I just finished up my second day off of the set of four. Yesterday I spent the morning writing a paper, and then went into Akashi to apply for a new gaijin card. Remarkably the whole process took just six minutes, but I’ll have to come back in a few weeks to pick up the new card.
Kuniko came home from work on the late side, and we had a little wine and cheese party. Kuniko had found a chunk of stilton cheese at Vivre and it turned out to be our favorite of the night. We killed a bottle of Ravenswood Zin and made it a fun night.
Today I wrapped up my paper in the morning, and then took a trip into Osaka to get a visa for the trip to Vietnam in December.
Having a whole day to yourself with nobody to meet and no schedule to keep is pretty nice. I can’t remember the last time I could just take my time and explore things at my own pace. Really I haven’t spent a lot of time in Osaka, so to take it slow and walk around a bit was cool. First stop was Honmachi and a walk across part of downtown to find the Vietnamese Consulate.
Usually travelling through Osaka is a mass-transit afair with not much street time, but today it really felt like I was walking through a big city. It helped that the weather was beautiful and around lunchtime everyone was running around looking for lunch, so I could do some people watching.
After a few consultations with my printed out map I stumbled upon the embassy, which was just an office on the tenth floor of a big building. They were flying the Vietnamese flag out front in a big way, though – no way to miss it. I caught an elevator to the 10th floor, and followed the signs to the office.
I was just a little nervous about getting the visa. Vietnam official name is “The Socialist Republic of Vietnam” and it felt a little weird going inside. I guess I’m still indoctrinated from all those movies when I was a kid. Inside there was the standard embassy setup – glassed off counter for the embassy people and lots of bare walls and a drab interior with some desks and chairs for the visitors. I talked with the clerk and without smiling he ordered me to fill out some paperwork. Then he gave me a quick interview and told me to wait 30 minutes for the visa. That was a good sign – I was expecting to have to come back another day. He came back in five minutes, charged me 5000 yen and then gave me the visa, firmly attached to my passport. After I paid he was all smiles, and offered me some free brochures. I grabbed a couple in English and headed out – it was that easy. I shared an elevator ride downstairs with a Vietnamese lady who was really friendly and talked about how she was looking forward to heading home soon.
Since I was in the neighborhood of Shinsaibashi I walked over there and looked through the main thoroughfare of shops. I had been there a couple times before, but I had always arrived by subway and came up from underground without getting my bearings. This time I got an idea of the layout of the area. I stopped in at the Apple store which was full of geeky Americans boasting that they had an iPhone and most Japanese people didn’t.
I caught lunch at a little corner donburi place and took my time scraping out the rice while watching the town move quickly around. Again it was nice to take my time. After Shinsaibashi I went back to Umeda and reserved a Christmas cake (Gaspard and Lisa), browsed through the bookstore, bought a wireless printer server at Yodobashi Camera, and then finally stopped in a coffee shop and drank an espresso and watched the crowds come and go out of the JR Umeda station. After a while I joined them and caught a train back to Okubo.
After a bit of shopping at Vivre I came on home, spent about half an hour hooking up the printer server, and since then I’ve just been cranking rock music and putzing around the house. Kuniko is home late again tonight, but we’re going to have our first nabe of the season tonight. Pretty healthy after the cheese blitz last night…
Tomorrow I’ll go to the eye doctor to buy some contacts, and edit my papers in preparation for turning them in on Friday. Then I should be completely done with my two classes, and my fate will rest in the hands of my instructors.
I’m loving these days off so far. Even though I usually have a lot of time off with only three or four classes in the evening, there is always the feelings in the morning that I have work soon. This week there is no such feeling, and it’s great.
