at the "library"

Classes have started! This is both good and bad – I really need the Japanese practice, but I can say sayonara to all of my free time! I haven’t really taken the time since 9th or 10th grade to sit down and really read a book for fun, so it was really great to just pick one up whenever I had a spare minute (or more likely, quite a few spare hours). So far I’ve gotten through Murakami Haruki’s The Elephant Vanishes, Miyabe Miyuki’s The Devil’s Whisper, and Natsume Soseki’s Botchan. I’m very grateful for Professor Shamoon’s lit classes, without them I’d have no idea where to start in the Japanese literature aisle in the library, and be spending a lot more time cluelessly watching TV I can’t understand. It looks like the work load is going to be pretty heavy, but hopefully I’ll still be able to find some time to read.

Anyway, today I went to my first internet café! We went with the simple intention of grabbing lunch somewhere warm (our sensei do not appear to believe in using heaters, nor do the Japanese believe in insulation), but I thought it was a pretty neat little place. Its name was “Library,” strangely enough written in hiragana, and its interior didn’t disappoint—magazines and manga lined every wall. We ate lunch, and with that we got 90 minutes to sit.



We even found the Doraimon section—hooray for Japanese I can actually read! We only used the computers in there for a couple minutes, but it turned out to be a pretty casual place that didn’t mind us talking. Apparently they’re usually rather strict, so I wonder how different it is from those 24 hour ones that we have been recommended to camp out in overnight when we’re out late and the trains aren’t running. Anywho, the chicken curry was pretty good and the free drink refills, very rare here, was a happy surprise. Maybe not the most exciting of “firsts,” but it was a really cute place and I definitely think I’ll be back sometime.