旅行しています

I'm in Morioka! After the insanity of the speech contest / IS presentations / final exams / goodbye party and the like, I hit the road. First a few days in Nick's apartment in Tokyo, then to Morioka until the 13th. Then I'll be back to Tokyo for a night in a capsule hotel before I hop a plane home on the 14th.

In short, the past couple of days have been too silly/improbable to be real. Speedy bare summary-
SATURDAY
~Arrive in Tokyo: steal a key to Nick's apartment while he finished his final presentation elsewhere
~Adventure to Asakusa, buy some sweet omiyage for family, and a jinbe coat for myself
~Meet a small hoarde of Yalies on the subway. (Seriously?)
~Meet up with Nick, adventure out to Nishi-Shinjuku-Nichoume, a marvelously sketchy place. Hahaha. Buy sketchy omiyage for Kelvin.
SUNDAY
~Go to Ikebukuro. Objectify cats at the cat cafe.
~Go to Akihabara. Objectify women at the maid cafe.
~Fan-made manga, used electronics stores, cheapest and/or most questionable anime I've ever purchased
MONDAY
~Help Sun Academy kids move out of their apartments, go out for western styled pizza. (I miss New Haven!)
~Almost leave behind my bag on the subway. Say whew, that was close, let's not do that again.
~Actually leave behind my bag as we board the bullet train. EPIC FAIL.

So I'll be roughing it a few days... we got the station to find my bag and hold it till I'm back in Tokyo (free storage! WOOOOO). I probably would have been able to manage on my own eventually, with lots of miscommunication and frustration, but it was very nice to have the language competency and moral support of Nick on my side. Until then, I have my wallet, my passport, my dictionary, my DS, my compy, and a lot of anime. I lucked out in that I have everything essential with me, but nothing comfortable (IE CLOTHES). The cable connecting my camera and PC is with the lost bag, so you get none of the pretty pictures of Tokyo. BOOO.

Really looking forward to coming home, but a few days of chill, clothes-less travel time will be a good way to debrief. The summer had its positive points but also its share of challenges and frustrations- going over these with my infinitely wiser suitemate who faced many of the same things will be helpful.