Weekling

I guess from now on I'll start posting on at least a weekly basis, instead of on a daily basis.  Blogging about how your life has gone on a daily basis takes a little bit of time - precious time you could use to actually live more of that life.  Maybe someone else can just blog about me.  Or not.  Anyways, the past week was marked by post-Fuji tiredness.  "Tiredness is there."

As mentioned in past posts, TPU was closed until last Tuesday.  After coming home from Fuji on Saturday and taking a little visit to Tokyo on Sunday, Monday became nothing.  As in I woke up really, really late and slept relatively early; I only had one convenience-store meal at around 10pm.

Tuesday in Japanese is "kayobi;"  in my case it was "aikiyayobi" - IKEA day.  Left home a little past 11am, got to IKEA in time for queueing up at the IKEA restaurant for lunch.  I had a quite expensive lunch - nearly US$15 worth - but worth it, I guess.  I missed them swedish meatballs with the gravy and raspberry sauce.  I wanted IKEA's usual salmon but instead there was only marinated salmon (more like smoked salmon) which came with a few veggie leaves, and me being a Go-Grow-Glow guy, I had to get a couple of pieces of bread to go with it.  Whew, the bread was expensive.  US$ 1.20 for one, and US$ 0.60 for the other.  And there's a charge for the butter: 20 cents (20 yen).  Dang.  Well, it was all worth it, if only to experience a non-Japanese setting in Japan.  After that, I probably spent at least an hour or hour and a half at the showroom and marketplace.  I didn't really find much interesting.  Actually at the back of my mind, I was like, I'll buy only stuff that I could actually bring home to the Philippines that the Customs wouldn't charge me so much for!  After IKEA home stuff shopping, it was IKEA food shopping.  I bought IKEA-brand chocolate bars - one dark, one milk, and one hazelnut.  I've tried the dark one so far; I love dark chocolate the most and I liked IKEA's.  I do still like Meiji's dark chocolate, though.  Or Hershey's.  Anyways, I also brought home some ready-to-eat meatballs, and ready-to-eat potato gratin.  The potato gratin unfortunately got thawed on my way home!  IKEA itself is at least 80 minutes from my apartment.

Dinner for Tuesday evening was convenience store food, I think.  I also cooked Adobong Manok during the week, which I ate for dinner on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I ate the IKEA meatballs and potato gratin for lunch on the same day.  My 2nd try of Adobong Manok wasn't as great as the first, probably because I used different chicken parts this time, or maybe I just missed or over-seasoned with some ingredients.  But nonetheless, it was still yummy, as well as the IKEA food.  I didn't mind having the same lunch and dinner menu for three days.

On Friday we were supposed to play basketball but the basketball gym was closed, but we were able to play table tennis and so ping-ponging we did.  It was fun, we won a "betting" game (guess whose idea), and it wasn't as strenuous on my yet-to-fully-recover knees as basketball is.

For Saturday lunch, I forgot what I ate for lunch, but I think I still had some of the meatballs and potato gratin.  They are really yummy.  Did I mention they're a bit expensive though?  But I think it's not so bad.  I ate them with rice by the way and that's why they lasted 4 meals.  Oh yeah, I cheated by assuming potato as a Glow/veggie food. :D

Then there was our usual Saturday seminar.  I went to the seminar room at 2pm only to find out that it has been moved to 2:30pm!  And the presentations and discussions took quite a while this time.  We finished at 6:15pm!  For dinner, I had convenience store food again.  Torikatsu and a really huge burger patty.  A few days ago, I had a "yaki" trifecta from the convenience store: yakisoba (noodles, a Japanese-style pancit canton), okonomiyaki ("Japanese pancakes"), and takoyaki (octopus balls, a popular Japanese street/festival delicacy).  "Yaki" means grilled, but here, "grilled" means on a flat pan with a little bit of oil.  Think teppanyaki grill.  "Soba" means noodles, of course.  "Okono" means anything you want, but okonomiyaki that you did not cook by yourself usually just contains some vegetables, usually cabbage and onion.  "Tako" of course means octopus.

And then Sunday.  Woke up early enough and surprisingly a usual 1 hour 50 minute trip from my apartment to Meguro became a 1 hour 10 minute trip - I was too early for the 12 noon mass.  So I had brunch first at a place I am very familiar with - McDonald's.  Big Macs for only US$ 2.00 each!!!  The set though is still around US$ 5.50.  Have I told you I don't really like Big Macs?  I prefer Quarter Pounders to Big Macs.  Can't do without the tomato ketchup and onions.  I also like the pickle.  Then the mass.  My Filipino friends all had to go somewhere, and so I went back to Atsugi.  The first thing I did back at Atsugi was get a haircut. The lady barber cutting my hair asked me something in Japanese, pointing to my sideburns, and I replied yes. I thought she was asking if she can trim/cut it.  Apparently she was asking if she should leave it as is.  Oh well, this is the cheapest barbershop here.  US$ 10.00 for a haircut.  In 10 minutes.  After the haircut, I went to the secondhand store and got me a guitar!  It's a Yamaha CG-150, if I remember correctly.  It's a classical guitar.  This is the first time I will own a classical guitar.  And the first time I'll own a "real" guitar brand - a Yamaha.  But I still love my 14.5-year-old acoustic guitar.  Hmmm, I forgot now what my guitar brand is.  But it is made in Cebu, if I'm not mistaken.  Now I chose this Yamaha because it's the best among the cheapest priced ones.  It's another insurance investment for sanity while I wait for Mara to come here.

The guitar was too bulky, of course, and so I went back to the apartment first, cooled down (high was 34 degrees; cooler than Tuesday's and Wednesday's 37 and 36 degree highs - yes, and I was out during that day!), and then back to Hon-Atsugi with Ali-san to meet up with Okada-san to eat all we can shabu-shabu at Nabezo again.  $19 for a dinner buffet, drinks excluded.  Not a bad price for here in Japan.  And for the ambiance.  We again had beef, tofu, and lots of veggies and shrooms as main ingredients for our shabu-shabu.

