I’d been avoiding opening my eyes to ignore how long I’d been sleeping when Ai knocked on the door. She told me that breakfast was ready so I put off my goal of bedsores and went upstairs. It was 10 AM and Ai and Reiko had already eaten, leaving a tray of food alone for me.

 

Today’s plan was to learn how to make Soba noodles. We packed into the car and headed out into the countryside to a place which gave lessons on their technique. This time, the Japanese countryside was actually rural. The houses and businesses seemed transplanted from the city, but with plenty of space around them and rice fields in between.

 

At the soba bakery, I donned an apron and headed to the preparation room. The ingredients are painfully simple: soba flour, wheat flour, and water. The rest is just kneading and rolling. The instructors spoke no English and I could not understand a word of their Japanese, but eventually I got it right. Cutting them into the right size noodles was the most difficult part.

 

After they were all cut, we headed to the cafeteria and ate our creation. Fresh soba are best served cold they said, though I really wished they were hot. I’m not certain I would make these noodles on my own without experimentation, but there is some appeal to the flavor of soba.

 

I spent the ride home writing the Kanji characters from license plates in my notebook and thinking about how fun the twisty rural roads would be in my WRX back home. The next stop planned was the toy museum in Arimas. At first I was not very enthusiastic but once inside it was actually very cool. One exhibit was focused on tops and other spinning toys with a lot of fun play areas set up. The best exhibit were the animated toys, which moved in creative ways when hooked to motors.

 

For dinner, we stopped at an all you can eat buffet in Osaka. I found a little extra appetite for some western foods which I hadn’t tasted in a week. A young girl about two or three years old was captivated by me when I passed and cautiously came up to me to shake my hand later on. She was so cute it was the highlight of my day.

 

To end the evening, we visited a store called Donki Hote. I asked several times to be sure and it is in fact named after Don Quixote. Ai told me it was a very strange store and she was correct. Some of the things they sold include: trashy underwear, bicycles, motorcycle helmets, star wars themed USB hubs, video games, groceries, winter jackets, beauty supplies, humidifiers, and cookware. Japan is a very strange place.

It’s 7 AM and I know Will has to go to school, but there’s no way I can wake up. I close my eyes and pretend I’ve forgotten. At 9 AM, I do the same thing until 10:30. Will still hasn’t woken up either so I hop in the shower and rouse him.

 

I’m pretty beat up from the week. I have a blister on my foot which is finally healing up. My head and stomach are both in alcohol recovery. I have bug bites in multiple places on my body. My knuckle is bruised from punching the wall and my arm is bruised from falling down. Now it’s time to go to Yodo and retrieve my pack, walking several miles both directions.

 

We eat breakfast at the vending machine fast food restaurant again and take the train to Yodo. I’ve been borrowing money from Will all morning because of the trouble with my card. When we finally get back to Hisa’s house I use her landline to call the bank. Despite the call I made before I left, they’d forgotten I was traveling abroad and placed a hold on my card. It takes a few minutes to get it fixed up, and I feel much better.

 

Will has missed his afternoon class as well, which I feel bad about. We head to the train and buy our tickets. I am headed to Yodoyabashi in Osaka and he is off to catch his last class. When I make it to Osaka, Ai is nowhere to be found in the station and is not answering her phone. I place an expensive cell phone call to Will asking him to email her and tell her where I am.

 

Ai arrives a little while later and the two of us head to the Osaka Aquarium. The Aquarium is really amazing inside, with lots of very deep exhibits that you can view from several floors. My camera battery dies halfway through and most of my pictures are too dark to make out but I really enjoyed my first aquarium. The whale shark and manta ray are particularly impressive. My favorites are the penguins, though, who are eager to please an audience.

 

Osaka is very cold and windy now, so we make our way out by taking the shortest path possible to the next building. We stop in a mall to try the “Magical Ninja Adventure” which is an indoor ninja maze. It’s funny and clever, but I am too tall for the maze and can look over the walls for the right path. I also learn that there are variations of Hello Kitty for each city in Japan.

 

Ai and I head back to her home on the train and on foot. Her mother is waiting with dinner ready and we eat a quiet dinner. I’ve definitely changed gears coming to Osaka. Will is a young college student with many english speaking friends learning Japanese. Ai and her mother live a much slower paced life. Feeling the trip beginning to catch up to me, I head to bed early and sleep like a rock.

I slept really well for the first time in Japan. Around 9:30 AM I finally found the strength to open my eyes but decided to stay in the warm bed and read for a bit. Will and Rickie had gone to school already and Hisa told me she had to meet one of her friends for lunch as well. I was supposed to head to Ryogoku and have lunch with Will around 12:30.

 

I caught up on internet browsing and email while passing the morning. I did my best to get laundry, showering, shaving, and other house based activities out of the way because we’d be drinking again in the evening.

 

I took the train alone to Fukakusa without any trouble. I feel like a lot more Japanese is starting to sink into my brain now and I am even starting to put together short sentences. I thought up a few pieces of small talk that I knew while on the train, hoping they would come in handy later.

 

At Ryogoku I had no problems getting to the courtyard, but was at a loss trying to find the Kaikan Dorm. I walked around the neighborhood a little bit trying to see something familiar from Saturday but had no luck. Despite being much more comfortable in Japan now, it felt strange waiting around in the large crowd of Japanese students. I tried my cell phone again and was shocked to find that it worked. And that I had dialed a wrong number. I hung up on the confused Japanese woman just as Will appeared behind me. The wrong number had just cost me around 2 dollars.

 

We walked to the Combini and picked up some lunch then headed to the Kaikan. Kyle, Bob, Jeffery, and some others were there eating. They were trying to split apples in half with their hands as they’d seen a girl from the dorm do. They were failing miserably. Everyone headed off to class and I stayed around reading, browsing the web on my iphone, and playing Mario Kart Wii. A little later on Dylan and Aki showed up. I hadn’t thought Aki was as pretty as Will had made her out to be before. Today she changed my mind with her jean shorts and plaid knee socks. I tried to remind myself she’s only 20. Dylan and Aki left to go shopping and I went back to playing Wii while Kyle looked on.

 

Will was almost an hour late getting back from class, which was a little annoying on my last day in Kyoto. We moved quickly to meet up with Dylan and Aki for a fish & chips dinner. A girl named Yoko also joined us at the station and we set out walking. 15 minutes of walking through the crowds they realized that the restaurant was closed. Instead we would head to an Irish bar not too much further away.

 

I started drinking and Will started keeping up with me. The kids smoked cigarettes and we talked about politics, traveling, and long distance relationships. Four beers, a BLT, and some apple pie and it was time to go. I went to pay and found that my card was locked out. I paid with the last of my cash despite the protestations of the college students. My desire to pick up tabs has been markedly out of place in Japan.

&nsbp;

Will wanted to keep drinking and I couldn’t argue with the idea. We soon found ourselves back in the same bar we’d visited Friday. Will had to pay for the beers this time since I was a pauper with a defunct ATM card. He taught me more Japanese and we knocked back another three. The waitress recognized us from Friday and stopped to talk to me for a bit. Her English was quite good, and she helped prove my theory that Japanese girls are better looking when they speak my language.

 

On the way back to Will’s apartment we realized that we were much drunker than we’d been on Friday. We had another beer at the apartment, then went to the 7-11 for one more each. Before the night was over, I’d punched a concrete wall, fallen on my ass trying to jump a small object, and bruised my arm in the same event. I passed out at 4 AM with a jacket wrapped around my feet as a blanket.