Croquettes and Laundry

Friday morning (20th) I was awakened by the phone in my room ringing at about 10:30am. I hadn’t planned on going to Kunitachi that day because both Michael and Todd had said that I probably wouldn’t need to so I was planning on sleeping in, but obviously that didn’t work. So anyway, the phone call was from the people here in the center because I had emailed Tsurumi-san about the sheet. They were calling to ask when they could have the cleaning people come change it. I told them that 1:30pm would work best for me.

After that, since I was awake, I had some Japanese French toast from the 7-11 and then got my stuff together to get on my computer upstairs. As I was leaving my room I ran into Casey and asked her to give me a call if it looked like the one other ryuteki player would show up, otherwise I wasn’t going to go all the way out there. She agreed and then I went upstairs.

After I was done up there I came back down and snacked on some potato chips while I cleaned up a little since they would be coming to change the sheet. I got a call from Casey around 1pm saying that it looked like I wouldn’t have to come and I said ok. Then about 10 minutes later she called back and said my sensei was there and I should come. I nearly crapped myself at first because I was like “Why is my sensei there?” But as it turns out she meant senpai and just didn’t say it right.

As soon as I got off the phone with her I got my stuff together, got ready, and left. It was about 1:40pm at that point and I was wondering where the people to change my sheet were. I figured they would either do it after I left or maybe they got confused and would do it the next day. I had no idea.

So I hurried and got to Kunitachi as fast as possible but as it happened I miss every connection and had to wait a lot so it took me longer than usual to get there. I ended up getting there around 3 something. I got to practice one piece with the shos and the other ryuteki. Then Todd left at around 4:10ish and soon after Casey and Michael followed. Asami had shown up right after Todd left and so at least I didn’t feel too awkward after all the shos were gone. We practiced a little together, and the other ryuteki guy joined in a little but overall it wasn’t really that helpful for me.

I had asked Asami if she could hang out and she said she couldn’t because she had a lot of work but she said the Rie showed up at the very end and her and I ended up hanging out for a little bit. First we went from Kunitachi over to the Tachikawa shopping area and wandered around a little bit. We saw some very nice clothes, that wouldn’t fit me, and a lot of jewelry that was really expensive. After a little bit we headed over to a place that Rie knew of that had cheaper prices and wasn’t too far away.

So we got on a train and headed over to Kichijoji. We left the station and wandered around the shopping area a little bit. Rie ended up buying a pair of cute sandals from a shop we passed. They are apparently famous for making really comfortable shoes, including high heels. After that we passed a little stand where we bought some little croquettes to snack on.

We decided to go have them at a popular park that was nearby. The park was apparently a popular date spot and we saw a lot of couples there. We found an empty bench by the pond and ate our croquettes, it was so delicious. After we finished we headed back to the station because it was getting later and I wanted to get back before it got too late because I need to do laundry before we went to Sendai on Sunday. Rie mentioned something about wearing my yukata to a festival sometime soon and said she would call me. I said bye to her and hopped on the train.

After I got back I started my laundry. I don’t mind that the wash takes about an hour but the fact that it took about 3 hours to dry was just really unacceptable. I ended up being up until about 3am finishing my laundry. I got to watch some TV in between but it was really a pain to have to keep going over to the laundry room to see if it was done yet. Finally I went to sleep and was thankful that I only had the samai dance class the next day in the afternoon and that they had changed the sheet. Yay!