The bank and rainbows

*Woohoo! Finally hit 3000 views, thanks guys!!*

It was sooo nice having a lazy morning for once! When I got up, Yuko was home. She wasn't working until the afternoon today.

I went into the living room to Skype my parents. Yuko talked to my mom a bit too! 

Then Yuko made me toast and bunny apples for breakfast and gave me a little piece of cheesecake our neighbors had bought because they had just had a baby and were celebrating. The pieces came in individual wrappers. It was cute and really good!

She talked to me a whole bunch during breakfast and didn't translate to English as much as she usually does, which was good practice for me!

After breakfast I made pb&j for my lunch today and Yuko and I talked schedules. She told me we're going strawberry picking in March, in April we're going back to Handa-shi for a festival there where Ken pulls the float and staying over Saturday night at Obaasan's house, and in May for Golden Week, we're going to another festival where Ken's uncle pulls a float!! I'm so excited!

The firs week of March is going to be so great! On the 5th is another coffee hour, on the 7th I'm drinking with Keiichiro and Keiko, and the 9th is strawberry picking! Ahhhh I can't wait!!

Then I headed out to the station because I wanted to go to the bank and Sakae today. I left a little after 11, way later than I had wanted to leave... :/ But I had fun talking with Yuko! My listening comprehension is so much better than it was a year ago when I first joined the Japanese Conversation group and had no idea what anyone was saying haha.

(I love how empty the station is around noon. In the morning, this would all be a wall of people and you wouldn't be able to see the ground! I also love taking creeper shots.)

At the subway station there was this group of older British people (2 men and 2 women). As I was coming down the stairs I saw them go over and ask this poor little jr high girl for help. I don't think they knew Japanese because they just pointed at their subway map and then said "Thank you" in English after the girl helped them.

I was surprised they didn't come over to me because I mean, I'm blonde so chances are higher that I speak English. But I guess I didn't look enough like a native (even though I was by myself and not consulting a map, but whatevs).

While I was walking I passed a bunch of schools and could see students inside learning. Haha suckers. At first I kept thinking, why are so many classes going on on Saturday? Then I remembered it was a Thursday! Having a weekday off was totally messing with my brain. I had looked at the weekend train schedule this morning too. Thankfully it was the same time as the week!

So I got lost on my way I the bank. It was really cold and I'd forgotten my hat and my face hurt and my nose was running, so I stopped in a 100 yen Lawson's to buy an orange so I hopefully wouldn't get sick. I also asked them for directions. They were super nice and helpful and pulled out a key map they had to show me where to go. The man there even walked me outside and pointed me the direction to go. It was so nice!!

So I think I didn't exactly go the right way because the road I was on ended up being a dead end. So I kept walking and walking through all these houses. I was starting to lose hope and consider myself completely lost. So I figured I should head to wherever I heard the most noise because that meant lots of people to ask for help. I came to a big road and saw a sign with the kanji "yama" and "naka", so I searched my map for those and found them! The Bank if Nagoya wasn't too far away. So I kept walking along the big road toward what I thought was the bank. It turned out to be a bank, but not the right one. Thankfully, though, I saw a building a little ways away with the kanji for Nagoya, so I headed towards that.

As I got closer, I saw the rest of the kanji matched those on my map for the Bank of Nagoya. Yay I'd found it!!

It was sooo warm inside. :) the lady was super nice. She spoke enough English to be able to translate for me. She spoke with other people and let me know that the fee for depositing a check from my bank back home would be 1/20% of whatever I deposited, which is way less than I'd thought! Then there would be a 520 yen fee to send the check to the Tokyo Chase office. 

Ugh I had some problems though. Like I kept saying I wanted to know all the fees before I wrote the check and she said she had told me all the fees and asked me to write the check and I did, but then she told me I had to pay another fee because the amount I had written was less than $2500. Ugh. So I wasted a check. Thank goodness I had one more.

And then she said there would be fees at the Chase office in Tokyo. 

