Woke up around ten this morning, just in time to wave Peter off to an eleven am meeting, poor guy :), and then after breakfast, etc., dragged myself out for another 'Anytime, Anywhere workout' from itunes (why is the hardest part of a workout the getting out the door?)... This time I just stayed in the area instead of biking down to Yoyogi Koen to run, and it was pretty good - there are so many tiny roads and parks around here that you can really do it without getting too bored, or having too hard a time finding the park bench/open area required for the plyometric part of the workout.

I'm really not sure why I saw almost no one when I was running, but when I was squatting, lunging, doing squat thrusts (burpies in Mully talk), etc. There seemed to be tons of people walking by and no doubt thinking 'that is one weird Gaijin grovelling around in the dirt!' Anyway, it was pretty good except that I could feel my shin muscle start to act up again which is annoying! I'm sure its mostly from not being in great shape, and running on concrete, but still stupid... I iced it for a bit when I got home, and that seems to have helped - when I walked to the station and climbed a bunch of stairs and stuff it was fine, and its not too swollen or hard now which is a relief! I'm sure it just needs some time in Hawaii to recuperate :p

Anyway, post workout/ice/shower/etc. I headed down to the station to meet Jordon for lunch. We went to this little cafe, which of course I can't remember the name of, but I think is something like 'Live'? (And by Live, I meant Dish - thanks for the comment/correction!) According to their coaster it's an organic cafe, and it was very tasty! I had no idea it was there, despite it being just across the street from the eki, but I'm glad Jordon knew about it, I'll definitely be going back - it was really cute, and just enough of the menu was in English to get by. I got the chicken rice plate which was really good, it had a bit of salad with it, and, both randomly and inevitably, an egg on top of the whole thing... Jordon had a big salad which looked really good too - maybe next time I'll try that!

After lunch we went to Shinjuku so Jordon could pick up some presents in Tokyu Hands. On our way there, we walked past the Krispy Kreme donuts which is opening tomorrow. They were making practice donuts and it smelled pretty good! Hitomi had told me that the first person to buy a donut will get 50 dozen donuts over the next year, so we asked the manager about it, he spoke good English and was able to tell us that they were indeed giving away that many donuts to the first person (I think the second person also gets half as many or something).

He basically told us that to have a chance, we'd have to be camping out, and even though no one had unfurled their sleeping bags yet, there were already a few people hovering, though I don't know if they were planning on staying! I could kind of see doing it with a bunch of friends or something (in the summer!), but I'll settle for stopping by on my way to Koenji tomorrow if I have time, to get one on the first day... In any case, 600 donuts is a LOT of donuts! Even if you took them to the office every week or whatever, that's a lot of sugar, especially with Krispy Kreme donuts which aren't exactly on the 'lite' side of things! It's also pouring right now, so I'm thinking its going to be a long, cold, wet night for whomever decides to do it...

After that, Jordon headed off to work and I went and got some Christmas cards and then headed back here... I was trying to decide whether or not to go back to that Japanese class since 'my' teacher isn't going to be there this week, and in the end, I decided to stay home and try and tackle katakana, so I've been working on that this evening, and I'm getting there, slowly. The most frustrating part is how some katakana characters (like ho) look (to me at least) a lot like a different hiragana character (fu), and also how there is barely any difference between (shi) and (tsu), and (n) and (so)I found some really good websites today though, with interactive learning and stuff, so I'm pretty happy with that decision for today, and katakana will be really really helpful to get sorted!

Very excitingly, Peter discovered that TiVO is now available in Canada, so we can time shift our shows to not being right in the middle of the day here (though that might mean I start watching a lot of random tv again which is probably not so good!)... We have to buy the box in Hawaii since they don't actually sell them in Canada, but then it can be muled home and set up by Mom and Grampa (and aren't you guys just thrilled about that ;) ). I've wanted TiVO since Oprah included it on her favourite things show all those years ago. Besides, if Miranda on Sex and the City can call it her lover for two episodes, it's got to be good!

Other than that, not too much for today, starting to think about packing, etc. but will probably successfully procrastinate that to tomorrow and Saturday. We have an evening flight, so there's lots of time to run around like crazy after I teach on Saturday!

And lastly, purely for your entertainment, comes this story, courtesy of the Mainichi Daily News, about a man who survived for 24 days on a mountain....with only a bottle of BBQ sauce! Hands down the funniest/most Japanese quote from the entire article:

"I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused everyone. I want to get better quickly and return to work," he was quoted as telling his boss."

That's the salaryman ethic we all like to see!

D. (who would be taking some time off to eat if she ever subsisted on bbq sauce for 24 days!)