Weather: raining, gloomy weather · Lunch: udon (chicken, octopus, shrimp) · Dinner: teriyaki whopper · Sleep: fine, more rested
It’s raining quite a lot. One doesn’t really want to go anywhere. In Nagoya, when it rains, it really rains. I think I’ll just go out for food — a lunch and a dinner — and that’ll be all I have to do outside. I’m through a really rough, hard week anyway, so some rest would be welcome.
My research has to progress anyway. I really feel this is a good opportunity now to show the essence of my research. While I started the benchmarks and looked over the descriptions, I got ready to go for lunch.
Lunch
I went up to the second floor of AEON Town, and that’s where I realised how many more restaurants there are here. I went to an udon place. Since I’d never been to an udon place before, I didn’t know the drill. So, after some fumbling, I finally managed to order two fried chickens, an octopus leg, and four shrimp. After a lot of questions, I finally sat down. Then I went back once more to ask for a spoon for the udon. In the end I ate it all, so I carried the empty dishes back with a better feeling.
I also checked out the bookstore. I have to say, the bookstore is a completely calm place. The selection is very large: I bought a Japanese textbook and a book on MCP. I really like the Unity and Blender books: very detailed, and they describe the operations well. In general it’s striking how large the offering is across so many topics. Right now I’m really moving at the technical level and the basic language textbooks, because I feel that’s where I can improve now.
As I bought the books, I realised I’d lost my umbrella (like in the children’s song: “I lost my handkerchief…”). Since it was still pouring outside, my first thought was to look for it at my previous spot. Someone was already sitting there, and I politely asked whether the umbrella was his (well, what answer was I expecting). From the man’s expression I could see this was roughly the kind of question as “where’s the pharmacy” — it seems it’s completely routine here in Japan; the umbrella probably ranks high on the list of lost objects.
In the end I solved the problem by going into the CanDo shop and buying, on one hand, a rotring pencil for my Japanese textbook, and on the other, an umbrella for 500 yen.
Evening
Now I’m carrying on with the research; I just took another loop around AEON Hall. I didn’t eat anything special, just a paprika-teriyaki whopper. Then, after shopping, I dashed home and waited for the drying to finish.
On the way, though, I ran into an interesting group. A group of schoolkids has been dancing under the bridge for two weeks now, always toward evening. I hadn’t attached much importance to it so far, it seemed like a dance or sports group. But by now a fairly large group has gathered, with Japanese national symbols, flags (nothing special: just historical symbols, clan flags). And the parents were out now too, to watch. The wildest part: when I went for lunch, they were still there; now, as I came back, they were practising again, even though it was already around nine. I’m curious whether it’ll continue tomorrow too.
Photos