And the whole thing took two and a half hours! Rawrrr. I'd been planning on heading back over to Nanzan and eating lunch there and then taking the Meijo to Sakae, but since I had like no time, I ate my lunch while I was waiting in the bank and then took the Tsuramai from the nearest station then switched subways to Sakae.

In Sakae, I went straight to Daiso and bought this super adorable phone case. 

Yay my phone is cute now!!

Then I went up to Book Off to look at the clothes. When I didn't see anything good, I went over to the books and CDs section. I was looking through the 500 yen movies and found one starring TEPPEI KOIKEI (my sister and I are obsessed with him) but it didn't have English subtitles, so I didn't get it. :(

Buuut, in the 105 yen CDs, I found Home Made 家族's No Rain No Rainbow single! Ahhhh. It had two other songs on there too and a second disk that was a DVD with some sort of Naruto extra and I think their music video and video of then singing live. Holy crap. And with my 10% off the first week of February coupon, it was only 94 yen!!!!! Such a deal!

I wanna find someone to go to their concert with me because hitori de is nooo fun. I've been asking all the Japanese people I know but everyone either hasn't heard of them or doesn't really care for them... Ughhh troubles.

Anyway, then I walked back to Sunshine Sakae and took the subway and train home.

(Cool rainbow Grand Canyon in the part of Sunshine Sake where the concerts happen. It's only lit up rainbow at night. During the day, it's a pretty photo)

 (I'll never not take a picture of the Ferris wheel. I love it so much!!)

Ahh so much rainbow! But I love rainbows :)

When I got home, Yuko, Miya, and I ate curry and salad. Yuko asked me what the "oz" on the salad dressing label meant and then had me explain the difference between fluid ounces and ounces. 

I showed her a picture of the Ken's brand of Ranch dressing and said Tina (the girl who sent the ranch to Ken) should have sent thy one instead because it said "Ken's Ranch" on the label. She loved that and had me show Ken when he got home haha.

After Ken got home and ate, we all had dessert together. We had the chocolate marshmallow Santas from Tina, more cheesecake things, and those Gafrate things I had in Japanese Conversation Group last year that I really like. These were green tea flavored though. And so good!

Last night, Yuko had had me write "To Miyabi, From Cate" in all the books I'd brought her so she'd remember they were from me. So I wrote that as well as little messages and drew little pictures. Yuko told me tonight that the messages I wrote and pictures I drew were so cute and she brought the books over to show Miyabi and Ken. Everyone's favorite was one where I drew Miyabi and me haha.

Then Yuko told me how she's read Tuesdays With Morrie and how she loves the Twilight movie. Lol. I showed her the huge ass novel I brought with me to read, Allegiant, and she thought that was awesome. Yuko saw I was attempting to read my Japanese book, Voices of a Distant Star, and asked me about it and flipped through it. I'm having a lot if trouble, though, because the kanji aren't spelled out with hiragana, so I don't know how to read them!

After dessert I read a bit of Allegiant. It was so weird seeing so much English haha. A bit overwhelming for a second, to tell the truth. 

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to ride my bike to Don Quixote. And then Rafa invited Esteban and  me to go to eat ramen at a super good ramen place he knows, so I'll be eating dinner with the two of them. I'm excited!

Also, ATTENTION: Anyone who wants to Skype me:

I will have the house to myself tomorrow! I plan to go to DQ around noon, so I'll be free to skype at 10:20 am (I already have a Skype date from 10-10:20, sorry!)

Which is:

8:20 pm EST on Thursday Feb 6

7:20 pm CST on Thursay Feb 6

So hit me up homies! I'd love to see your beautiful faces cuz I miss you guyssss, each and every one of you!

find me: cate_the_great

P.S. I had a mini heart attack when I went in to take my shower tonight and it looked like the tub was full of pee.

Miyabi likes to dye the bath water weird colors. I'm pretty sure I did that too when I was little, but it was normal colors like pink ;)

(Also that poster on the wall has the times tables in Japanese (like how to say "times" and "equals" as well as the numbers in Japanese). I like to study it while I shower sometimes)