A Day in the Life

Ok, I'm finally writing again. It is a lazy Sunday and Sara is making pizza so I have to do SOMETHING. Hey, why not write, right? For the last couple weeks I have just been living a life of leisure. Not a whole lot of adventuring, but just living a normal day and doing regular every-day things are so foreign that it seems like an adventure without even trying. Most of my days are spent how i would spend them back home, i just don't have a job to go to. I'll relate a typical "day in the life" of Cody.

It is pretty much like being retired but instead of receiving Social Security checks, I periodically withdraw my life savings from the bank. And the name of that bank? 7-bank, aka the ATM in the 7-11 down the street from my apartment. I can withdraw money from my US bank account and the machine automatically converts dollars to yen. Much easier than having to deal with a bank teller or foreign money exchanger. But of course I don't head to the bank first thing in the morning. I automatically wake up around 6 or 7 am, not by alarm but because my brain is programmed to open a coffee shop around that time even though it is actually 15 hours ahead of the time that coffee shop in Salt Lake City would be opening. I wake up that earlt no matter how late I was up the night before. Then I usually go back to sleep, 30 minutes at a time, until around 11. I will immediately rummage for breakfast which typically consists of Rice Crispy or Chex cereal with very beany tasting soymilk, orange juice, and maybe a banana. Then I'll get online, see if anybody else in America is online and maybe chat a bit. Around then I'll crave sweets so I will run downstairs to find a pastry in one of the bakeries on my street.

Once on the main market-lined streets i have to dodge crazy businessmen and and old ladies on bikes, sqeeze past hunched-over old men who love to stop abruptly in front of people, avoid stepping on children who are frozen gawking at me, all the while politely half bowing, half nodding to the 100 cheerful old shopkeepers that smile and stare as i pass by. I get to the familiar the bakery and hope to find something filled with chocolate and not minced meat. I remeber where places, like the bakery, are by where they are and how far instead of the name of the shop or what it looks like. I can't read most of the signs and there are just SO MANY little shops on my neighborhood, I can't distinguish one storefront from another. If you have ever walked through a Chinatown you know how it feels to walk through my street. The street, paved with brick-like tiles, is about as wide as 2 neighborhood sidewalks. There is a cover, 2 or 3 stories up, above the street and only pedestrians and bicyclists are allowed. There are cars on some of the cross streets but they have to squeeze through the mob of afternoon shoppers and commuters. Imagine your outdoor strip mall with 3 times as many shops and 4 times as many people. Add the smell of fish and pee and fried food. Subtract your ability to read ANYTHING and understand what anyone is saying, including store clerks. That equals my daily trip to buy a pastry.

Depending on the temperature outside i'll either get a can of cold black coffee from any number of vending machines or make hot coffee at home. I don't have a coffee maker at my apartment so I have to brew it a cup at a time. I heat up some water on my gas stove, which resembles my butane camp stove back home. The single serving coffee packs are like a tea bag with carboard flap hooks on each side. You rip off the top of the filter bag, put the hooks over the sides of the mug, and pour hot water into the suspended mini coffee filter and let it drip through. Very innovative! Mike should use these, he always brews half a pot of coffee and only drinks a cup or two.

After my sugar and caffeine fix, I might walk through through my neighborhood to the nearby park to sit on a bench and write while little Japanese kids run around screaming in their school uniforms and the little yellow hats that always fall off when they start running. Or i'll walk the opposite direction to the library I found (using Google Maps; I never would have found it on my own) and sit on the floor at one of the low tables to study my Japanese, after taking my shoes off of course. After a while i'll go home and maybe go out on the town with Sara to find some dinner. We usually will ride our bikes for 20 minutes or take the 10 minute subway ride to Namba, one of the main downtown areas of Osaka, which is full of restaurants, shops, neon, giant video screens, and Pachinko parlors. Pachinko parlors are just big slot machine casinos where the slot machines are disguised as exciting anime video games. The signs outside always have annoying flashing lights and cartoon characters which have nothing to do with the actual games. So silly. Sara and I wil usually wander aimlessly, people watch (always an amusing passtime in Namba) or stop in to a noodle shop. Ramen, udon, and soba are usually feally cheap and vegetarian so I eat that a lot when we go out. We will say the mandatory "Itadakimas!" before eating, with out hands clapped in front of us. Everyone does this before eating and it is an abligatory Japanese custom. If I need to go to the restroom, chances are that the toilet will be plugged into a wall outlet. Most public toilets have VERY heated seats and and armrest with a control pad for the temperature of the seat, the temperature and strenght of the bidet and the size of flush needed. When we leave the restaurant, the whole staff will yell "Arigato goZAIMAAAAAAAAS!" On the speedy and skillful downhill foottraffic-weaving bikeride back to my apartment, Sara and I might stop at Tsutaya (the video store by our house) where almost all of the movie titles are in Japanese so the cover picture is important. We'll make some hot green tea and watch a movie, Japanese subtitles built in.

That is just a typical day for me. Back home it would be unremarkable and here it seems normal. But when I think about how everything I do in a day, however mundane, is so different from how I am really used to doing things, I think "Whoa! This is crazy!" Then i'll get up the next day and do it all over again.