Happy Monday, Happy September! Akko and Toshio decided to bail on me for camping this weekend, so instead I went off to Tokyo and hung out in the big city. It was a really good, refreshing weekend. On Saturday, I actually ran for the first time in ages.. so that was a personal victory. I am committed to going again today, even if I have to go out after sunset to beat the heat. In the afternoon, we had a fancy lunch on the top of the Shinjuku Park Hyatt. Our friend Yukari, one of the other past deans of Mori No Ike (Concordia Japanese Village) works there as a wine sommolier (sp?) and we got special attention. There were five of us at a table smack dab in this beautiful restaurant with a view over all of downtown Tokyo... sipping two different glasses of wine and a glass of chapagne, each. The food was delicious, and there was a dessert buffet. Those two words are just heavenly. It was a heck of a lot of money for lunch (8000yen/$75per person) but I really enjoyed it. On the way home, a bit tipsy and very full, Tom and I decided to take advantage of being in Shinjuku to go shopping. He was checking out the massage chairs (now that he has a TV he needs chairs from which to watch it) so we spent quality time sitting in each... I'm not sure my back actually needed that much massage! Next we headed downstairs where I spent a long time studying the electronic dictionaries before finally sucking it up and buying one. I can't quite believe I've made it this long without one: the model I bought has a Japanese-English dictionary, an English-Japanese dictionary, an English dictionary, a Japanese dictionary, a Kanji (the Chinese symbols) dictionary, and a katakana dictionary (for words imported from other countries that have been mangled into unrecognizable interpretations of their originals). Plus, I was able to switch the entire thing into English so now I can understand all my options. I can also look up thousands of words and get an image for an explanation.. just in case I'm to dazed to understand an actual written definition. Amazing? It will be my new "toy" for awhile, though it really isn't that much fun. Hopefully it will make studying a little easier, replacing the heavy paperback versions I've been using.

Yesterday, Tom and I took a walk through an area of town we didn't know very well. He has a book of sample "walks" through Tokyo that show highlights and points of interest alongside a very good map... so we trekked off to see what we could see. You can see what we did see (at least a tiny little slice of it) by checking my photo page... It really was a neat area. My favorite part was a tiny neighborhood street called "snake street" which twisted and turned every five feet to earn its name! I would not want to drive down it at all, but it was nice for the stroll.

Finally after some curry and part of a movie, I headed back to the bus station. Why do weekends end so quickly!! On the busride there and back I completely read the book Norweigan Wood, by Haruki Marukami. It was a dark but really slow and gracefully paced novel about a young man living in Tokyo and his personal relationships. It was interesting to be reading it while actually in Tokyo. It felt good to do that much reading, and it was an interesting book.