May 22, 2003
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Patrick bought a cell phone the other day. We expect it to make things more convenient for us, and certainly for Patrick. Every young Japanese person has a mobile phone, so it's an easy way to contact anyone, from anywhere. He has it on six-month contract, though, so if he takes off after three months, I will have to use it for a while.

There was a party at Seika today for the Antioch students. It was put on by the English Club, who put out an English Language newspaper. It was a very foolish time. We all had to play musical chairs and bingo for a little while. Because they're American games, I guess. After that finished, though, it was not so bad. And very short. We met at least one or two people that I want to hang out with again.

Patrick just left for the evening to visit the family of the Japanese exchange student who has been, somewhat coincidentaly, living at his house in Ohio for a few months. I met the parents, and they seemed very nice. They apparently don't speak any English, so it ought to be an educational night for him.

We keep going to different grocery stores trying to find things we want. The sterotypes about small portion sizes in Japan all seem entirely true. Cereal, which seems to be just recently borrowed from the west, comes in boxes which last about four days. We can't find juice in larger containers than a liter, except for at one Seven Eleven, where we could get orange juice in one and a half liter bottles. We have only found peanut butter in jars about a third the size of what we are used to. Only rice seems to come in bulk.

To make things more difficult, there only seem to be two main brands of soy milk, and one does not taste very good. The other can be bought at any store in tiny packages (I'm not sure how big, but smaller than a soda can), but only one store sells them in the large size of one liter. This was the store that we went to when we were lost on our first trip back from Cafe Peace. We don't really know where it is.