Well, we got our visas changed today.

We actually tried yesterday too. The easiest way to get out of Iida if you're going west is to take a bus to Nagoya and then board the trains from there, but we got there and the Shinkansen had been delayed by over two hours. I didn't even know the Shinkansen ever got delayed. So we took the bus to the Nagoya station... then got on the next bus out of the Nagoya station back to Iida. Five hours and fifty bucks wasted. That's life.

Today did start to feel like a hassle by the time we were on the bus home, but public transportation here really is something else. I think I can add that to the list of things I'll miss about Japan along with drink vending machines and short-sleeved hoodies (do we not have these in America, or is it a Missouri problem? I'd never seen one before I got here).

Speaking of clothes, this is a surprisingly common question from Japanese people: "do you have Uniqlo in America?" I'm at a loss. I'm pretty sure it's a Japanese company and I've never seen one in the US in my life, but that's not to say there isn't like one token Uniqlo in some megalopolis or another. So I don't know, do we? I'll have to figure this out next time I have a decent chunk of Internet time.

Also speaking of clothes, I'm pretty sure I still can't fit into Japanese clothes despite the fact that I'm getting dangerously close to the "healthy" weight for my height and build and I see hella dudes fatter than me. I guess the problem is that I'm either flirting with 6'1 or flirting with 6'2 (I forget which) and I have like mega-wide shoulders. None of the stuff I brought from America fits all that well anymore (including my glasses... which I doubt has anything to do with my miraculous results on the study abroad diet), so this is actually something of a problem. I guess I'll have to look for big and talls because I'm sure they must have them here... I hate B/T stores in America because all of the ones in my hometown are essentially formal wear and really plain solid-color kind of stuff -- the bare essentials I guess -- and I honestly don't have my hopes up for the ones over here to be any better.

So anyway, enough about my boring life. You know those little studs that people get in their nostrils that look sort of like an unfortunate screwdriver accident? I saw one of those today and it occurred to me it was the first I'd seen since I got to Japan. I wonder if they're less common here or if I'm just lucky.

They played a song from the Chrono Cross soundtrack on some random variety show on TV today. I'd heard this was pretty common but it still caught me off guard. I hated that game.

Okay, enough about my boring life for real. The next update will probably be after school starts on the first.