodai (buffet/eat-all-you-can) place nearby again.  But it is so cheap, by Japanese standards - just 1000 yen with a chicken Caesar salad or minestrone soup.  But I took the 1300 yen option that comes with a Margherita pizza (though pasta or a Shrimp and Broccoli pizza was another option).

After that, one of my friends had to get a haircut, and so off they went.  As for me, I went around Shinjuku before heading home.  I went this time to another side of Shinjuku and saw a demonstration rally of Japanese who are opposed to keeping the American military bases in Okinawa.  I also went to the GAP store there because signs outside said "Final sale, upto 50% off," which translated means "You really want to come here."  It was really so tempting to buy something, but I didn't find anything I could use.  They have shirts that are just 900 yen - my friend says you are lucky to find shirts below 3000 yen here.  But, I thought I have better uses for my money.

When I got to the station, I missed the express train.  The next train was a rapid express train though that is headed to Fujisawa (and not to Odawara, my direct train), that was leaving 20 minutes later.  I got to sit there and guess what.  That train I took eventually caught up with the first train that I missed.  By the way, "express" train means it skips some stations, so it's fast particularly when you're travelling rather long distances.  And "rapid express" means it skips a lot of stations, and so it's even much faster.

When I got to Atsugi, I went around the SATY department store a bit, to checkout the bicycles again.  I think last week, they were on sale - the 15800 yen was 12800 only - but I wasn't sure.  This time, no sign of any bicycles "on sale."  So I thought, what the heck, I'm ready for a 15800 yen bicycle.  One other thing I had to think about was what color should I get.  The most common color is silver and I thought if I had a very distinct color bicycle, it might be more attractive to bicycle stealers.  Yup, although very, very, very rarely, bicycle stealing could happen.

Last stop was the grocery - I had to buy rice.  Some ice cream were on sale, almost 50% off.  So I bought a couple.  One ice cream is around 125 yen, and they were now just around 65 yen I think.  By the way, "one ice cream" here is a conservative single serving (almost like just one scoop).  They don't come in pint sizes or larger.

Dinner was picadillo.  Yummy.