At least today I did something.

By far, today was the most beautiful day I have seen in Japan. Sunny, clear, not humid, nice breeze. Pretty much perfect. I had to get up early because I decided to not waste the day (since yesterday was so wasteful it was actually more exhausting than a normal day) and go to this picnic with her Japanese school class. Last night I didn't actually go to bed til incredibly late, as usual, so I barely woke up. And the water she gave me to drink with my onigiri (she just refilled this used plastic bottle) tasted like it had some kind of cleaning chemical mixed into it. I didn't drink it.

So at first, this excursion seemed like the worst decision I've made in Japan since that one time I told the hairdresser "yeah, you can do some work on my eyebrows". It was a bunch of foreigners - the slouching 20 year-old guy from that one eastern bloc country who seemed completely devoid of self-esteem was by far the most awkward - from asian and middle-eastern countries, with a couple random europeans tossed in. And with the exception of literally 3 other people, they were all either adults or the small children of the adults. So like I said, not exactly my crowd. And on top of that, I was tired and the picnic took all day. But it ended up being pretty fun to get out and get some fresh air. And the place we went to, Yakurai-san, was really beautiful with gardens and open fields. Of course, places like that are a dime-a-dozen back home in California, but when you're in the Japanese plastic and concrete jungle, you take what you can get. I met one Japanese teacher in particular who was pretty cool and really funny, and this girl from Nepal I sat next to on the way home is really interesting. She is my age and is dating some Japanese guy she met when he came to Nepal to visit and now she is living with him in Sendai and between them, neither speaks the other's language fluently! So she speaks a mix of Nepalese, broken English, and even more broken Japanese, and he speaks Japanese, broken english, and even more broken Nepalese. I don't get it, but hey, if they're happy ... (i'm not sure if the people and language of Nepal is properly called Nepalese or Nepali. For those of you from Nepal reading this, I apologize for my ignorance).

Tonight I'm moving in! Lots of shit to get done. No motivation. And no idea how to cook food for myself! This is going to be interesting. I'll have internet regularly again in maybe 2 weeks. So updates will become infrequent for awhile...