This
weekend, we had plans to go to Yokohama to see Lisa, so I packed an
overnight bag and after school, headed over to Nicky’s place.
Unfortunately, shortly after I got there, we found out that Lisa had to
cancel, so our weekend trip wasn’t going to happen. I decided to stay
for as long as I could anyway, though I would go back to Sugamo later
that night since my asthma cough was acting up again and Nicky is a
light sleeper.
We spent the evening mainly strolling
the river in Hamadayama, which I really enjoyed. The flow of the river
isn’t so spectacular right now, as it’s not the rainy season, but there
was so much life there! The cicada were out in full force, as were the
mosquitos, but there were also massive carp of every color in the river,
egrets, turtles, ducks and finches.
After our walk, we went back to
Nicky’s place to have dinner, where we pretty much whipped up
experimental curry and katsu-don. I fried the pork, since Nicky doesn’t
like frying food in oil, while she made a super delicious curry that
included asian squash (mmm!). We ate while watching a variety show. As
far as I could tell, it had something to do with completing old Japanese
idioms and proverbs. Afterward they had a food price guessing game with
a retired, cross-dressing sumo wrestler. Oh, Japan. Overall, a nice
night.
There
was one sort of bummer we encountered though. Upon hearing that Lisa
cancelled, we tried to think of places we might want to go for the
weekend, and the idea of climbing Mt. Fuji (since we had two days) came
up. It’s the time of year where even beginners can do it, and it’s a
relatively easy hike by all standards (cafes along the way to freshen
up).... but the transportation of getting there is a cash-flow
nightmare. Before even factoring in the costs of food, water and a
possible overnight, it would have been $60 USD in train fare. Until we
can find a cheaper way of doing it, Mt. Fuji has been taken off the list
of “Things to Do.” Oh well!