I was "wa chuns lah" - very, very full.  But I still had to do grocery shopping.  I went to SATY then and bought 5kg rice, ~8 liters of fluids, around 1.5kg of meat, and some veggies and snacks.  That's around 14kg I carried from SATY, to the bus terminal, and finally to my apartment.  While I was carrying that heavy a bag, I thought, that must have helped me prepare for my Fuji trip - because I certainly did not feel the 12kg weight I carried then.  But, with that comes bad news as well.  My trusty TheNorthFace bag which I bought in Hanoi, Vietnam, has started to given in, probably because of that Fuji trip.  It is still useable though.  And oh I will still use it.  I don't think I'll be throwing this one away.  It was the only thing that was (physically) with me the whole 14 hours climb up and down Mt Fuji.

International Sunday

Last night, I slept again from 5pm to around 10pm.  I had my brunch of katsu-kari (curry with deep-fried pork cutlet or "tonkatsu") and some Japanese bento meal at ~3:10pm already.  Then I slept from 5pm to around 10pm.  I had a 6" "instant" pizza, and ice cream for dinner.  I slept at around 4am already, I think.  I woke up at around 12noon, but as expected I was a little too tired.  But surprisingly, I didn't have any real muscle or heel pain, not like just right after the climb.

Anyways, I was too tired even to prepare or buy lunch.  I just edited my videos from the Fuji trip and then whoah, it was 4:30pm already.  I had to go to the 5pm mass at the Atsugi Catholic Church.

I just found out that the videos on Multiply, where I have my Mt Fuji videos hosted, play only up to the 10:00 minute mark.  Yikes!  If you can find a way, download the whole video to your computer and watch it offline.  Alternatively, if you have a Facebook account, and I'm your friend there, you can watch it from these links:

Part 1. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=463002935927
Part 2. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=463007370927

I took the 4:50pm bus and made it in time for I think the Glory song - I wasn't sure because it was in a foreign language.  This 5pm mass is actually a special International Mass, in celebration of the feast of the Assumption today, the 15th of August.  Very interesting mass.  The 1st reading was in Portuguese, the Responsorial Psalm in Japanese, the 2nd reading in Spanish, the Gospel in English, and the homily in both English and Japanese.  The prayers of the faithful were in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Japanese, in that order.  The Our Father was in English.  The recessional song ("Santa Maria del Camino") was in Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, and Japanese.

Then after the mass, there was a little party.  There was my lunch!  God making lambing.  I was looking forward to this as well as this was a chance to meet some fellow Pinoys.  I approached one guy who was apparently with a rather large group of 20-something fellow Pinoys.  My opener was "Pinoy kayo?"  He said yes but he and his friends were too shy, the only thing I got out of him was that they are not from Atsugi itself, that they were all here on training for 1 year, but they did not arrive here all at the same time.  And then just like that, he said he had to go.  Okay.  On to my next Pinoy.  I approached a more mature group and then proceeded with my opener question to the lone man amongst the otherwise group of women.  He was a little more accommodating and was encouraging me to dig into the food before it all runs out.  I guess the difference between this group and the first group I approached was that the former is composed of people who are here or have been here for a long time (say 2 years or more).  I guess I belonged more to this group than the first.  Apparently, not many Filipino going to church here in Atsugi are from Atsugi!  Yikes, I wanna meet Pinoy Atsugi-ites!  Anyways, it's all good.  Finally I met the choir lead singer/organist, Rinna, and then she introduced me to a slightly younger group of 2-year or longer residents.  I also met and interacted with Nina, Mickey, and another lady.  Mickey is a 20-something student who graduated from Don Bosco Manda and is here with a Monbusho (Japanese ministry of education, etc) scholarship but haven't found a school yet so he's currently an English teacher; he's been here for 2 years.  As usual, these guys aren't from Atsugi!

Anyways, it was fun meeting them and I hope to see them again next time.  I just confirmed that there is indeed an English mass here in Atsugi also on the 1st Sunday of each month!  That is great news.

At the party, in addition to the sushi, pasta, fruits, and sausages, I had lechon manok, kutsinta, biko, and sopas.  Yummy, Filipino food!  I don't really like sopas, but serve me sopas here (once in a while) in Japan, and I can finish thehole batch you cooked.  I most especially loved the lechon manok.   Yum-to-the-nth-power-mee.  It was a pretty good lunch. :-D

I took off at around 7pm and went to KFC to buy my dinner for the next two days (6-piece chicken and "emu-saizu koru-suro" or M-size cole slaw).  I also passed by the convenience store to buy milk and juice.  Then back home.  I ate my dinner at around 9pm already.

Grocery+Mass+That's it

Too tired from the last two days.  But, I had to do grocery shopping.  And go to mass.  I went to AT by bicycle, and bought freshly made tempura with rice from the grocery for lunch supposedly.  But I didn't have time for lunch.  I then had to prepare and go to the 5pm mass at the Piarist Catholic Chapel near Komabatodaimae (Front of the Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo) station in Tokyo.  As usual, it was a short mass and I was a little late because I took the 3:50pm bus from the apartment.  I arrived during the 1st reading.  When I got home, I had the tempura for dinner.  And, because of the 3 straight days of exercise, I just had to sleep.  But wait, there's more!  Actually before sleeping, I marinated the ribs I bought in home-style BBQ sauce with ketchup, soy sauce, vinegar, pepper, sugar, and garlic.  I can tell it was yummy.  Can't wait to cook it.  I also bought furankufuruto (frankfurters) from the grocery.  Can't wait to eat this.

Where did my Sunday go?

Woke up really, really late - 2pm.  Caught the 3:50pm bus, just in time to make the 4:14pm train going to Komabatodaimae station for the 5pm English mass at the chapel, just less than a 5-minute walk from the Komabatodaimae station.  When I got to Hon-Atsugi station to board the train, it hit me.  I haven't eaten lunch yet!  It was going to be another 45 minutes travel going, plus the 30-minute mass before I can eat.  Can't wait!  So I grabbed me a chicken sandwich at BK.  Took me 15 minutes (including the wait)!  So now I was going to miss half the mass.  Oh well.

