The Bells, the Bells! (Because “The Chimes!” Sounds Lame)

Okazaki Castle happens to be too far away for me to get to today.

But at least I have a way to show you where I am on an interactive map. (It’s in Japanese, but a map is a map.)

http://tinyurl.com/3d6cgv

There’s a zoom-scale-slider-thing at the bottom of the map, to change it from 500m to up to 250 km.

I’m just to the right of the red cross hair on the map.

That green thing above is a high school, and I can hear the class chimes from the school all day long. It’s kind of like being back in school again. Fortunately, I haven’t had the recurring dream where I have an exam in the class I haven’t attended all semester long.

More of My Commute to Yamasa

I took a few pictures of my daily commute to and from Yamasa’s main campus from the dorm. I put some of those photos on yesterday’s post. (About my daily dance with death.)

Here are a few extras:

I go by the coffee shop every day.

I like the lettering on their signs.

Be careful not to step on the covered gutters. Those covers move. Here’s a closeup of one of the Yamasa apartment buildings, you can almost make out the dorm in the back. It’s peeping over that wall.

A cemetery on the way:

In the distance, you can see big new apartment buildings going up. Okazaki is growing fast because Toyota is close by.

I’m getting close to 248, the main road.

And here is the Daiso, a 100-yen shop. They’re like dollar stores in the U.S.:

There are a few of these tunnels that go under route 248. Here’s the tunnel itself:

Once I cross 248, the wall protecting me from traffic disappears. So does the sidewalk. The building with the red letters is the South Okazaki Hospital:

As I get to Yamasa, here’s a photo of one of the classroom buildings and the coffee shop/Japanese-style restaurant:

Looking to the other side, here’s the main classroom and administration building, Yamasa II. I don’t know if there’s a Yamasa I:

And here’s the place where I took my classes, the Info Gallery:

Later that day, on the way back to the dorm, I spied this Caution sign on the pole of a Stop sign. I really liked the way the white bits were cracking:

And here’s the entrance to the dorm, to the right of the laundromat, which is right next to the convenience store:

And here’s the Mini Stop convenience store, without which I probably would have starved to death:

The Donkey Was Surprised, and so Was I

I went to Bikkuri Donkey tonight for dinner, because translated it means “Surprise! Donkey!”

I learned an important lesson today. Don’t go to a restaurant just because it has the word “Donkey” in its name.

I couldn’t get into the hambugu. It’s ground beef mixed with some other stuff, shaped into a patty-like form, fried in a pan, then dumped on a plate with some sauce.

Note that this is not hamburger, which comes on a bun and tastes entirely different.

Hambugu yields easily to chopsticks, which was also a source of dismay. I come from the Land of Meat. In the Land of Meat, we have special knives for eating Meat, and these knives are sharp. The meat we eat usually does not require much more than salt and pepper to be tasty. This dish had far more than 11 herbs and spices in it, and I could barely taste the meat.

Japanese famires (short for family restaurant) cuisine so far has been less than satisfying. I’ve tried 2 different kinds, and so far, I’m 0 for 2.