futons, snow clothes, 500meters, bowling

so wednesday i decided to go to bed early for once and i did but i woke up 3 hrs later. i cant even blame it on the earthquake that shook my room at 2:12....i was already wide awake....wondering if i should call it quits on my week of japanese-style sleeping on the floor with futons and hop into my very nice western bed a foot away. at 2:13, i was wondering how many quakes i had slept thru while in that very solid oak bed. last summer i slept thru a couple including my first earthquake...i guess i was just sleeping very well in japan :). not this time though; i went to work half asleep thursday.

but afterwork i stopped in this clothing store that i usually just walk right past on my way to the train station. not only did i buy some great quality ski/snow clothes for unbelievably cheap prices-sweatshops are closer to me now-but the couple that owns the store were just wonderful and really excited over me. i told them i was from boston because i had a hard time trying to say philadelphia, something like fee-raa-day-ree-fee-raa in japanese, and then they told me they visited boston a couple of times because their son-in-law was at MIT for a few years (im guessing visiting scholar), and when i told them i was a student at mit and currently at hitachi research they were thrilled. b4 i left they invited me to this big new year`s banquet at their home. even if they hadnt been extremely friendly, i was planning to shop at their store again anyway.

fyi new year`s is the biggest holiday in japan (30th-4th no work). christmas is not a national holiday it just happens to fall on a saturday this year and the emperor`s birthday which is a national holiday is on the 23rd so this year there`s a 4-day weekend.

during lunch friday there was the annual company race around our mountain campus. the weather was great and the whole company came out to either run or be cheerleaders. it was the most entertaining race ive ever watched. people were wearing face paint and funny costumes; there were even a few mr and mrs claus`s with gift bags too. there were some people running with their fire department gear. there were atleast 2 transvestites. a guy wearing a toga. others wearing not much of anything. there were alot of people who were just serious runners; some just seriously really really slow. it was hilarious.

afterwork there was a bowling party, and amazingly i wasnt the worst bowler. in fact i averaged 130! and out of the 16 (3 girls) of us, i was in the top 6. there were a few people averaging 160-180 but i was ecstatic just to get over 100. they made me the guest of honor and i started the event off for everyone by rolling a very ambitious gutterball but it was all in good fun. the event organizer gave out holiday gifts to everyone; some for their bowling performance/effort and others, just because. i got this very special new year`s gift that i have no idea what to do with but ill figure it out later.