I tried doing my grocery shopping at the SATY (department store) basement this time around.  I noticed that the prices are generally more expensive (like the cheapest 1L of milk and 5kg of rice is 99 and 1850 yen respectively, versus 88 and 1650 yen respectively at Atsugi Trellis), and my bill was nearly 6000 yen (or around 4150 yen without the 5kg rice).  I guess overall it wasn't bad.  I didn't buy any breakfast or snack food though.  I did forget to buy tomatoes for cooking; I only got me some cherry tomatoes for a salad.  I am to prepare chicken adobo (my first time to), pork steak, and grilled salmon.  I'll eat these with veggies on the side, of course.  I bought pechay and some kind of lettuce, as well as the cherry tomatoes.  I didn't find any peeled and ready-to-eat, sweet baby carrots though I still have half a small pack of it at home.  Thankfully the bananas here (by Dole) are all not-so-ripe yet, unlike at AT were usually the bananas are good for only a day.

Today was hot as usual.  My inner shirt caught some sweat and I was not able to change shirts immediately when I got home; I almost caught a cold.  Good thing I noticed it early enough and so I changed when I did notice that I was about to catch a cold. The heat and humidity is really a little bothersome.

Of course I only cooked the adobo and the pork steak.  The grilled salmon is reserved for when I am about to eat them.  Which maybe the next day. :-D

Sunday, Bloody (Scorching Hot) Sunday

Was about to entitle this post Sunny Sunday, similar to a post I wrote months ago.  But that Sunday was a pleasantly sunny Sunday.  It was a welcome surprise amidst the cold, rainy spring days. But now it's summer and oh baby.  Daytime high today was 35 degrees.  That's the record high since the first time I've visited Japan.  In the coming nights, the nighttime low is as high as 26 degrees.  Another record high for me.

By the way, "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is a song by the world famous and legendary (i.e. now they're senior citizens) band, U2.

Anyways, woke up not so early.  I was able to take the 1:20pm bus, and so I arrived at Hon-Atsugi around 1:40pm, 20 minutes before the start of the mass.  Haven't eaten lunch yet so since I've been craving for real fried chicken (not the filleted chicken), I ate fried chicken.  Kentucky style. :-D  Actually I ordered one that comes with a chicken fillet sandwich.  The sizes are too small - 810 yen total.  So expensive!  I was so hungry, so I ordered a nana-pizu setto with koru-suro.  Figure that one out. :-D

Anywho, so off to mass I went.  The usual Filipinos there.  You know, those who see each other only during Sunday mass so they catch up, and they play with the very cute babies during mass.

After mass, I decided to go to the Smile Company, a second-hand (Tagalog: ukay-ukay) shop.  No wait, it's a mall (or department store)!  They have a 5-storey building along a national highway!  It was quite a long walk from Hon-Atsugi station, and this was around 3:30pm.  Scorching hot indeed.  It was interesting to find lots of... well, interesting stuff there.  Like a 980 yen (10 dollars, 500 pesos) guitar!  And iPod touch for only ~25,000 yen (250 dollars, 12500 pesos), nearly 40% off a brand new price.  There are some clothes that are just 100 yen (1 dollar, 50 pesos) each - but mostly women's or children's clothing.  The jeans - they were still in the 5,000 yen (50 dollars, 2,500 pesos)  range.  Yikes.  Clothes in general are way too expensive here.  My friend says you're lucky to find a shirt below 3,000 yen (30 dollars, 1,500 pesos) here.  I wanna buy an I (Heart) Tokyo (in Kanji) shirt!  Actually, I found some being sold online for only 2,685 yen plus shipping, it goes up above 3,000 yen.  Oh boy.  Maybe next time.

I also dropped by the 100-yen store, and saw an unfamiliar Pringles flavor.  Apparently it's a "Spareribs"-flavored Pringles, although it also shows the world-famous "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign.  (Well, it's not really that world-famous, but most Americans and Vegas tourists would know what I'm talking about.)  Let's see how it will taste.

Anywho, so today I cooked Nilaga, Ginisa (Giniling), and...  Lechon Kawali, at least the first part of it.  Midway through cooking Nilaga, I realized I didn't have enough black pepper and onions anymore so I made a quick trip to the convenience store.  While before I said it was unconveniently out of the way, now by bicycle it is quite near and more so because I found a really short (and not so slopey) route going there!  There was no crushed black pepper!  Big problem.  There was ground black pepper though.  Good enough.  And the onions I thought were too expensive.  Then I saw sliced onions in a pouch!  Scallions actually, more commonly known as spring onions.  I thought I should try it out.  So I bought it.

Can't wait to eat these foods! :-D

P.S. last night as I went to the convenience store to buy my dinner, I noticed that nearby there was some kind of celebration or something; they had tents set-up with lights, and there were some fireworks (I only heard them; no more fireworks when I got there).  On my way from the grocery, they were also setting up another kind of mini-festival; they have a truck that converts into a stage and there was someone singing (or rehearsing for her performance).  They have lots of celebrations during summer, usually with fireworks.  I heard that every first weekend of August there will be the largest fireworks display in Atsugi at one of its famous tourist spots, the Iiyama Kannon (a 10-minute bike ride from TPU!)  Actually it might be the only real tourist spot here in Atsugi.  They also have hot springs ("onsen") there.

Hangover

Well, no, I wasn't drunk last night, but "for my age," and not really being a regular drinker, it was a little bit more than I could take for the next day (today) to be normal and as if nothing happened yesterday.

Anyways, Windows Media Player has this problem of not playing playlists right away (which serves as my alarm) because it asks you if it is okay to "erase" the previous playlist with the new one, even if they're both the same.  And so my alarm didn't work and I woke up quite late; too late to get to the 12 noon mass in the 2-hour away Meguro area.  But actually I was also feeling a little bit like, I want to rest some more!  Anyhow, I had to go to mass and so, without having eaten lunch yet, I left home and took the 3:20pm bus.

