Yumie and I went to Shinjuku again yesterday to meet up with some of her friends. I was going to meet up with my friend Christine a little bit later on in the day, but we weren't able to hang out until later in the night. Yumie's super nice friends walked around with me to all these ATMs as I was having issue with my card. (Later on I learned it was because of my withdrawal limit, and I still am waiting for a response to see if I can make my limit a little higher, as the minimum limit I can withdraw at most ATMs exceeds my institution's withdrawal limit.) I was having like a heart-attack thinking I might be penniless in a foreign country, but I think it'll all work out. Most of all though I'm more bummed that I wasn't able to buy my prepaid phone because I couldn't withdraw any money. You'll see why this is really important later on in the post.
We went shopping a bit, with Yumie getting a new outfit, and then we played darts until it was time to go to an izakaya! (I also played more of Reflec Beat and was very happy.) All of Yumie's friends were all wearing t-shirts with just a tiny embroidered logo of the clothes company.
Can you name them all? Polo, elephant, eagle...
We also tried boba here. We were very disappointed.
A little bit in, and my friend Christine joined us. She's going to be in Japan for a year or two, so I'm really happy I got to hang out with her. All of us hung out more, with all of us (except me, as I mostly spoke English) speaking a mixture of Japanese and English that I'm sure was weird to everyone around us. As the night went on, I headed back to Christine's cute little apartment in Ogikubo while my work partner stayed with her friends.
I was really happy to meet all of Yumie's friends! They were very thoughtful guys, especially to a girl they just met. Also, I remet my friend Toru after not seeing him for like two years and a half! He was my first ever Japanese interview I had to do for class, and it was really sweet that he remembered exactly how we first met and everything. Hopefully we'll hang out again.
The morning after, Christine and I went to the station, since we would take the same line to get to her work and back to my work/living place. She went to go grab a coffee and I needed to recharge my card, so we split up and then said we'd meet back near the gates. However, as the time for the train to depart came... I didn't see her. I decided to wait a little bit before finally asking for help and where the payphone was, all in stumbling Japanese, with some English help because some of the commuters/workers knew some English. By this time I was pretty sure Christine had just taken the train already, and knew I'd be okay because I'd taken the same line a few times already and was okay. She didn't pick up when I called her on the payphone, so I finally realized that I was carrying a wi-fi hotspot device (albeit with a low battery) and used it to message her.
All in all, I was sure I was going to be okay, but if I had been able to get that pre-paid phone (which I totally was going to get if not for my ATM problems) I would have just been able to call her easily right off the bat asking where she was. Or she could have called me. Hopefully I can get money soon to buy it, but I'm not sure any places here in Machida stocks prepaid phones, and I'd also need a Japanese guarantor or someone with a foreigner registration card as I'm just here on my passport. :(
I got back fine, and took a long nap before eating dinner with the kids, who were all very excited to see me. Back to another stretch of work tomorrow!
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