Back to work... I guess

I woke up this morning around 8:30, which is early for me, if I'm not using an alarm clock. I puttered around the tiny apartment - did my laundry and cleaned up a bit.

Then I went to a nearby cafe to drink coffee and work on a book review. It was the first real work I've done in over a month, what with vacations and the move. It felt pretty good to get back to writing. I drank a few ice coffees and decided that the ice coffee here is generally better than the hot coffee. I stayed there until about 3 and then wound back through the covered arcades and narrow shopping streets that run along an elevated train track a few hundred meters to the west of my place.

The basic transportation layout of Osaka is to have a few large streets for cars, under which the subways generally run, interspersed with narrow streets and covered arcades, which are often only accessible by bicycle and on foot. The majority of residences are in huge apartment complexes that span a number of blocks.

When I got home I fixed a slow flat and then headed out to meet Ken for dinner at his place. On the way, I stopped to get a pair of jeans.

The place I went to had a western theme and was playing American music, but I had to use the little Japanese I know to communicate with them about the pants.

The woman who what helping me noticed that I had rolled up the bottom of the jeans and sent them out to be hemmed as a matter of course. It took us both some fumbling with words for me to find out what had happened and how long the hemming would take. In about 10 minutes, I was on my and there was no extra charge for the sewing.

I met Ken at the station near his place and we rode back to the apartment with his son, who is still using training wheels. We had a great meal, the main course of which was made with some of the pasta Ken had brought back from his recent trip to Italy.

I wish I had gotten some photos of the view from his apartment. It overlooks a sea of apartment complexes which surround a small prison.

After dinner, I picked up my bike from level 5 of the bicycle parking garage and headed home.


Now, after more than an hour of studying Japanese cell phone plans, calculator close to hand, I'm ready for bed and only marginally closer to having selected my plan.