I got to Hon-Atsugi and suddenly I felt the hunger so I had me a quick, whopping meal. :-D  I got to Komabatodaimae (that translates to "In front of Todai/Tokyo Daigaku/University of Tokyo, Komaba campus") station at just before 5pm.  Took me a little while walking, then I got in time for the Gloria part of the 5pm mass at the Piarist Catholic Chapel.  The mass finished at only a little past 5:30pm.  Wow.  So it took me 1 hour & 40+ minutes coming here, attended a 30-minute mass, and took another hour and 40 minutes going home.  I didn't ever think I'd be commuting that long this regularly!  In the Philippines, while traffic is slow, I usually travel only an hour and a half at most, particularly when I haven't yet found the "optimum" route, though usually it comes to around just an hour or less when you use the train system.  Of course this is no comparison to my situation back in the Philippines were I lived in Metro Manila and worked and went to mass also in Metro Manila.  Here I'm like in faraway, provincial Bulacan and I have to go to mass in Metro Manila.

Anyways, on the way home I dropped by the grocery store to buy my food for the week.  I was planning to buy salmon for grilling, as well as side veggies (pechay and carrots), and pork adobo and pork nilaga.  Alas, there was no more ribs/buto-buto part for the nilaga, so I just ended up buying... steak. :-D  I bought a little extra side veggies to go with my soon-to-be-grilled steak.  :-D  Not bad actually - each piece of meat that sells for around 180 pesos at a nothing-fancy restaurant in the Philippines, costs me only around 125 pesos here.  Of course I have to do the cooking, and if you have to consider my current hourly professional rate, then it is a very expensive......  nevermind. :-D

I also bought pizza for dinner.  Ate it with ground black pepper and Tabasco.  Yummy.  Oh, and today was generally rainy, and my umbrella, which I bought for around 300 pesos (6 dollars) in Singapore is now starting to show some signs of ageing.  I better get me a new umbrella!

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.

O tanjoubi desu

Kyo wa boku no tanjoubi desu.  Today's my birthday!  And almost everything I planned to do today, I was able to do. As well as some that I didn't plan to do.  I planned on having lunch at Denny's but because I was running late for mass, I didn't push through with it.  Instead I thought of having a quick "snack" of Whopper Jr - but I regret not getting a Whopper instead which was just 80 yen more expensive (610 vs 690 yen meal set cost).  Anyways, I am thankful that the English mass here in Atsugi is on the 3rd Sunday of each month - very near my birthday week and in fact today, exactly on my birthday.

After mass I went to get a haircut at the Hon-Atsugi station's "QB cuts" - 1000 yen for 10 minutes.  For just 500 pesos (1000 yen, $10), you get a no-frills haircut in 10 minutes.  It's the cheapest haircut you can get anywhere in Japan, or at least in or around Tokyo.  Actually, the haircut itself takes 10 minutes, but the wait takes a long time.  I was the 8th in line when I got there which meant around a 20 minute or so wait.  One of my fellow students said he tried getting a haircut there, but the girl who cut his hair only told him "study Japanese first."  I was afraid of being told the same thing, so I came prepared.  I brought with me a picture of me with the haircut I wanted.  Midway through the haircut, it was looking good, just as I had hoped, and even better.  But I think the girl haircutter was trying to even up the haircut (but my head surface isn't even) and so in the end, it ended up a little shorter than what I had hoped for.  That's what you get for only 500 pesos / 1000 yen / $10.

Right after mass I went back to Atsugi Trellis where I left my bicycle earlier, and did some grocery shopping. Total bill was over 5000 yen.  I bought me a pizza, another Japanese-style one, with shrimp, sliced tomatoes, onions, and... eggs!  I ate it for dinner.  Nice.  While I was eating I was also cooking.  I prepared 3 dishes: nilagang baboy, tinolang manok, and adobong baboy.  For the tinola, the usual ingredient is green papaya, but I can't find any so an alternative would have been to use sayote or chayote.  I wasn't sure what it looked like, and I wasn't sure if there were any here and what is its Japanese name, but I found something that didn't look like cucumber and so I thought it might be sayote.  While slicing it I thought, oh no, this looks like cucumber.  But after cooking, it looked like sayote!  The tinola looks like the real thing...  Hopefully it tastes like the real thing.  One other ingredient that I wasn't able to use was chili plant leaves (dahon ng sili) so I settled with using chili itself.  For the nilaga, I had so much veggies!  Which is a good thing of course.  But this time, I used tanlad (lemon grass) instead of onions.  Midway through the boiling, I thought, "oh no, is this beef I bought, and not pork???"  But anyway, it looks more like pork than beef.  Great!  Although, I wouldn't have minded if I bought beef instead.  The adobo looks great as well.

This day was so packed and I was so tired, I didn't have time to pass by school anymore.  But I am very thankful for a new year in my life, and for all the blessings that have come and are to come my way.

Meguro Church, Tokyo!

I was supposed to attend an event in Tokyo today, particularly at the Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo.  The event starts 9am and will be until 5pm.  That meant I have to get the 7:20am bus to get there on time.  That meant I had to be up 6:30am latest.  I've never been up that early here!

But I did try, and I had my alarms set at 6:30am...  To no avail.  I woke up at 7am but got up at... 8am!  I was ready to leave at 9am.  The latest I would arrive at the event venue would be 11am.  I would miss the Sunday mass at the venue.  I cancelled my trip there.  Instead I took the 10:20am bus to get to Meguro Church.  I got to the church around 12:10pm already!  Almost a two hour trip!  (Inclusive of the waiting for the trains, and the walking.)

Anyways, this is by far the largest church I've been to since coming here.  More Filipinos as expected.  But also more non-Filipino foreigners.  And like in the mass I attended in Tachikawa, there was a baptism ceremony for two adults and one very cute little girl, as well as a First Communion ceremony for the two newly baptized Catholic adults.  Of course, it's Pentecost Sunday so the priest was wearing a red vestment. :-)

I also met up with Prof Germar, one of my master's thesis advisers, at the church.  And after mass we saw some of my former undergrad schoolmates from UP (also BS Civil Engineering grads) who are now taking their PhD, masters, or working here in Japan.  We decided to have (late) lunch together at this "Italian" place (I'm sure my Italian colleagues here in TPU would disagree), but actually what I like about that place is that it's tabehodai (eat-all-you-can/buffet).  The second thing I like about the place is that it can be as cheap as just 1000 yen for a buffet lunch meal!  Of course, I like that it's Italian.  I like fresh green salads with Italian dressing.  And Caesar salad with grilled chicken.  There was also "spicy" chicken nuggets, and a few other yummy stuff.  Just a few.  There was only one pasta dish on the buffet menu.  Overall, it's not great but... it's great (for me)!  Oh, but I have one complaint about the place though I would understand why they do it: they have very small plates for the buffet!  Each plate was just probably 6 inches in diameter.  So imagine how many trips I had to make!

