I had an exciting day yesterday. On Friday night, after work, a few of us headed to Kinsale, a French restaurant located above the Irish pub. I had the Australian beef, and damn, was it ever good! I love steak. I tend to get in this mind set when I'm not consuming a great deal of meat, but I'm eating a healthy portion, mainly because I'm going out to Yoshinoya a lot. Mom and I ate at Yakiniku the other day, this Korean-style grill-your-own beef place. It was delicious. I can't wait to go back.

Anyways, yesterday, I thought I was going to have to wait ALL day for my new kotatsu to arrive. Check out the phenomena here: http://www.jlifeinternational.com/furnishings/kotatsu/kotatsu_e.html Apparently, my new kotatsu is "kawaii" (cute), but I've been too frightened about putting the sucker together to open it. I have no tools at my disposal! A nice Japanese woman called, and the call didn't go down well. I don't speak Japanese. A few minutes later, my doorbell rang, and there was the kotatsu! So, I brought in this square box, about 4 inches thick, and paid her. This was only 11:00am. I was pretty pleased that I wouldn't be chained to the apartment all day, so I read for a bit and then took a shower. Also did some reading. I left the house at 3:45pm, and went to Aspia, managed to do all my grocery shopping. Carrying 8 litres of juice and water on my back, and various other groceries in a bag, I did not want to stop anywhere else, so I made a beeline for the train station, and was super impressed when I got home by 5:00pm.

However, upon arriving at my door and digging out my key, it appeared to have been bent slightly from the weight of the water bootles. Damn. SO I trucked it over to the local locksmiths in the hopes the tiny shop would still be open. As luck would have it, it was. Armed with only "sumimasen" (sorry) and some hand gestures, I managed to get a new key cut, and all for under 500yen. I walk back to my apartment, now exhausted and hungry, and try my key in the door, almost praying, "if there's a god, this key will work, otherwise, I'm not calling the school, I'm sleeping on my front door step." It did work, albeit a little less smoothly than the original, but cutting from a bent one's got to be a bit difficult.

So, it all worked out. I'm a bit bummed to not have any real plans today. However, I should really get caught up on the blog, I wanna record what occurred during mom's visit, before I forget dates!