Kugahara, Ota-ku

One week from now, I'm leaving the Kobayashis in Kugahara to live further up north with fellow knäckebröd-enthusiast Nathalie from my school. I won't say goodbye just yet, but I thought I'd give a fairly detailed description of a normal day.

I get up at 6:45. This is done with much reluctance and difficulty, since my bed is warm, and the rest of the room is colder than Santa's nose. 

The first thing I do is either shower or shave, or both, or snooze for a few minutes.

At about 7:22 I'm downstairs in the kitchen, where Akiko-san is preparing breakfast. This, the meals of all meals, consists of white bread with peanut butter or jam, and coffee or tea. In my case, three pieces of bread and a cup of tea (hardcore – no sugar or milk.)

José and Eric joins me about five minutes later.

We try to leave just shy of 8:00, since the train from Kugahara departs at 8:09. This gives us plenty of time.

At Kugahara, we board a train that is already completely full. This, as I have mentioned before, is my share of Tokyo's rush hour.

For ten stops I stand up, listening to music and sometimes falling asleep. Ontakesan, Yukigaya-Ōtsuka, Ishikawadai, Senzoku-Ike, Nagahara, Hatanodai, Ebara-Nakanobu, Togoshi-Ginza, Ōsaki-Hirokōji and finally Gotanda.

At Gotanda, we have a bit of a walk to get to the subway.

Construction workers getting their morning exercise at Gotanda station.

From Gotanda it's three short stops on the Asakusa line to Mita, where we change to the Mita line. This takes us all the way through central Tokyo and the Palace grounds to Jimbōchō, where exit A1 lies within two minutes walk from our school. We usually get there about 8:58.

Then, at 9:10, class. What can I say about that? We study japanese. Today, counting objects and people with a ridiculous amount of variations.

School ends at 12:40, so the first thing I do is usually have lunch. Of course, this is where the routine dies and gives way to gung-ho, spur-of-the-moment, impulse-driven activity. Yesterday, modern art in Roppongi. Some days, studying.

Today was pretty mellow, in a great way. I went to a favorite noodle-place and bought a cheap bowl of soba with tofu. 

Then, a skim through the record stores near our school. I'm really starting to like that neighborhood. From the junction of Yasukuni-dori and Hakusan-dori I can either go left to find several good record stores, cheap restaurants, and five million antique bookstores. Or, go straight to guitar shops, a store that seems to specialize in old cameras, and eventually, Akihabara.

Anyway, today I bought two super awesome rekkids at Disk Union and walked around in all of the above areas.

Eventually, I head back home. 

Dinner is at 19:00, unless noted, so by 18:50, I and the other expats will again meet Akiko-san in the kitchen to help set the table and otherwise act politely. We do that a lot here.

Then, food! Yesterday we had tempura, which is insanely good when the Kobayashis make it. One funny thing I've noticed is that no matter what we eat, there's always a bowl of rice and some miso soup. Even when it's pasta with tomato sauce, there's some miso and rice on the side. I love that.

Another staple of our meals is the after-dinner cup of Japanese tea (green, but toasted in some way… I think. It's very good.)

Then I go back to my room and make funny faces on Skype until I fall asleep. I would stay up all night if I could.

No plans for the weekend, but apparently it's not going to snow or anything. So, maybe I'll go outside.