Bye Bye Bae

05/26/2019

When I got back from work on Friday, Alex and I decided to go on a walk around the Keihanna Park. We ran into Clement on the way and talked to him for a few minutes. Alex showed me a part of the park that I hadn't been to before. It was absolutely gorgeous. Japanese landscapes are the prettiest (with the exception of them never cutting their grass). It seems that they place every flower and stone for a specific purpose and it looks beautiful. As it started to get dark, we went to look for dinner. I offered to have Alex come over to make dinner for him. We picked a few things up from the grocery store, Alex had fried rice and I had spaghetti and the Japanese sweet sauce dough balls (sooo good). We watched a movie about how Facebook was founded, which was really interesting. 

On the way to the airport.

In the morning, I packed all the clothes I wanted Alex to take back to America for me (winter coats, heels) because I don't really use them in Japan and it will be easier when I leave in August. I met up with Alex to go on another walk before we went to the airport. We walked around my dormitory area, which surprisingly I have never actually walked around. I tend to stay in the area where I actually live, but there are also actual houses and tennis courts for different residents. I think we can use the tennis courts, but I don't have a racket anyway. We went to pick up his luggage and walked to the Keihanna Plaza Hotel, which is where the limousine bus pick up to the airport is. We actually booked the tickets properly this time, and had no issues getting on the bus. It picked us up at 12:30 pm and took us around an hour and a half to get there. Once we arrived, Alex went to check in and realized his flight was like 30 minutes earlier than he had thought, so he had to leave within 10 minutes when we thought he would have at least an hour. He bought some McDonald's so he would be prepared for the long flight, and headed into security. I was falling apart and crying the whole time because I didn't want him to leave. Once he was gone, I took the train to Osaka to wait for Yassi because she wanted to hang out for a while. I was going to walk around for a while but there was the random person that kept coming up and hugging me. I was fine with it at first, but after a few times I started to get uncomfortable especially because I couldn't understand what he was saying. I ended up walking down the street and finding a stone bench, where I read my book for about an hour while I waited for her. Once she arrived in Osaka, it took us a while to find each other. A friendly Japanese person started talking to me to practice his English and invited me to go drink with him, but Yassi and I already had plans so I didn't go. After she found me, we walked around to get to a popular shopping area. We accidentally ended up in Osaka's Beer Fest, where there was quite literally hundreds of types of beer for you to try. However, neither of us were really in the mood to pay a ton of money for beer and wait in super long lines, so we left. We stumbled upon this really cute hammock restaurant that sold snacks and juice. We ordered some fruit juice, I had mango lemon. It was pretty yummy and was nice to relax in a hammock, with juice, friends, and Toy Story in the background.

Exterior of the Cute Hammock Restaurant.

Once we finished, we went to a couple Japanese stores to try to find workout clothes for Yassi. I thought about trying to find a cute Japanese skirt, but all the ones I saw didn't seem to fit what I wanted. We shopped for a couple hours, but both ended up with nothing. Around 9, we went to go have dinner at a hole in the wall vegan restaurant. We didn't get our food until around 9:50, so I was starving. I ordered a falafel donburi rice bowl, which was basically falafel with rice and vegetables. It was delicious! Yassi had some soy meat and a pizza. I tried both and they were also really good.

Vegan Falafel Donburi.

Around 10:30, I decided to confirm the bus schedule because I thought the last bus was at 11:59 and I wanted to be sure. After checking, I realized the last one left shin-hosono station at 11:11. WHO HAS BUSES THAT STOP EARLIER ON WEEKENDS THAN WEEKDAYS?! The Japanese.  Ugh. So we finished dinner quickly and sprinted to the station. Luckily, we didn't miss the last train. I temporarily lost my IC card to add to the panic, but found it within a couple minutes. We rode the train together most of the time, charging my phone so I had enough battery to walk back safely on my own. I decided to get off at Kizugawadai Station because it was only a 29 minute walk rather than a 45 minute walk, which would be from Shin-Hosono Station. Unfortunately for me, Yassi got off two stations before me. When I arrived at the station and tried to leave, the gates locked me in! Apparently, my card hadn't registered properly in Osaka because it thought I was trying to take the train without paying and wouldn't let me through. I was panicking because my phone was dying and I was trapped in this train station that I had never been to before at midnight with no attendant. I found a phone and tried calling the train people and of COURSE THEY DIDN'T SPEAK ENGLISH. I basically cried because I didn't know what to do. I guess he could see me on the camera though, because after about 10 minutes he told me to put my card in the machine and opened the gate to let me out. I was so grateful. I quickly gathered myself and tried to find my way home. Once I knew where I was, I called Kim and Bre to make sure I made it home safely. It took me about 25 minutes and I was happy when I finally arrived home because I was totally exhausted. I didn't get to sleep until 2 am though, which caused me to almost fall asleep at church on Sunday. 

Views from my hammock.

After church, I immediately went home so that I could take a nap and do my laundry from the week, as I had no clean work clothes. I called Emily on the way home and again on the way to the grocery store. Once she hung up, I started to bike home. Just as I was turning on the street my apartment it on, I dropped my loaf of bread from the sharp turn. I tried to pick it up and the top heaviness of all the groceries in my front basket caused the whole bike to fall over, my groceries to spill out, and me to fall on top of it. I got pretty scratched up and have a few bruises, but managed to pick everything up and make it home still in one piece. Hopefully, someone got a laugh out of this foreign person and all her groceries falling all over the sidewalk. I am sure I'll laugh about it...next week.