masa.

Last Friday a welcome party was held for all the students living in the International Students’ House (keikan). We ate food and played games. Despite my failings at Grand Golf last week, I managed to redeem myself through my incredible skills at ‘scissor, paper, rock’ (they were calling it out in Japanese and I had no idea when the chant ended, so I just ended up as ‘rock’ every time), and won the grand prize of five packs of tissues!

The next day was beautiful.

Unfortunately, Julie and I already had big, indoor plans. The local shopping center only about 20 minutes by bike, but we knew we were going to buy some bulky things, so we took the bus.

I won’t bore you too much with the shopping details, I needed to get some homewares, and managed not to get overly distracted by clothes and shoes. Although Masa is a pretty small shopping center, it has a massive games arcade. Included is some kind of elaborate train set, a bowling arcade (two games for $10) and a merry-go-round.

And a million photo machines.

Julie tried her luck at a game, but I know how to pick my battles and gave it a miss.

If I managed to spend the best part of a day exploring a relatively small mall, I have no idea what may happen when faced with a full-sized Japanese department store. For now I am just excited to have found a supermarket that stocks Listerine.