Sorry that shot is a little difficult to read. It's a pair of tights and reads "Happy Life Creater - Lady's Life Making," but the last part is too small to be seen in the picture. Happy Life Creater is a brand that makes all sorts of cheap household goods, which just goes to show that a happy life is easier to attain than atheistic existentialists might think.
I didn't have classes today, so instead I just wandered around the downtown and went used bookstoring with Owen. We only found one used bookstore, but it was good enough to make up for the general lack. I picked up a couple of Murakami short story hardbacks that haven't been translated yet on the cheap, so that was pretty cool. Japanese mass market paperbacks are incredibly cheap and low-quality, but their hardbacks are really tasteful and distinctly Japanese in style. I also picked up a two-volume hardback set of another author's collected works for less than $2! Bliss! The books are printed on really low-quality paper, but who cares? Also picked up my first manga since getting here, the first in the Cowboy Bebop series. For those of you interested, it's decently amusing, but I wouldn't pay more than maybe $5 for a copy. The Japanese is just ridiculously easy - after crawling through this Murakami book, it's really nice to blow through a comic book.
I am a total Cardigans whore.
I checked out another used CD store and found out that Nina Persson has a solo album out called "A Camp". I couldn't resist and immediately snatched it up, along with another Crowded House CD that I also couldn't resist. "A Camp" is obviously experimental and could probably be subtitled "A Project by Nina Persson," but that ends up adding a pleasantly unfinished flavor to the songs. It's in the vein of most of the Cardigan's stuff, but not as ultra-polished as "Gran Turismo" or "Long Gone Before Daylight". It has some dynamite songs on it, so I don't regret buying it in the slightest. It also has two great music videos, which is just gravy as far as I'm concerned. The Crowded House CD (Temple of the Low Men) is not as good as the others I have (Woodface and Together Alone), and a fair number of the songs are suffering from a pretty bad attack of the 80s, but it's still decent. I've only listened to it once, so it'll probably grow on me.
I ate at a rolling sushi bar for the first time today. I'm not sure what they're actually called, but all the customers sit at a bar facing a conveyor belt of sushi and take plates as they pass by. Each plate costs a fixed amount, and at the end of the meal they just count up your plates and ring up your bill. Eating off a conveyor belt is like being fed BY THE FUTURE.
Tomorrow I leave for the Temple Extravaganza, so I won't be posting on Friday night. The trip got cut short, so I'll only gone the one night. It's possible that I'll be able to go to an onsen (public bath) for the first time on this trip, which is pretty cool.
