Matsuyama/Osaka: Day 30

Wow, I have been in Japan for 30 days. It is kind of crazy thinking about it. I would be lying if I said my Japanese hasn't improved. My katakana reading abilities have increased exponentially, I can almost read it without thinking now and I have gotten much better at decoding what the word actually is. I have picked up on several Kanji, recognition wise, and have learned a lot of different ways that Kanji I already know are used in words and phrases. I have also learned a lot of words for different foods and have gotten really good at reading menus (at least the ones that don’t have crazy fonts). This trip has definitely helped my Japanese a ton, though I can’t imagine what it would be like to be fluent. A lot of times I find myself thinking, “I can’t even begin to comprehend how you would say ‘insert random sentence here’”. Eventually I will get there, and I look forward to the day I do.

Today was pretty much all travel. We were up and out of our hostel by 9:45 and then went and got some breakfast. After eating we headed to Matsuyama station, got tickets and then waited an hour for our train to come. The first train was the long, 3-hour ride to Okoyama, and then from there we would go to Osaka, which is about an hour.

Nothing particularly special happened while we were on the trains. Both weren’t very crowded and I just listened to music the whole way. I managed to listen to two Stephen Lynch albums and 1.5 Tenacious D albums after listening to a lot of random music. I slept a little too.

When we got to Osaka we had to take a local train to Fukushima, which is literally a minute from our hostel. There is a Mister Donut, a good ramen place, a big 7/11, an Okonomiyaki restaurant, and a sushi restaurant all within about a block of us. The only thing the area is missing is a Mos Burger and maybe a Natchan vending machine and this place would be perfect. Our hostel is nice too. The rooms are a good size and the beds are really comfortable. My only complaints about the place are that the Internet sucks (a guy actually asked us if his computer was broken or if the internet was just bad) and it is really hot in the common room where you can get the slow, slow wireless. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all. I guess that is why they are hostels.

We went and got some ramen pretty quickly after we checked in and dropped our luggage off. I got Miso Ramen and I have no clue what Erin got, or rather, I forgot what she got. We also both ordered the set that got us some gyoza (dumplings of awesomeness) and a bowl of rice. The meal was definitely satisfactory. Erin wanted to have had the cheapest thing the restaurant but I guess I kind of cheated since I ordered off menu and got something cheaper. Oh well.

After food we went back to the hostel and napped since we were exhausted from last nights laundry escapades. At least I have clean socks… I really appreciate a pair of clean socks.

We both slept for a good 2-3 hours I think, (the beds are comfy) and when we woke up we went to Mister Donut. I got my usual two donuts and a chocolate milkshake, and then we went to the 7/11 to get some other snack food for our pseudo dinner. I grabbed some strawberry milk and an egg sandwich and called it a day. Cultural note: If I haven’t mentioned this already, the Japanese like to shorten words and I guess make them cuter/more convenient to say. Example, instead of saying サンドウィッチ (sandowichi) they say サンド (sando). So an egg sandwich is a たまごサンド (tamago sando). Another example (they do this with hundreds of words); McDonalds in Japanese is マクドナルド (makudonarudo). To make it easier they just call it マック (makku). Fun huh? /end note.

After Erin and I ate, I got our laptops from our room and we used the slow, shoddy Internet. I managed to check my email, send a few emails, and do some reading on a couple forums and blogs, though it took me longer, and was more frustrating, than usual. After that I blogged, and now I am going to bed! Yay sleep!