First the Bad News

It's been a tough two weeks.
I've worked 14 or 15 hours more days than not.
I managed to get some unpronounceable thing in my neck inflamed, and was pretty much disabled on the only 2 days I had off.
I've spent way more money in Tokyo than I intended to.

And then, today happened.

Yesterday, I mailed home some of the things I wouldn't need: my formal clothing that I used at the conferences, the books I was reading (including Catching Fire which I bought in the huge bookstore in Shinjuku- can't wait for MockingJay!), my handbag- the zipper's stuck anyway. I came pretty close to mailing home my house key. Wouldn't have been that big a deal, because I can get in the house without it.

What I did mail home was the key to my lock box. And my lock box contains my Summer Sonic Concert tickets :(

I spent an hour on the roof of the hostel, trying to be MacGuyver and pick the lock. No luck.

Step 2- I went down to the front desk and explained that my key had been mailed 600 km away, and that I needed the tickets for Saturday. I explained all in Japanese, even though the staff speak English- I had no intention of letting the English speaking guests hear my idiocy!

Eventually, they found me a lock smith (the first guy was charging $100!!!) and I set off for Ueno, which is only 3 stops on the train. Of course I got hopelessly lost. So I called the place, and the guy kept telling my left instead of right and then grumbling when I ended up in the wrong place. So I gave up on him and walked into the store in front of me. It turned out to be a casino. Bad! As a government employee, me being in casinos is frowned upon. Anyhow, casino guy walked me to the locksmith, who was right next door. Now if only he could give directions, and all maps in Japan didn't suck. (I had a map, but maps in Japan are pretty much unreadable.)

The locksmith took 37.5 seconds to open the lockbox. I kid you not. The criminal in me SUCKS!!! I'm spending all next week trying to pick that lock. At least he only charged me ten bucks.

So, I got my tickets, but now I was severely late for my doctor's appointment on the other side of Tokyo. I barely made it in time. After my ten minutes of electro-massage, I decided to treat myself.

Baskin Robbins' Fantastic Island started the ball rolling. Then I mailed a friend in Tokyo and arranged to hang out tomorrow night. Then I watched the new Naruto Shippuuden movie.

1. I love Naruto so I was floating on a cloud just from purchasing the ticket.

2. Then I discovered a stack of movies I want to see. Inception, Salt, and the new Ghibli (I don't know the English name) are all on, and I might go see all of them tomorrow :), plus Resident Evil 4 (Biohazard in Japanese) and Karate Kid come out soon. I love movies.

3. Then they showed the trailer for the Bleach movie, which comes out December 4- I also love Bleach :) especially the movies!

4. Then they showed a hilarious short about Naruto and a genie. It was from Naruto's first series, and it was fun to see the whole crew as kids again. Plus, I was proud that I understood almost every word.

5. Then the Naruto Shippuden movie was AWESOMESAUCE. And I realised my friends might have to wait 6 months to a year, but I can watch it now when it's 5 days old because I can (kinda) understand Japanese. And I thought that was so KOOL!!!

So all's well that ends well.

PS. This post is completely random. Maybe life will go back to normal when I go home on Monday.

PPS. Naruto's last name is Uzumaki- whirlwhind, and Minato (his father's) last name is Namikaze (wave-wind). Random cool Japanese fact! :)

PPPS. Jay-Z and Stevie Wonder this weekend- provided there's no more drama.