While on the train today, a woman sat down next to me, covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief, and stared at me for the duration of my journey. Upon leaving, she removed the handkerchief, but continued to look at me, seemingly aghast. My only feeling was that it's about time to update my blog. Additionally, on the return journey to the dorm, a man stood next to me, and upon his departure, seemed as if he wanted to compliment my facial hair without using any words, just a sequence of nodding, pointing and other assorted gestures. That made me want to update this even more, which brings us to this update.
Puzzlement towards actions of the locals aside, it's been an interesting month. Holidays have well and truly got underway, marked by a complete lack of anything. My days have essentially devolved into going to the free gym on campus in the afternoon, studying by evening, and fitting attempts at reading books or playing games in between. It's not overly exciting, but it's rewarding enough. My drive to do much outside of that has currently waned, but I have a few things lined up over the holiday. Considering I have a little under four months to occupy myself, I'm making sure that I pace myself.
Yesterday, I went to a Sumo tournament, mostly for the simple reasons that I had little other than a very, very basic understanding of Sumo and the tickets were half price thanks to Hosei University. I can honestly say that it was one of the most enjoyable sports I've ever watched, which is a reaction I didn't expect at all. I could just be that the vast majority of it is new to me, but I really could enjoy watching it for a long period of time, and the entirety of the tournament lasted for seven hours and remained interesting throughout. It was a one day tournament, which I'm told are bi-monthly, so I'm really quite eager to go again should I have the oppurtunity. I'm horrible at describing sporting events though, so I don't really want to attempt it, but it's something that's definitely worth experiencing for more than the atmosphere alone.
Something I've been meaning to write about for some time now, is a wonderful shop called Book Off. It's a second hand media store, and thus the contents range from games and DVDs to trading cards and everything potentially between the two. Books are obvious enough for me to not mention, possibly. The turnover seems almost constant, as I'm often looking in to find different content. There's a rather well known book store in Alnwick back home that works in a similar fashion, so discovering that it's essentially a chain in Japan excites me immensely. The downside to this is that I have a substantially large pile of books that are being considered as "I will hopefully be able to read these in the future" sort of material. I should mention that about 90% of those books were the equivalent of £1 each, should anyone reading be concerned about what I'm spending on things I can't even make use of. While I could go on and on about the vast list of things I am ever so keen to buy, or the wondrous things I have found so far, with a gag comic about Kim Jong-Il springing to mind, it's probably best I restrain myself.
I'm starting to notice that I'm considering myself as a resident more than an extended tourist now, which has both it's ups and downs. I'm not sure what sparked the change in attitude, but I'm happy at least that I'm feeling settled in now.
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