On my way home, I dropped by the Atsugi Basu Senta (bus center) to look for the ramen place I used to visit 5 years ago with my colleagues back then (who have since earned their PhD degrees).  It was closed!  I don't know if it was only closed on Sundays or open only at certain times but...  Well there's one less place to visit.

By the way, it was rainy the whole day.  A little cool but not so cold - people were wearing plain t-shirts still.  Daytime high was just 21 degrees.

For dinner I cooked my own rice yet again, and ate siomai (Tagalog for Chinese dumplings) dipped in Kikkoman soy sauce, some side veggies, some takoyaki, and a banana.  The frozen takoyaki doesn't come close to being like the freshly prepared ones.  But it was a hearty meal.  Thank God for all the blessings.

P.S.  Last night before I drank my milk and went to sleep, I made one bowl of sinigang soup - I brought with me some Knorr Sabaw ng Sinigang (or is it Mama Sita Sinigang Mix?), dropped about a teaspoon into a bowl of hot water, and voila.  Didn't taste the same as the real thing though, maybe because there's no pork, veggies (most specially onions and tomatoes!), and fish sauce in there which add to the overall flavor of the real deal.  Oh well, I loved it nonetheless.  Thank God indeed for all the blessings.  :-)

Laundry, Bike, Mass, Grocery

Woke up quite early and did my laundry.  I think I should do my laundry weekly, at least for my colored clothes.  The washing machine is too small for 2 weeks worth of my colored clothes.  It was sun-shiny the whole day.  Yay!

Lunch was my own cooked rice, and this Okra dish and this mixed fried stuff (sausage, burger, chicken, hashbrowns) I bought from our friendly neighbourhood convenience store.

Then I went by bike to the Atsugi Trellis (or AT), but only just to park there.  I took the bus going to downtown Atsugi, then walked as usual to the Atsugi Catholic Church.  I hesitated on bring my bike all the way to the church because I didn't know if there are areas particularly in downtown Atsugi where bikes are not allowed.  I think there might not be any.  Anyways, it's also a 30-minute bike ride from home to the church.  Quite long.  It's downhill going there, but it's uphill coming back!  So by parking the bike midway, it wasn't as tiring, and at the same time I saved around 90 pesos in bus fare!  Actually, me not being used to riding the bike, my knees are feeling a little tired even after just 15-minute bike rides to AT (and another 15 back)!

Then Mass.  I learned that the priest's name is something like Father Brunsfield or something.  There were battalions of Filipinos in church today.  Most churches here don't have weekly masses in English, so many Filipinos tend to attend mass in different churches.  I think a lot of the people in attendance today were from outside of Atsugi.  Anyways, the usual "issues" you would encounter in the Philippines: you can actually HEAR people "whispering," friends who see each other only once a week so they "catch up" on each other's stories, and then lots of babies crying, and toddlers and early elementary school kids running around... during the mass!  I think the priest noticed the unusually noisy crowd today and asked to have a moment of silence after communion.  Didn't work.  My theory: English is not the Filipino's first language!  It didn't register.  The priest was too kind to not insist on the moment of silence, or to ask everyone to keep the noise down if not totally out.  If I had another choice, I wouldn't attend mass there again!  While I try my best to listen to the readings and the homily and to all the prayers, it can be really distracting.  Specially in such a small church.

One other thing I noticed was that many songs were unfamiliar.  Personally I knew "As The Deer" and "You Shall Be Clothed in Power from On High," but I don't think the others knew those songs.  I didn't know many of the other songs.  And then, like the choir in Tachikawa, the choir doesn't adjust to the situation.  Back in Tachikawa, the song ended already but the guitarists kept on playing; they insisted the song should end in the way they think it should or in the (only) way they know how.  Unnecessarily took up people's time.  When you are leading people into prayer or a choir and a people into song, you stay aware of what's happening.  You don't just pray.  You don't just play the music and sing.  Anyways, of course I will still attend mass in Atsugi during the 3rd Sunday of the month.  In fact, I would really like it if there were masses in English every Sunday in Atsugi!  Oh and as usual, the priest briefly spoke in Japanese during his homily, to the ~three or more locals present.

Anyways, so back to AT I went.  Bike's still there.  Great!  And I dropped by my favorite store - the 100-yen store - and bought a couple of pitchers.  On my previous visit I bought these filters you attach to the faucet.  From what I know, tap water here is safe to drink.  Whenever I drink straight from the tap, I don't have any problems at all.  But I noticed that when I refrigerate tap water and drink it later, there's some kind of smell and taste that comes out.  I thought it was just the container...  But it was really bad!  But when I started to use that filter - no more of that bad taste and smell.  So now I plan to store water in the fridge in the new pitcher I bought.  Actually the other pitcher, I will use for making iced green tea.

How to make iced green tea: steep one green tea bag in a mug of hot water for around 3 to 5 minutes, remove the tea bag, put the green tea in a 1 liter pitcher, add water and ice until you have a liter of green tea, then add 1 teaspoon of brown sugar (or to taste).  Voila!  Tastes like C2.  I'm excited about this.  I've done this before.  Now, I can save on some vending machine expenses. :-D

Anyways, so I did my groceries and only had this on my list: banana, ketchup, and juice.  And then the "difficult" part about doing the groceries: you tend to buy more than what you listed!  But it's not that I won't consume these other things I bought.  I bought my dinner for tonight: sushi, teriyaki chicken, cherry tomatoes on the sides, and banana.  But actually I also bought my dinner for the succeeding nights: ready-to-heat-then-eat takoyaki balls, pizza, side veggies, shrimp cake, and... I forgot what else.  There are so much interesting stuff here, food-wise, and not just the usual Japanese food, but also Japanese-style food.  Like their desserts and stuff.  Last night actually I had this interesting ice cream sandwich that cost around $1.30 equivalently.  Yummy.  Very, very yummy.

