Today is my last free day before I start school. Tomorrow I will write an entrance test to establish what level of class I should be in and start.
The test is at 9 AM and I wanted to make sure that I could get to school without getting lost and also see how long it takes to commute. I explained this at breakfast and showed how the GPS in my phone had plotted a route for me to follow. For some reason my new parents decided that this was no good and that a paper map would be better. One was photocopied from a book, then examined and also rejected. A paper, pen and ruler were then used to hand draw me a map complete with landmarks. I thanked father for this map and prepared to go. My new sister was dropping by with her car that the parents were going to use for errands after dropping her off at the train station. They decided that it would be better to drive me to school pointing out various things along the way after which I would be able to try it on my own. I didn’t think that this was necessary but agreed. The trip took less than 10 minutes and there were only 2 turns to make. We drove by Yamasa and then back home. I thanked father for his help and went to try the bike out.
The bike is an unusual configuration by North American standards. It’s a single speed bike with a basket, free wheel and front calliper and rear drum brakes. It has a nice upright configuration and a very slack head tube angle which makes it very stable but slow to turn. With any amount of weight in the basket steering becomes a chore. I raised the seat up a little beyond its max height and it’s still not high enough for me but should be usable. There is an integral lock which for some reason will not release the key when it is unlocked which means that the key must be left in the lock if the lock is not in use. This is odd in that anyone can come along and lock your bike and take the key. I guess you are supposed to lock the bike every time you leave it. It does mean that I can’t keep the key on my keychain but must leave it loose instead. I hope that I don’t loose it.
Anyways I set off along the sidewalk which seems to be the approved method of cycling around here. The road is only slightly downhill and I breezed along except for stop lights. In all it took me just under 12 minutes to get to school.
On the way back I decided to run some errands and stopped at the Aeon Mall to buy a few things. I needed paper for school, dental floss, ear swabs and deodorant. After wandering around the mall for a while I found a large bookstore that sold notebooks and bought a pack of five. I went to a store labelled as a drug store on the map but it turned out to be a clothing store. English does not always mean what you think it does here and often seems to be used as a sort of decoration. I entered the Aeon grocery store and found a few aisles which contained hair products and the other stuff that you find in bathrooms. I quickly found the dental floss and with a bit of work the ear swabs but could not find deodorant anywhere. I found a few classes of other products that I was not familiar with like face paper and anti wrinkle creams for men but no deodorant. Finally on about my forth pass a found 4 lonely packages. The first 2 were sprays which I wasn’t sure were used for a person or for a room. The other 2 were labelled deodorant stick in katakana so I was pretty confident about those. There was a house brand and a fancy brand that contained silver (I think). They were both pretty small and looked like large lipstick containers. The generic one was about $8 while the brand name one was more than $15. I bought the house brand. I wonder if deodorant is not used as much here? It sure is crazy expensive. When I got it unwrapped at home it smells kind of like Vicks Vapourub, which is not really my favourite smell. After looking up the product online I get this info via Google translate. “Feeling that the cool menthol formulation. Difficult to remain white skin, I kept the skin smooth workings of powder.” Guess I’ll give it a try and see what happens.
I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and resisting having a nap around 4 PM which is midnight in Vancouver. I thought that I would be over that by now.