quiet before the storm

The past few days haven't been too eventful, but after the family visit and with what's coming up soon, I think that's probably for the best!

I don't think anything interesting at all happened Thursday or Friday (just getting used to being myself in my apartment again, haha), but on Saturday after finally cleaning my apartment, I went into Chiba to meet my friend James for coffee. That was great, but after that things started to unravel into one of the worst nights I've had in Japan (but really in retrospect it wasn't that bad so I guess I'm still having a pretty good time, haha).

Basically I was supposed to meet my friend Ella in Mobara for dinner, because it's kind of halfway in between us and that way neither one of us had to take a two-hour train ride. Or at least that was the logic behind it. But there was super strong wind/rain in the part of the train line where she was, so the trains there stopped running, and basically I spent three hours waiting in Mobara and poor Ella spent something like 5 or 6 hours on a train before finally just heading back home (after trying to make plans for her to come here so she wouldn't be stranded somewhere else). So we didn't get to meet and that sucked, but we'll make it happen sometime, I'm sure (and for next time I've learned it's probably easiest just to reschedule instead of hoping the weather will get better. Also that maybe checking the weather beforehand is a good idea).

On Sunday I went to Costco again, but this time to get supplies for Chiba AJET Thanksgiving, which is happening on Friday (since it's a national holiday - not Thanksgiving though). I met up with some other Chiba AJET people and we spent a couple of hours trying to find stuff in Costco before having lunch there (of course). I brought one of the turkeys home with me, and I'm happy to report that I discovered that I can in fact fit a 14-pound turkey in my little fridge (though not much else anymore, haha)!

Then today Cory came over to my apartment to hang out, which made him my first guest who isn't a coworker or family (or almost-family, as the case may be), so that was exciting. We went to a little ramen place nearby which I thought was pretty nice (so parents, if you ever come back sometime we can go there) and then just reaffirmed how there's really nothing to do in my apartment other than TV or internet. -.-'

Tomorrow is the first day of the JET CIR mid-year conference, which should be lots of fun! It's actually happening in Makuhari so I'll just be commuting (which is maybe not so exciting but will save me lots of money, so I guess I'm pretty lucky for that), but I'm looking forward to seeing all the other CIRs who I haven't gotten to meet yet! Another Chiba CIR is actually going to be staying in my apartment during the conference so she can save on hotel costs too, so that should also be fun. :)