Well the plus side about all this is that my refrigerator isn't so lonely anymore...  (Yeah right!)  Ehehehe. :-D

And then so I got home, took my hung-dry clothes inside the apartment (but I didn't fold them yet - I don't know if they're all dry already), packed some rice and then ate dinner here at my desk.  Yikes, the biking today and yesterday is really draining, but I welcome it because I think it's good for my health.  I hope to bike more regularly!

That's it for now.  Time to chat with my love. :-D

Success?

Unfortunately no...

I got up early enough.  Had brunch of canned tuna and banana and my cooked rice.  Left early enough.  I got to the Minami-Rinkan station early enough.  I got to the Yamato Church early enough for the, supposedly 1:30pm mass, or at least according to this, this, this, and this.  Sigh, and I thought the Philippines was so behind when it comes to website updating.  I can't read Japanese but apparently the masses there are at 10:00, so that means I have to leave home 8:30am next time.  I have to look for another church to go to for my 2nd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of the month.  Well, I look forward to mass again in the Atsugi Catholic Church next week.  So...  No communion for me, but I resort instead to this for a homily.  It comes out a day late though because it's from a church in the US and it's already Monday here in East Asia when it is Sunday there and when the video comes out.

The area around the church and the Minami-Rinkan station is much like a developed sub-urban place ("probinsya," in Filipino colloquial terms), but it is just like Tokyo: mostly flat and mostly 2-storey homes and only a very small part where there are many commercial and tall buildings, very clean, well paved roads, disciplined pedestrians, very few moving cars relative to the number of people.  I saw a KFC there right outside the station.

Anyways, I was feeling tired so I decided to just go back to Atsugi.  I still have to buy groceries, and I wanted to look for an ATM machine where I can probably use my Philippines-based ATM card.  Could be expensive though.  My ATM card is Cirrus/Maestro/MasterCard affiliated.  I had no luck in downtown Atsugi; all the ATMs I saw there only accept Visa and Diner's Club and AmEx and some Japanese ATM networks.  I only discovered that there's a Burger King, Mister Donut, and Baskin & Robbins.

And then after dropping off my groceries at home, I went straight to school and had dinner here - my own cooked rice, and grilled squid and salad I bought at the grocery store.  And banana.  What a no-day.  But thankfully I am all safe and have something to eat.

By the way, I also subscribed to http://www.dailygospel.org/ so I regularly receive the daily readings. :-)

Seminar Day

Woke up late, and had brunch for lunch.  Spanish-style sardines and my own cooked rice.  Attended the seminar at 2pm but it finished early, before 4pm.  I then dropped by the mini-library to look at the available references there.  I tried a coffee vending machine; one shot: 70 yen.  Not bad.  Actually I tried only the Nescafe brand.  The Japanese brands like UCC are 100 yen!  Ehehe.  I'll try them next time.

By the way, yesterday while I was about to take a shower, I discovered that I left the gas line on and probably the fire burning for around 24 hours for my shower's water heater!  Thank God nothing happened.  I really don't like this having to manually turn on and off the gas line; I'm just not used to it.  But yeah, I should get used to it.  Other than the risk, my concern now is...  I wonder how much my gas bill is!

So, Sunday again tomorrow and it's my first 2nd Sunday of the month.  So I had to look for another church.  I found that the 2nd nearest church could be just 50 minutes away from my apartment: the Yamato Catholic Church.  Unfortunately it doesn't anymore have or I can't find its official website, so I can't confirm the actual English mass schedule.  So I'll try anyway.  Based on other websites, their English mass schedules are at 1:30pm every 2nd and 4th Sunday, and maybe a Tagalog mass at 1:30pm every 5th Sunday.  I might just frequent this church, except of course on the 3rd Sundays of the month when I will go to the Atsugi Catholic Church (just 30 minutes away), on the 1st Sundays of the month when I might go to the churches in Hiratsuka or Fujisawa (over an hour away), if I am going to the nearest IKEA I might as well go to mass at the home of the Yokohama Diocese in Sacred Heart Cathedral (also known as Yamate Church), and if I am going to Tokyo anyway so I might as well go to one of the churches in Tokyo.

When in Tokyo I might not go to Tachikawa again; it just too far.  The shortest commute times would be to the church near Yotsuya (where I heard, many Filipinos are regulars) and near the Todai (Tokyo Daigaku = University of Tokyo) Komaba Campus.  I could go to the church in Meguro to meet up with my college friend, Coy, though she's staying here only until August I think.  Or in Kichijoji or Roppongi.  Many choices in Tokyo; the catch is it's at least an hour and 30 minutes away on average.  But for these places I'm considering, they're just within 15 minutes from Shinjuku.

I prepared this matrix to help me decide which churches to go to:

Hopefully the schedules don't change and this could help fellow Filipinos and/or other English-speaking people find the nearest church from around here in Atsugi.

For dinner I'll just buy ready-to-heat, freshly-prepared meat and vegetable ulam to accompany my rice.  Oh and I should not forget to get some bananas!

Whew, Watta Day!

Got up early, did my laundry - whites, colors, and whites that have stains.  Then left them to dry.  I was too late to get to the 12pm mass in Meguro to meet up with a friend from college, Coy, who is taking her masters in Public Administration (or something like that).  I left TPU at around 12:30pm, took lunch in Hon-Atsugi, then off to a route I have never taken before.  I got off at Noborito, transfered to the JR Nanbu (train) Line, and got down at Tachikawa.  Then it was a 10-minute walk to the church.  The Google Maps directions led me to the back of the church, so I walked around one block to get to the front.  I arrived at the church at 3:15pm, in time for the Alleluia before the Gospel reading.

Anyways, of course the mass was in English.  The priest was Caucasian, but I don't know where he is from, but if I did not know that he was Caucasian, I would've thought he was Filipino because of his English accent.  Interesting.  Like the previous English-speaking (but apparently from a non-English-speaking country) priest, he was fluent in Japanese, and gave his homily also in Japanese - to this Japanese guy.  Apparently that Japanese guy, an adult, was getting baptized that day.  I loved that scene.  It was also his first communion day!  "Omedetō gozaimasu ne!"  (Literally, "Congratulations [to him], right/eh?")  It was really cool.  I wanted to take a video but... well I regret not taking a video.  Oh well.


