I can't believe I've been here for more than a month! (Yesterday was one month exactly). It feels both like it has flown by and also like a month is a long time! It certainly seemed like a long time at York, anyway! I joined the Metpod Myspace group today, which meant visiting myspace for the first time in months, and I went back and read my not so frequent blog from York... Reading those definitely brings back too many memories of last year, even though I never came right out and said how I was feeling, it's easy to remember being in Pond and writing about all that...However, its not all depressing - There was a great heard in passing comment that I'd forgotten from ISR, which did, once you look back at it, have it's entertaining moments I suppose:

(This was on a survey about physical activity and trail use... We had to ask all these questions about what types of physical activities people did, for how long, and how often, reading off a set script that just added their activities into the blanks...)

""Ma'am, are there any other physical activities you participate in on a regular basis?"
....
"I see. and how often would you say you participate in this physical activity, sex?....Is that per week, per month, or per year?"
....
"And on each occasion where you participated in the physical activity, sex, for how long do you say you participate?"
...
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I really do need you to answer the question""

The things we do in the name of social research, I tell you!


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In other news, there's nothing quite so exciting as a wagon full of exported from the US happy meal toys and seats that remind you of kindergarten (this particular shipment is circa 1980)... Jordon was nice enough to take me biking (and no, I didn't end up under a truck, or in a shop display or anything!), around his area... I'm pretty sure that the three ladies across the street from us thought we were fairly nuts when we stopped and started trying out the miniaturized chairs, but that's ok! Behind Jordon are a bunch of Eames chairs (the orange one for instance)... I've never quite understood the appeal of that particular model, but they are still selling for $300 here, so I guess that's what a name will do for you. And some of their other stuff was cool, including Powers of Ten...

OK, enough babbling... We biked around for a couple of hours and then had what could well be my first authentic Japanese food experience of this trip, which was very tasty, though I'm not exactly sure what I actually ate! I told Jordon I'd eat basically any meat that wasn't horse, and let him order (the fact I couldn't even remotely read the menu didn't help me pick anything either!) I'm not even going to attempt names and spellings of anything, but we had a few varieties of grilled meat on a stick, including some tongue, delicious doughy balls of something (I really should have ascertained what that was so I can order that again!), and something in the chicken family. Pete's since been trying to tell me that it might have been chicken throats, but since they weren't crispy, and that's a symptom of throat, I don't believe him! We also had a half a head of raw cabbage dipped in something vaguely sweet and peanut sauce like, and some fries, b/c fried potatoes go with just about everything! If you'd asked me yesterday, raw cabbage probably wouldn't have been something that would even occur to me to try, but it was good!

Anyway, Koenji seems like a pretty cool place with lots of stores that definitely looked like they were worth going back for to check out! I'm sure I'll probably get hopelessly lost, I got completely turned around while we were biking around today, to the point that I had literally no idea where we were until Jordon pulled up outside his house on the way back, but that's OK - It's all part of the adventure to wander aimlessly around....

When I got home today, I also rediscovered/remembered The Music Genome Project/Pandora
which is a cool web service that lets you create a 'station' with any given artist, and then using its analysis of that artist or song, builds a radio station based around artists with similar music qualities. For instance, an Arcade Fire station turns up, among others, The Pernice Brothers, Karl Blau, Joseph Arthur, The Orange Peels and Mirah... It's a fun way to find music which you have half a chance of liking but had never heard of before...

That about sums up the day - it was fun :), thanks for being the tour guide, Jordon! Pete was so shocked at the Japanese food development that we had imitation KD as an immediate antidote for dinner. Pete doesn't like it on the basis of it's having larger noodles than the KD we all know and love, but I think it was perfectly acceptable. Then again, when your co-critic looks like this, how seriously can you take their review?

(my roommates... you know how they say that dogs and owners start to look alike after awhile...? All I'll say is that Venus has a fetching red collar as well and let you make up your mind)
D.