Today was a "housekeeping" day for us. Number one priority - laundry. And holy SMOKES did it cost more than I anticipated! Dan and Kai went to the coin laundry down the street and did two large loads and dried them all together and spent ¥2000 ($25.68)! Yowza! We'll figure out if it's cheaper to do smaller loads more frequently (apparently there are a few different sizes of washers for varying prices) or if we should just do one enormous load in the monster washer... But at ¥100/10 minutes of drying, I don't know if we'd save any money... we definitely don't have enough room to air dry the clothes. We have jeans hanging in both bathrooms as it is! But it's all a part of the adventure and my washer and dryer at home will be all the more precious to me upon our return.
We have been watching a bit of Japanese TV, particularly kids' shows. Kai is fascinated (and it's really good practice for me because they are topics I can reasonably follow). It's amazing how extremely contrary the television show personalities and concepts are to their day-to-day culture. The typically shy, reserved, and quiet people are replaced with loud, goofy, and outlandish portrayals on television. The silliness doesn't seem to bother Kai one bit, although there are more than one confused glances shot my direction as he watches the costumed grown men dance across the screen!
Whilst flipping through the channels, we happened upon the overtime period of the Broncos-Bears game from Sunday! Never would have guessed to find that on TV at 11 a.m. on a Friday morning in the middle of Tohoku, but there it was... and we had missed the game due to traveling. The Broncos' 50+ yard field goal to win the game was quite exciting (particularly since Dan withheld information on who had won the game). It was fun to have a random taste of home, and with a team we actually followed as well! Dan (an avid Vikings fan) made the suggestion to me (a hardcore Packers fan) that perhaps we forget our differences and choose a more "neutral" team (such as the Broncos) for the sake of our marriage. ;o)
We received the handouts concerning the center today, so we have something to physically hand to people with information in Japanese, including all the contact information they would need. I think this will make a big difference. Now we just need to get these fliers handed out. We will probably hand some out outside the train station (directly across from our hotel), in our neighborhood, and around town. We're looking to take advantage of the fact that we really stand out here. People are curious why there is a gaijin family wandering around town... let's let them know!!
Anyway, I'm going to keep it short tonight. I'm falling asleep as I type... Niko decided that 4:30 a.m. was a good time to get up and play, so both Dan and I are pretty shot. Tomorrow is the weekend, so we may do some exploring... we took a short drive (primarily to get Niko to nap, since he's being the nap refusal king lately) and got to see some of the countryside. It was really nice and Kai enjoyed the scenery too. Now the only scenery I really want to see is the contours of my pillow. Hopefully we'll have something a bit more interesting to write about tomorrow! Goodnight, world.
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