His baptism rights were right after the homily, and it was given by the priest in Japanese.  After that, the priest was continuing with the mass... in Japanese!  He momentarily forgot it was an English mass.  But of course, back to English it was.


As expected, most of the mass attendees as well as the choir there were Filipino.  3 guitar players in the choir.  Then one "egg (mini maracas) shaker."  Maybe 6 singers.  And there was a drum-box drummer.  I liked the choir at the Atsugi Catholic Church better... :-D


But unexpectedly, I heard 3 Filipino songs in the mass - "Si Kristo ay gunitain..."  "Kordero ng Diyos na nagaalis..."  and...  I forgot the 3rd one, but it was a communion song.  I don't know if any of the songs during the early part of the mass were also in Tagalog.  The "Our Father" is a version we sing in the Philippines; I don't think it is sung elsewhere where there aren't that many Filipinos.  "We Remember" was also sung.  As well as "Take and Receive," and for the Recessional Song it was "For God So Loved the World," I think is the title.


Anyways, the mass finished at around 4:15pm and I had to meet up with Coy at 5pm in Harajuku.  I got to Harajuku at 5:30pm already!  That church is that far!  Approximately 2 hours from my apartment (2.5 hours with some time for eating), and approximately 1.25 hours to Central Tokyo.  It was probably 45 km from my apartment, and around 25 km to Central Tokyo.  It was probably 45 km from Central Tokyo to my apartment.  (In case you don't know yet, it's just a 2-minute walk from my place to my school. :-D)


So I met Coy, and the first thing we did was go to Softbank to ask about their mobile phones.  I got a plan with a 2-year contract for ZERO monthly rate, and also I pay ZERO for the phone itself, because I am a student, and because I used my credit card.  Credit card to pay for what?  Anyways, the ZERO monthly rate, which is normally 980 JPY monthly, is what they call the "White Plan," which allows FREE same-network calls and texts (i.e. Softbank to Softbank users) between 1am and 9pm.  Not bad!  But then there's the catch.  The phone itself doesn't come with a charger!  So I had to pay to get one.  JPY 1155.  Okay, not bad.  That is practically what I paid for the phone.  PHP 500!  (By the way, 100 JPY = 1 USD, approximately, so 1 JPY = 1 US cent).  And another catch is, or at least that's what I think it is, is that I have to enroll my account for mobile internet services, which is 315 (or was it 350) JPY monthly.  Minimum.  Still not bad.  So technically I'm paying 350 monthly.  But actually once I use the internet, there will be charges.  Yikes!  *self-control*  But there's a cap though, so in case I use the internet excessively, I won't pay hundreds of thousands of cents.


But anyway, my mission was accomplished.  Get the cheapest phone and cheapest monthly rate, using a phone company that most of my fellow students also subscribe to so that our calls to each other are free, and now I am able to make emergency calls when needed, and people can call me when needed, and in case I am lost I can access the internet and take a look at maps and so on.  I really hope I don't need to make emergency calls.  I also set my billing to be automatically charged to my credit card so, no worries there.  I'll be paying hopefully just JPY 315 or 350 monthly, or PHP 160 or USD 3.50 equivalently.


Actually I had a choice between a nice looking phone model and this model that I got which has....  TV!  Chance to learn Nihongo!  Ehehehe.


Anyways, it took us probably an hour at Softbank.  Next stop was dinner.  But we also passed by Takeshita-Dori (Takeshita Street) which is the popular teenage hangout street in Harajuku.  Coy bought something at this women's socks (i.e. also print/colored stockings) place.  Yikes, I forgot the name.  Interesting looking "socks" though.  Expensive if you ask my Philippines-based how-much-things-should-be standard.  We also passed by The GAP.


Dinner was at this ramen place.  I forgot the name!  Anyways, Coy says it's her favorite eating place in Harajuku, and then the ramen we ordered, said Coy, is one of the more popular ones from the long list of different types of ramen (i.e. different ingredients).  And indeed it was delicious.  I forgot the name!  But there was pork in it, and it was a little creamy - maybe with milk or butter?  The pork also, was so tender.  I loved it.


Coy and I left Harajuku at around 8:20pm - so I was just in time to catch the last bus, 1.5 hours later, from Hon-Atsugi back to school.


What a day.  Yay to Sundays! :-)

Ran Day

So this post is late again.  Strike two.

One good thing today: the weather was pleasant, sunny and clear skies, not so cold, just perfect "air-conditioner" weather.  Day-time high was ~19 degrees.

But it wasn't my day.  Now on to the bad stuff:

1. I woke up surprisingly very late - around 11am!  Apparently my alarm was set to alarm only on weekdays, I think.  Well actually it was good that I got some rest, but I might be late for the mass!  Then...
2. I missed the bus by a few (say 5) minutes, and the next bus would arrive not until after 30 minutes!  If only I were a few minutes earlier, I would have made it to the 2pm mass just in time, and maybe even slightly earlier!  So now I'm probably 35 minutes late!  Buses are 30 minutes apart on Sundays.  This was a day I wish I had already bought/gotten a bicycle!
3. Anyway, so what I did was, because halfway along the bus route to Hon-Atsugi, a second bus route comes along so the bus frequency increases (maybe every 10 minutes).
4. So I ran for 30 minutes to get to the halfway point of my bus route.  Alas, 5 minutes earlier, I saw the other bus line a kilometer away already.  Pointless running!?  Well, of course, the exercise was good, and as I said it was a pleasant day to be outside...
5. Problem was, I was not able to change shirts not until I got home...  Which caused a little sneezing.  (Just a little.)  And, this was the first time I was exposed to low humidity + cool temperature, and so it was also the first time I felt my lips really dry up!  But anyhow, good thing I had lip balm with me.
6. When I got to the church, I was probably 15 or 20 minutes late, it was homily already.  Guess what.  The mass was in Spanish!  That was bad, but not so bad, so I thought I had to worry about #1 to #5 above when in fact I was too early for the English mass!
7. So I asked one of the Japanese there "Eigo de kyo wa nan ji desu ka?" which literally should translate to something like "Today what time is in English?"  She checked and said "Kyo wa eigo de nai desu!" which meant "There is no English (mass) today!"  Argh!  So anyway, there I was in a Spanish mass in Japan.  I know some Spanish but it was still difficult to understand...  Oh well.
8. And then my computer just suddenly crashed.  I was working on something and then boom!  Blue screen of death.  I tried all sorts of things - starting in Safe Mode, etc, reinstalling the OS, and so on, but to no avail.  Goodbye, files.  Anyway, my diagnosis was that it was a memory problem, and surprisingly the onboard BIOS has a Diagnostics tool and it also made the same diagnosis....  
9. Sigh, no Skype date for tonight with Mara.  Actually I could use my laptop but because I did not bring it to school and it was getting late already, I thought I would just call it a night.  What a day.

