
Today, I missed a very important playoff game. The Canucks beat the Kings to advance to the 2nd round of the playoffs. However, Brian and I managed to get me a temporary gaijin card, while waiting for my real one to be ready within a month. The gaijin card is necessary in Japan to get important documents done, and to do simple things like open a bank account. The friendly ward staff spoke english and also helped us make the temporary card and provided us help in finding a Inkan shop. An Inkan is like a signature, except it is a stamp with you name on it. The Inkan staff told the ward staff that it would take 1 hour to make when the Inkan master returned in 4 hours. That pretty much meant there would be no chance I would be making a bank account today. It was alright though, so we went to the Inkan store to order the stamp. We both ordered one and paid our 1200 yen. Brian said that his last stamp took 2 weeks and costed 4000 yen to make, so this was a bargain. Afterwards, we biked home and I got to rest, make lunch and wash my clothes. Then when Brian was free again we went to pick up our stamp, before heading back out to Animate by the JR station. We bought misc goods before heading back out to meet Akim, Brian’s German friend. We proceeded to the local instrument shop in Osu, which had fantastic deals ($99 new Bass guitars, $2 guitar cables, $3 guitar cases) and then went to eat at Denny’s. We spoke about misc things at Denny including Berlitz. Akim then left while Brian and I went to the local arcade to play UFO catcher and Jubeat. Jubeat was new to me, and it seems like Konamii’s new DDR replacement. I rather like the game and how it can be difficult and fun. There are essentially squares that you have to hit in front of you that match up to the beat of a song. It reminds me a lot of Hatsune Miku’s PSP game, but with a greater variety of artists and songs. We played well into 11 P.M. before we headed home for some much needed rest before work tomorrow.
I kinda miss my training buddies Elissa (seems like all of Berlitz knows Elissa, even Akim knows her) and Matthew. We spent so much time together in the past week, around 8 hours a day together, having lunch and dinner together, its makes me feel kinda sad. However, I have new friends in Hanna, Brian, as well as my roommate, who are always close by at Sakae and here at Freebell.