Quarterly Update: I am still as American as ever.

Sunday I slept in then managed to clean up my apartment. I headed to Osaka in the afternoon. Some friends wanted to go to Burger King for lunch. I wasn’t too enthused but I tagged along. BK was having an all you can eat whopper event. If you ordered one whopper value meal you could go back and refill as many times as you wanted within a half hour. I have
always been a quick eater so putting down the first meal in less than 10 minutes took very little effort. I went back for a second round, but as soon as I finished it I began to regret my gluttony. I felt like a disgusting ball of grease. All I wanted to do was get out of there and go for a run or do some exercise. Instead, we went for ice cream.

Everyone was pretty unsure of what to do next, and I was about to part ways to go see some things around Osaka which I still had on my to-do list. Then everyone started to tell me how bad of an idea it would be to go to these places on a day with such crappy weather. The two places I  had mentioned I wanted to go to were really high towers. Apparently they understood that as me saying I wanted to go on top of a really high building that day. Which was not really true. I just wanted to see something new I had not seen before. I tried to tell my friends this but they took me to a really tall shopping
building, which was free to climb, unlike the other places I had mentioned. The view was pretty cool. I could see over most of the city as a big rainstorm was moving in from the distance. We chilled up there for a while, digesting the mass of junk food we just devoured, unable to move, trying to plot our next move.

We ended up going to the movie store and renting some DVDs to watch at a friends place. We watched “The Wolf of Wall Street”. I had seen it before but it was still funny, and most everyone else hadn’t seen it yet.

After the movie, I headed to catch my last train home. I wanted to be in my apartment so I could wake up and watch the US soccer game. Which was an awesome game, but ended in a bit of a disappointment. We gave up a tying goal in the last 30 seconds, keeping us from automatically passing to the next round. It was a really great game though. I am glad I got to watch it.

After the game I went back to sleep
for a little bit. When I woke up I made plans with a friend to go explore some things around her side of Osaka. She also as off on Mondays so I am happy to finally have someone to chill with on these days. We went up some little trails along a creek to a big waterfall. It was pretty cool. Kind of reminded me of Deer Creek back home. After the afternoon walk we went to a sushi restaurant she kept raving about. It ended up being pretty amazing. I ate way too much, as usual, but at least Sushi is kind of healthy. I grabbed some coffee after then got on the train home.

The place we went was all the way on the other side of Osaka, over an hour away. I am still on the train right now. I figured I would be productive along my journey and write down my post for the week.

I think I am going to save my opinion piece for the 6 month mark, or maybe when I head home. I don’t want to cheat anyone back home, but I don’t think I can word everything
well enough to keep everyone happy here.

Overall these past 3 months have been awesome. I am really enjoying it. I really like Japan, it’s people, culture, and especially it’s food, but it has not all been peaches and cream. I have definitely experienced some things I am not so head over heels in love with, but I don’t want to bother you with those details right now.

I have done some pretty cool stuff so far though. A short list for you:
Ate raw horse meat
Ate intestine, tongue
Ate… We can just say I have eaten a lot of weird stuff and I am looking forward to eating more.
I went surfing at one of the most famous surf beaches in Japan.
Chilled in several natural hot springs
Went fishing
Pet “wild” deer and fed them by hand.
Stayed out all night long on several occasions
Met tons of people from all over the world
Attended a free music festival
Hosted couch surfers
Snuck into, and explored an abandoned theme park.
Joined a boxing gym
Rode a Japanese bullet train
Experienced a Japanese cherry blossom season’s fun and festivities
…And managed to learn some Of the local language as well.

I am feeling pretty good about this list. I am sure I could add more but I am at my stop now and I think I should be wrapping this up. I hope you all have a good week. Thanks for reading!