A couple more things from Friday, June 20

I realized I forgot to mention my trip to Book Off in the last post. Last week, I asked Eva where she recommended that I buy books in Sendai, and her immediate response was, "Book Off!"

Book Off is a large store of discount books, movies, CDs, clothes, surfboards (seriously), etc. To a Japanese learner who usually has extremely limited access to such materials in Japanese, it was like paradise. Books for only 100 yen! Movies for 500 yen! Crayon Shin Chan manga! I walked away with quite a bit of merchandise that day.

The ride home from Book Off was also quite interesting, as we stumbled across a couple of neat places. First, there was this little shrine hidden away from the busy street that we almost passed right by. It was, of course, very cool and Japanese-y.

We also almost passed by this long staircase that led up to....well, at the time, we didn't know what. We ascended the stairs and found it led to a pretty steep path up a large hill. It was very peaceful, and we found ourselves surrounded by dense foliage even though we were in one of the busier parts of town.

Upon reaching the top, we were treated with a great view from a little structure that was built up there.

On the way home, we stopped by a store for some snacks, and found a bottle of whiskey that cost $1000. wooooo

That night, after yet another delicious dinner, I gave my host family the present I had brought for them. They really liked the shirts, and it turns out my host sister loves beef jerky. They liked everything else, as well. I was really glad that I could give them a little something after all they had done (and were still to do) for me.