Mama Chari and O-Mawari… san – Sept 30th

Today I had no official plans, so I had to make my own. Last night, Okaasan showed me how to fetch her bike, so this morning I decided to give it a spin, and see just how long it would take me to get around. I told Hans to meet up with me around 1pm, and I figured I’d leave around 10 or 11 and explore a few different routes to get to school. Well, I ended up working on catching up with my journal, and didn’t really leave the house until around noon. It turns out that will be more than enough time to get to school, since I was simply meandering down the road, and it only took about 25 minutes to get to the SILS building. If weather permits, biking is actually faster than going by train!

I had to wait a while for Hans. He gave himself 3 whole hours to get from his apartment near Kuramae station to Waseda, and he still ran late. He did, however, find a Freshness Burger on his roundabout way to the school, so we biked down there and enjoyed a small but filling lunch. From there we went to the Waseda gym, where I realized that I had left my health forms at home. So we biked back to my house to pick up the forms, and on the way back, I snapped a few photos of Hans on his bike. Notice the way he’s riding the bike, then note the car just over his shoulder.

So the cop pulled us over. I was almost certain that he was going to go after me, the white foreigner who was weaving around while taking photos behind him, but he all but ignored me, while asking Hans all sorts of questions, like whether the bike was his, where he lived, to see his alien registration card or student ID, etc. I pulled all my stuff out just to show him, but he just kind of glanced it over and told us to be more cautious before sending us on our way.

We made it back to the gym in one piece and I was able to sign up for my membership. Bob showed up and we worked out together for a little bit before heading over to the main campus to wait for word from Rina. After a while she said she’d arrived at the station, and we rode down there to park our bikes and meet up. Rina showed up with her little sister and a friend named Yurika, who had been studying in Pennsylvania the past year. We all went over to a family restaurant called “Cozy Corner,” and met up with two more Japanese students (Takako and Takuya), and an American named Tim from a university in Ohio. We ate and chatted a while, and were considering karaoke, but all the Japanese people had to take the TOEIC English test in the morning, and couldn’t really stay out much later. We all split up and went home. It was really good to see Rina again, and for the record, her sister is a spitting image of her!