And it's the end of another three-day weekend! For the most part it's been pretty chill, but after so many weekends running around from place to place it was actually pretty nice to just kind of stay in my area.
On Friday, I got to spend a little bit of time at CEATEC Japan, which is Asia's largest IT and technology exhibition. There were huge companies like Toyota, Sharp, Panasonic, etc, and even companies like Roomba. Chiba Prefecture and Chiba City also had a booth, to promote businesses coming to Chiba. It was pretty cool to wander around and look at all the products they were advertising (like appliances linked to smart phones, electric bikes, and smart phone interpreters) and see demonstrations. The Docomo booth had a demonstration with a little house robot, which was small and cute with a child's voice (though actually I found it a little bit creepy). We were only there for about two hours, which wasn't nearly enough to see all of it, but I was glad to have the chance to see such a huge exhibition - I've never been to that kind of business convention so I found it pretty interesting. Hirata-san treated me to lunch afterward, too, which was very nice of her!
Then after work I headed down to Makuhari! My WI-ALT friend James had invited me to a sake festival there, but by that time it was too late to get tickets, so Cory and I had dinner instead. We spent a ridiculously long time trying to find a place in Makuhari that wasn't a chain or too expensive (no hole-in-the-wall restaurants to be found), but finally settled on a Korean place that was pretty good. After that we wandered around AEON (a shopping center) for a little bit before meeting up with Ben and James. Cory left to find another friend (all the WI-ALTs had spent the day in Makuhari for training) and the three of us went to a little sushi place, though since I'd just eaten all I had there was beer and cheesecake (which don't go really together, for the record).
On Saturday I spent the morning buying stuff for my apartment (which was a recurring theme this weekend) - since my family is coming to visit next month (yay!) I figure I should make my apartment look a little bit more like I actually live there! After that I went to frisbee practice for a little bit before heading into the city to meet some other JETs and their friends. We went to an British pub called HUB for happy hour and just chatted for a while, before heading to an izakaya for some food. After that everybody else headed to a bar, but I figured I would just head home while I could still catch the bus, so I did. It was good to see the JETs I knew and meet some new people though!
Sunday morning was spent buying even more stuff for my apartment (like a chair! A super comfortable and not too expensive chair that has a back, which is awesome) and then I headed to Makuhari again for a baseball game! This time it didn't get rained out, thank goodness. I thought that there would only be four of us but a few more people showed up last minute, which was exciting. This time we had tickets for the cheering section, but since we were such a big group we could only find seats in the cheering section that was a little bit separated from the main section. But everybody still got up and cheered/jumped/sang when the Marines were on the field, so it was great. I was still impressed by how Cory knows (almost) all of the cheers, especially when I realized that they have individual songs that they sing for each player at bat! Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I would definitely go again sometime (though the season is basically over now, haha).
And then today was mostly spent chilling at home and Skyping with friends, though I did go grocery shopping for the first time in a while. I won a 200-yen voucher and a snack in a little raffle that the shopping center was having, which was fun. All in all, it's been a good weekend! :)
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