Man in a Kilt

Let's start where I left off. The cooking lesson was pretty fun. It was my roommate, two other guys, a Japanese woman, and me. Out of all the Americans, I was the only one who knew at all how to cook. It was pretty sad, but we muddled through it. We made Chinese-style cold Soba noodles with tomato tofu salad and a little spinach side dish. The noodles had thinly sliced Japanese cucumber, omelette/egg, and ham, the salad had tomatoes and tofu (duh) and a sesame dressing, while the spinach was boiled and mixed with some ground sesame seed and sugar. It was interesting. The noodles and spinach tasted really good, but the salad didn't have much taste. After the food settled a bit, Rob, Eric, Alan, and I went to Al Plaza and hit McDonald's (at 5ish, a while after eating at noon...). We didn't really do anything there, but I did get to play one game of Taiko no Tatsujin, the Taiko Drum video game. I'll get pictures of it sometime.. Probably. For the rest of the night I studied, because I slacked off during the day and played. On Wednesday, I passed on the proposed bike ride to Al Plaza for the second day in a row, and just hit the books. I actually pretty much finished all the homework in time to go to Sugimoto's. So, I figured, what the heck, I'll go. I ended up walking there (bad idea) with Scott, Megan, Lauren, and Thad. For once, Thad didn't argue. He usually finds a faulty argument and argues it the whole night through, much to my dismay. It took about a half hour to walk there, it would have taken 15 by bike. We found it with little difficulty, and it was full of people already. There is seating for about 16, and there were about 25 of us. It's a tiny little room on the back of the Sugimoto household. Sugimoto-san is exactly as I remembered him from three years ago, and the business is run the same way: drink first, pay at the end of the night. So I sat, talking nerd-speak mainly with Scott and Megan, but I wandered around to talk to everyone. At one point, I hit the bathroom, and when I came back, all of the tables had bowls of steak fries on them! Lucky day! I had four of the big bottles of beer, around 1 liter each, and I only got a slight buzz. How unfortunate that it takes the equivalent of 10 beers to get me buzzed, and costs the equivalent of $20. Oh well, the smoke got to me, so we left, walking again. This time we stopped at Lawson's on the return and I got an onigiri with something that tasted like cardboard in the middle. Sugimoto's was fun, but I don't know that I'll go again. Who knows. Yesterday was a fairly busy day as well. After class, I kicked some homework's ass and then around 5, we went to get Okonomiyaki at Shogetsu with Alan, Eric, and Rob. Sense a pattern with the people? Okonomiyaki was delicious as ever, and upon getting back, we hung out a bit, then decided to make it an anime night. We watched a random episode of Azumanga Daioh, and I am convinced that the people who make it are on crack. It was just... crazy. Crazier than Hale Nochi Guu. Crazier than pretty much anything I had seen. Then we watched the first two episodes of Samurai 7. Samurai 7 is a show based loosely on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Very loosely. But the animation is gorgeous, and it takes place in a semi-futuristic feudal world. Giant robot samurai age. I think I'll keep watching it, it has potential. Today, class kicked me in the teeth. I just had the hugest headache and couldn't answer any questions. But, hey, I am wearing my kilt and that makes it all better. I got a bunch of looks, but most people just said it was really cool. had just gave me a look, and I was wishing he said something. I would have torn him apart. Torn him apart. The tentative plan is to go to Al Plaza and get stuff for BBQ later today, but I just don't feel up to it. I just want to sleep. Tomorrow I am planning on going on a huge bike ride, if the weather holds, to a used book store about 6 miles away. Ooh, fun stuff!!!