Anyways, I also did what hopefully would be my last day for home-stuff shopping...  At Daiso.  Actually before going to Daiso, I went around this "department" store or mall where there's a shoe place, Eddie Bauer, Uni Qlo (apparently a popular Japanese casual clothes brand, like Gap), and many more.  There's this store that sells furniture, home stuff, some clothes, some school and office stuff - that I immediately fell in love with.  Japanese, minimalist design for everyday stuff.  Similar to IKEA, and I like IKEA, but I like that with this brand there is just one color theme, neutrals - white, wood/birch, silver, black - and so I don't have to mix and match and all that.  If I bought all my stuff from this store, I could achieve a really nice design for my interiors.  Of course...  The prices are generally on the expensive side, except maybe for some notebooks - comparing with those I found at the school store.  Or maybe I was looking at a different size that's why it was cheaper there than at the school store.  What is the name of the place?  I don't know, the store sign is in Japanese, but I think there's a branch of the store in Singapore but I forgot the name.  I think it's MUJI. :-)

Today also marks the first day I used my rice cooker.  The night before I asked for help from Kim-san, the Korean PhD student, on how to use it.

And also today I bought from the supermarket what looked like Yakitori, 6 sticks of it...  And then I found out that 3 out of the 6 sticks are all chicken skin and chicken fat.  Yummy but, unhealthy.  Oh well.  No, I didn't eat most of it.

Sun Day!

It's Sun Day today, a sunny Sunday indeed.  Temperature was as high as 17 degrees but because of sunshine it feels like 21 degrees, as reported by Accuweather.com.  Itinerary: Downtown Atsugi, lunch at some western fastfood joint, attend Mass, buy stuff for the home at the 100-Yen Store, and buy ready-to-eat freshly cooked dinner at discounted prices just before closing time at the supermarket.  % Completion: 100%.  Yay!

I was supposed to eat at McDonald's but when I got down at Hon-Atsugi (Central/Downtown Atsugi), the first place I saw was KFC.  I wondered where McDonald's was, later I found out I remembered its location wrong.  It was somewhere else, where upon seeing it now I remember!  The KFC here do not serve rice.  Awww.  But the food was good, like how KFC should be.  Their chicken fillet sandwich tastes better and is larger than the Manila counterpart.  Actually I didn't know it was their chicken fillet sandwich when I ordered, until I saw it!  They didn't provide any utensils so I'm not sure if I was supposed to eat the chicken with my hands.  I just used the paper napkins to hold the chicken.  It was a breast part.  I didn't really get to choose, but maybe it was the default with the meal/combo I ordered.

And then...  Mass!  Just last night I found out that there was a Catholic Church in Atsugi.  How very convenient.  As expected, lots of kababayans.  The priest was Caucasian, but apparently not American.  The music min and lector/commentator are Filipino.  We sung "Still" as a communion song and "My Life Is In You" as the last song.  Actually I'm considering joining the music min when I'm settled down.  They have practices Thursdays from 5:30-7:00pm.  Unfortunately I'm packed with lectures on Thursdays, and I think our official time-off is 5:30pm so I can't make it on time.  We'll see.  Hopefully I can join on the Thursday after next.

And then the 100-yen store.  I went to the one on the 3rd floor of Atsugi Trellis, where the supermarket is on the 1st floor.  Walang sinabi ang Daiso sa Philippines or Singapore; these 100-yen stores here in Japan are huge and has a huge collection of stuff.  I could've just bought my "lakwatsa"/travel bag here instead of buying one in the Philippines.  Generally cheaper here also - 105 yen for the basic items (5 yen for the tax), so roughly under 50 pesos only, compared with 88 pesos in the Philippines and around 66 pesos or more in Singapore.  Well this is where it started.

Last year when I first went to this same store, I just knew it was a 100-yen store from the sign, but I didn't understand the prices.  One would say 100 and 105, 200 and 210, and so on.  But I couldn't find the Yen sign that I'm familiar with (Y with double strikeouts).  The Japanese sign for the Yen is actually different from what we are all familiar with.  It's like a...  badminton net with one leg bent.  Get the picture?  Ehehe.  So now you know.  :-D

And I went again to the supermarket at around 7:20pm.  The freshly prepared food were 20% off already, but only a few choices left.  I picked up one sushi roll (actually a maki with cucumber, egg, tofu, mushrooms, and seaweeds in the inside) and one bunch of deep fried shrimps, similar to the ones they once offered at KFC in the Philippines.  It was like worth P16 per shrimp; not bad.  I got a couple of other food items, and when it was around 7:30pm when I heard an announcement.  When I was about to check out, I noticed the freshly-prepared food items are now 30% off!  But the stuff I got were the last ones so, no, it wasn't like I could've saved a few Yen more.  Phew!

Well that's about my day.  Using Skype again to chat with the love of my life.  Ja mata.

P.S. I hope to post photos soon.  By the way, I was able to buy this prepaid card called "PASMO" for use at buses, trains, and some stores, just like the EZ-Link card in Singapore.  And I was able to use it already when riding the bus.  Bus trip here by the way is roughly 80 pesos for a 10-minute trip, 117 pesos for a 15-minute trip.  Yikes!

P.P.S. I learned about the Atsugi Catholic Church by doing a search on Google, and then going to this site: http://catholicinjapan.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/atsugi-chruch/