Obon Week

So this past week I surprisingly had off.  The only reason that I did have it off is because I wont be working for this company for much longer so I didn't care to work at another location for three days.  I ended up doing less than I would have liked, but then again, if I really wanted to do more I wouldn't have been so lazy.  Even though I didn't do much, I still managed to complete a few important tasks.  Since I got paid I paid off my bills (something that has been bothering me since I got here), and I still have money left over!  I even bought myself some pillows (finally), and better "sheets" (I found out after I bought them that it is meant for a futon, I made it work).  I still need pillows cases, though.  Most of my confusion stems from my lack of Japanese.  However, now that I'm not poor, I can afford weekend Japanese lessons so I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing!  I also bought more hangers so now all of my clothes are hung up and I managed to make my apartment look presentable and not like I just moved in. I also made my way to the grocery store so now I have food to last me for a while and I even managed to pick up things like a hand towel and a pink pot (it was all that they had and I wanted pasta).  For dinner I made myself rice and salmon with garlic powder, salt, and pepper sprinkled on and I decided to cook the salmon in Dijon mustard.  The mustard gave the meal a little kick which is what I wanted (I tend to like unconventional food pairings).

I did say that laziness cost me the opportunity to see what I wanted to see (still no Sakai City Museum), but I completely forgot about the heat.  I decided to go to my nearest Seiyu to see what they had (where I got my groceries, fancy new pot, etc.).  when I was checking out the cashier asked if I wanted a bag, I shook my head yes but was only given one and that was because of my pot.  I tried to put everything into the one bag but only half would fit so I had to go back and pay two or three yen for another bag (that was filled and overflowing).  I guess that's another case where my lack of Japanese has come back to bite me.  That wasn't a problem in itself, though.  When I started walking to my train station a few blocks away the bags started to rip from the weight.  A screwdriver that I had bought had poked through the bag and ended up stabbing me once in a while on my way back.  The worst part about it all, though, was the heat.  It was about 96 degrees Fahrenheit, or 35.6 degrees Celsius with the humidity way up!  By the time I had reached the train station, an mix of the heat/humidity, and carrying my two heavy bags that were falling apart on me caused me to be drenched in sweat.  When I finally got back to my apartment I felt horrible and not since I had to lug my suitcases from the airport to my apartment had I felt this physically tired.  While that was the most physically draining day, it wasn't the hottest.  A quick stop to my nearest combini early in the week made me feel like I was melting and so that discouraged me from wanting to do much even though I had set my sights high.  If only a minute in the sun made me feel like lying on my bed with the AC down to 23, I didn't want to be out for over an hour.

A few nights I did walk around, but they ended up turning into excuses to go buy some food I didn't need.   My most successful night brought me to Dōtonbori.  I knew that it was going to have a decent amount of people, but I didn't expect it to be the tourist trap that it was.  Osaka Castle has nothing on it.  I wont lie, though, I went there pretty much just to be a tourist myself.  It was definitely worth seeing once, but not some place I care to go again.  It is the smokiest and dirtiest place I have seen yet in Japan (which is cleaner than a lot of places, but still).  It was difficult to enjoy everything that was going on when you had to watch out for other people walking into  the whole time.  I did manage to get myself a picture of the two most touristy signs in all of Dōtonbori.    

                                                                             Glico Man:

I also took the time to see Hozen-ji Temple since it is right in the area.  Again, there were too many people there to appreciate as I could.  After walking around aimlessly for a few minutes I found Namba Parks.  Every set of stairs I climbed I thought it was the top.  I was wrong about five times.  The view was really nice, but my camera is horrible in low light situations so most of my pictures were either black or blurry.  As I was leaving I did happen to see Tsutenkaku and I got a few bad pictures of it.

Now I just have to make sure I'm ready for my new job!