東京③

7/27

I slept in till about 7 am ("slept in"...HAH)because we didn't get back til around midnight, and I had breakfast (finally breaking into the oatmeal stash I brought) and got dressed fully intending to just skip my morning run. After an hour or so, though, the weather seemed pretty tolerable, so after a little mental bickering I talked myself into going anyway...

...and decided to call on Mr. Awkard to come with me =) He was still in bed, and looked pretty tired, but he agreed to come. What a sport.

We took a side street off from the dorm, which was not the smartest thing to do considering we'd only the other not gotten lost within shouting distance of our dorm, but I was feeling pretty good (gee, maybe because I got sleep and food and water before running for 45 minutes in a hellish tropical heat???) so we just kept on going. Mr. Awkward actually called for a break first, which isn't surprising considering I drug him out of bed and he was probably a few notches lower than I usually am most of the week doing the same thing minus food/water/sleep. Poor guy.

We walked for quite a while, and after turning so many differnt corners I didn't have the slightest idea where we were. Its not as thought we really had to be back for anything, but we were both pretty dehydrated by that point (Mr. Awkward especially) and I didn't even have my credit card, which was very stupid of me. So we turned around in the hopes that one of the many area maps would show that we were approaching the dorm...or at least the Waseda area. I think we were somewhere in Ikebukuro...

Anyway, we had a pretty interesting conversation on the way back...which I won't embarass him by repeating here in Internet land, but its nice to have a really open conversation like that.

Eventually, we did make it back, though definitely not the way we came, and I have no idea how that happened. But it only took a couple hours...

Since we were both planning on going out somewhere, we decided to go to Akihabara after cleaning up a bit.

We met back downstairs and made a stop first at Starbucks...and apparently Mr. Akward is deathly allergic to sunflower seeds, which he tells me kind of nonchalantly by asking me if I can read the ingrediant list on his sandwhich. I figure he's just being an ass and pulling my leg, but he says he's totally serious, and thinks the bread might have sunflower seeds in it.

So, starting to feel a littly panicky, I leave Mr. Akward at the table and go running downstairs to ask the barista to check the bread ingrediants (thankfully, I just so happen to know the word for both 'sunflower' and 'seed', so communication is successful), and while I'm waiting I'm keeping an eye on Mr. Awkward to make sure he's still vertical and at the same time trying to remember all the various medical emergency terms I know so, if need be, I can talk to the paramedics....

(O__O)

JEEZUS!!!

The barista finally comes back and tells me no sunflower *seeds*, but maybe sunflower oil. I tell Mr. Awkward, who, in the mean time, has finished eating his sandwhich, and he says that shouldn't be a problem.

(O_o#)

I'm pretty pissed off at this point, especially since he seems to be so laxadaisy and CONTINUED TO EAT THE EFFIN' SANDWHICH (!?!?) while I was checking to make sure he wouldn't, like, DIE or anything. He gives me kind of an unreadable look and a half-smile and thanks me for checking but is confident there's no problem because he would have been aware of it by now.

[...]

Yeah, he would have been going into anaphylactic shock by now >(

Seriously, WTF? If I had a life-threatening allergy, especially something like friggin sunflower seeds, which are OFTEN IN BREAD, I'd sure as hell be more careful.

Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Anyway, after I've made my disapproval known and had a chance to cool off, we continue out to Akihabara.

Akihabara, which has a strech known as "Electric Town", is associated with otaku and electronics. Also porn.

The porn was kind of disappointing. It was all fetishy and was mostly single girls or girl on girl, and there just wasn't really anybody having any actual sex with each other. Huh.

We wandered around for quite a while, and ended up having a late lunch at Mos Burger, which エリック had recommended to me. Pretty decent, but like everything else in Japan, its a good 1/3 smaller than what you get in the States. I think that's great, because portions are just ridiculous back home, but its surprising.

When we'd gotten bored with all the noise and goofy looking gaijin walking around, we headed back and had dinner at a little TenDon shop.