Bicycle! BI-cycle! I want to ride my bicycle, i want to ride my biiiike.

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Not having a bike in Japan is like not having a car in Greensboro, NC. At least as a student at ICU, if you don't have a bike you might as well cry, all the time. the bus schedule from the station to ICU runs every thirty minutes so if you are ever late for the bus you are screwed and are going to be at least twenty minutes late for class - you might as well not go cos all the quizes happen within that first crucial twenty minutes. The bus also stops running at 10pm....clubs end usually around 9:30pm and if there's a party on campus? to bad you're not going if you want to make it home. For the bikeless person, the best friend is a friend with a bike. Most, if not all, bikes in Japan come with a long back metal thing in which people often ride twosies. Unfortunately for the person sitting on the back, it hurts like all to sit for over three minutes and the balance and concentration it takes is intense - most of all finding a person you can trust not to ride too close to the wall or poles is key. I'm telling you this because bikes have been the theme of my week.

Yesterday after class my friends Amy, Matt, Khan, and Toku went out for some drinks and eats. I was the only one without a bike so I had to ride twosies. Last time I rode twosies it was with Khan and my butt is still bruised, I tried to ride with twosies with Matt earlier that day to the conveni ('convenient store') but he lacks skills and we end up running into two walls and a metal pole. So this time i rode with Amy and all went well except for Khan riding close and trying to make me lose my balance. So anyway, the point of the bike story IS that after we went to dinner and ate some stuff - i have no idea what i eat anymore - I was talking to Toku and he had an extra bike! He asked if I had time to come with him to get it and i did so i went.

Also the name of my teacher here is John Nathan. He is very famous in japan and in certain circles in America. He taught at Princeton and Harvard, translated many texts from japanese to english, wrote the biagraphy of Mishima Yukio, a famous writer, met and wrote a book about the maker or Sony Corp., etc. Here is his bio on Wikipedia - John Nathan

Here are some pics 4 us guys.

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Photos

Amy and Khan
this is taken at the place we biked to in Musashi-sakai yesterday.

Khan
Khan at the restaurant

le petite prince
my school put on a play called 'le petite prince' and I went to go see the finale - it was amazing! I wish I could have filmed it

ICU museum
This is from the museum on campus we went to during our class

Jomon Pottery
The Jomon period in japanese history is the earliest period archaeologists can trace back. During this period the first pottery ever made was made by people living in japan. Here is some of the pottery! wow!

Comments

[Kath]

Meg, if you buy one of your friends a banana seat, you can ride behind them instead of on the back. Ha ha. For everyone else, my Germany pics are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/kathyelsesser/Germany2007

[Abby Cupito]

I only have one word to say to this: QUEEEEN! ;-) Megan, I'm very glad that we got a bit of biking in this summer, didnt know it was gonna be like a warm up for you. so is the bike that the guy had any good? ...i cant believe the guy actually ran miles like he did, yall are just crazy. i went to get some beverages today and your miller high life was right under what i was getting and i thought that was cool, but definitely didnt buy high life, even tho it's aight.