Parental Sneak Attacks and Revoked Mancards

Short post this week because I really don't have much to say.

So, on Saturday I was definitely expertly maneuvered into surprise-meeting Naoko's parents. It went a little something like this:

Email from Naoko: "Hey, you busy tonight?"
Email from me: "Nope, what's up?"
Naoko: "Want to get some dinner?"
Me: "Sure, sounds good."
Naoko: "Oh yeah, my parents are going to be there. And my older brother. :D :D :D :D"
Me: O.o

This was also while I was at work, so I didn't even really have time to mentally brace myself for it. In her defense, I have expressed interest in meeting them before because I can tell it's important to her, but damn, that's messed up yo.

Dinner went... about as well as you could expect when meeting your girlfriend's family for the first time and you don't speak their language all that well. Oh, to make things worse there was a big ol' vent in between us that made hearing and seeing each other difficult (we were at a yakuniku place, the vent is for the smoke). I don't think I made a bad impression though, and her brother wants to hang out with me. Also, yakuniku. Fuck yeah.

That's... yeah, pretty much it. On Monday night, I went to 5150 to meet up with Mika and study for a few hours. Yeah, that's how cool I am! I go to bars to study! You're hanging out with the big dogs now! God, I'm a sad, sad man...

Random shit:
1.) This is first because it is weighing on my mind currently in a very uncool fashion. I feel like I'm not travelling enough here. I mean, I know I've done a lot in the 7 months I've been here, but very little of it actually involved the travel I was so positive I would do while here. The only places I've been to that are more than a half an hour from Matsue are Hiroshima and Kyoto. I just... I don't know, there's like this amalgamation of factors that have all formed together to make a supermutant of "fuck you Thomas, you don't travel". Everything here is expensive, and I need to save money for things like student loan repayments and eventually going to grad school. I don't seem to have any time off, and when I do have time off, it's on the vacation weeks that EVERYONE in Japan has off (which means prices are higher and there are too many people). I can request time off, but I don't plan ahead that well, and I need to have things all set up. Speaking of planning, I'm ridiculously bad at planning trips here because I'm not good enough at Japanese to feel confident while doing it. I now have to factor Naoko into any trip I make. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind this at all, but it does make it more difficult to accomplish. I am, by nature, a pretty sedentary dude. I don't even know how I motivated myself to come to Japan in the first place. On my weekend, I want to kick back and relax. The list goes on and on. I can rationalize to myself why I haven't done it, but when it comes down to it, I've been in Japan for 7 months and I've visited maybe a half a dozen cities of any note. This bothers me.
2.)

Are you ready for another episode of "What Adorable and Thoughtful Thing did Naoko do This Week?"? You better be, cause you're getting one. At Open Mic a few months back, I mentioned off-hand that I really liked one of the snacks we were eating. Apparently, she's been trying to find some ever since. She got it for me and left it hanging on my door for when I got home. 

3.)

I really wish this picture was better, but it was taken on my camera while going home for lunch. Remember when I mentioned those low clouds before? This is kind of what I was talking about. Normally there's big hills on the horizon.

4.)

I... I ate this for lunch. I feel dirty admitting that. You see, Naoko always talks about how worried she is that I don't eat healthy, and it kind of makes me feel bad, so lately I've been making a conscious effort to eat better. I was grocery shopping on Monday and I thought to myself "well, I could buy some meat and a beer for lun- ohlooksalads." and then I grew a vagina. True story. I need to find things to do for Naoko that don't involve me revoking my already-revoked mancard...

5.) Partially as an attempt to regain some manhood and grow some hair on the ample bosom that has sprouted from my chest due to my recent girlyness, I bought some weights finally. Of course, it's freaking Japan so they cost a ridiculous amount. About 75 bucks for 40 pounds of weights. aka, twice what it should be. I need to buy some more, but seeing as how I only have a bike, I thought it wise to do that in a few trips. Maybe this weekend I'll pick some up.