Brian’s Japan Adventure

March 14th, 2008

I’ve Been Restored

I woke up without an alarm at 9:30 this morning.  That’s barely six hours of sleep after yesterday’s adventure. I’ll probably pay for that this evening.  I had Dad drive me to the hair place, where I quickly lost 10 pounds of hair. Still, I look almost civilized now without my “wild hair.”  We then went to the license bureau. The guy there took one look at my old license and asked my “Did you get caught?” indicating the long-expired license. I explained the story, but he wasn’t surprised; I assume it happens all the time. So now I was all cleaned up and legally restored. What Next? Do you really have to ask?

Lunch Time. All Issues Resolved!

Then it was lunch time. You guessed it; Chipotle. I had the steak burrito with black beans, hot sauce, sour cream, cheese and lettuce.  Dad had the same thing only the “bowl” version. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!  Or as they say in Japan, oishi! If Chipotle ever goes to Japan, it’ll revolutionize dining there.  I should buy stock in them.  Chipotle is located in front of Wal-Mart, so as long as we were there, it was time to visit the source of all evil, also known as Wal-Mart, America’s answer to China.

I looked at cell phones. My old one barely held a charge before I left, and I don’t expect it to last long now, if it even works; I haven’t tried it yet.  I picked up a gazillion brochures on rate plans, and I’ll look over them later. I also wanted to check out Skype accessories; I had seen dozens of Skype phones and accessories at Bic Camera in Okayama and wanted to see what was available here.  They had one lousy microphone headset.  I’ll have to try Best Buy or Circuit City. It seems that CompUSA has gone bankrupt in my absence.  I picked up a few grocery items, but I really don’t even know what I need yet, so we didn’t stay long. The cell phone brochures were the real reason for going.

And I was surprised to see that gas was $3.35 a gallon.  It was in the mid-$2.50 range when I left. That’s a pretty big jump in only six months. I think maybe I really will look at bicycles; there isn’t that much nearby, but over a long enugh period of time, it might still be worthwhile. My parents took my car to get checked up and looked over by my cousin the expert mechanic, and it was something like $300 for a whole bunch of repairs and replacements.  He knew I wanted to drive it some distance within the next month, so he went over everything.  But anyway, my car is here and supposedly ready-to-go, although I haven’t gone anywhere in it yet.

And that was the morning.  It’s about 3:00 now and I am back home.  I have yet to unpack, and I know my brother’s family wants me to have dinner tonight, although I don’t know where or when just yet. I have a ton of things around the house to clean up and unpack and set up, so I’m not about to get bored.  And that’s all just for tonight. I assume I’ll be ready for bed pretty early tonight, dunno yet.  More later!

I started to unpack soon after writing the previous stuff, and just as I was finishing my unpacking, the phone rang.  My brother and nephew would be meeting us for dinner, since my sister-in-law and niece had to go to a rehearsal for a play she’s in. I’m not sur if I am going to the play tomorrow or not, since it’s going to be an all-day ordeal and more than an hour each way. I’d like to go, but I do have a bunch of stuff that still needs to be done. I dunno yet.

Anyway, we went to Bob Evans, but I was busy talking to my nephew and since it was only a few hours since lunch, I didn’t order anything. We colored and talked about his favorite movie, and he said how much he missed me about 200 times. It was fun.  I imagine when he tells his sister that he saw me and she didn’t, there’s going to be hell to pay. Hopefully my brother will put him to bed before the other two come home.

Since Bob Evans is near Wal-Mart, I needed another trip to look at cell phones, but still didn’t buy one. I’m going to have to research things a little more. Now I am going to be indecisive over that.

And I think that’s going to be it for today.  I did some good stuff, but not really a lot of things; there’s plenty more to do.  It’s after 9pm.  I’m going to play online for an hour, then watch the latest episode of LOST, and then try to get to bed at a time appropriate for Dayton. Maybe I can beat the jet-lag boogeyman if I just don’t give it any foothold. Read my lips: No New Naps!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.