Japan - Days 31-32

Last couple of days have been mixed at best -_-
After the late night on Saturday, I woke up fairly early on Sunday morning to go meet Jen for skating practice. I had meant to call her to wake her up, but forgot so we were late getting started. After a bit of a skate around, she decided she didn't want to hang onto the back of my bike after all so we'll go to the store another time, walking. We met a couple of other friends back at the Community Centre, then biked down to my dorm to meet another friend, before heading into Tsukuba Centre. On the way, one of them picked up a puncture, and after driving a little way, he decided to pull out and come another time. After driving along the road for a while, I started to think that I'd sent us down the wrong road, so I kept a close eye out for road signs. I saw one and followed it around and down a hill, only to discovere that I HAD taken us the wrong way, and we came out near Kenkyuugakuen station, about half a mile further along the road we SHOULD have taken
Crestfallen, and pretty sure that the girls who were still with me hated me, we went into WonderGOO and took a look around. They still didn't have the book I wanted, and I had no idea what sort of music to buy, so I left empty-handed. Still, I like looking around in there. We made it back along the correct road, and although I turned in at my dorm and said goodbye to the girls, I didn't feel much like going back to my stuffy room, so I turned up towards the Community Centre, through campus, up to the edge of Ichinoya, out past the labs (where I saw a guy from my lab on the other side of the road and waved to him) and up to Book Off, where I was going to stop, but I felt like exploring so I kept going, then I doubled back at a crossroad and stopped at a book store further up the street, which again, didn't have the book I wanted. I rode down to Book Off, looked around there too, not finding the book I wanted, but picking up Pokémon Special 2 for Y105 (it was on discount). From here, I drove alongside the main road, perpendicular to the way I should have gone to get home, then crossed the street almost at Tsukuba Centre, before finding the street that lead home
However, a little way away from the dorms, I heard a rhythmic hissing noise. Fearing the worst, I pulled over, discovering a gaping hole in my back tyre. I rode my bike a little further, then not wanting it to break completely, I walked it the rest of the way. Utterly pissed off, I sat outside in the sun playing Pokémon for a while, before heading off to meet everyone early for the pizza hang-out. On the way, I met a friend who was going up to meet some more people, so I tagged along at his invitation and we hung out in someone's room until we went to meet everyone else. Despite my tyre being punctured, I was determined not to be left behind so I rode on a flat all the way to the pizza place, with a very unhealthy noise coming from my back wheel
Once we parked up, we walked along to the pizza place. We had to wait about half an hour to get in, as there were a few people waiting ahead of us, but once we got in and grabbed a plate, the fun began. The deal was 'all-you-can-eat', and I think I pretty much lived up to that one, as did most of the others. They really do have weird flavours in Japan - some of these included prawn and mayo, and marshmallow and sweet potato. Yes, they had dessert pizza, and it tasted pretty good too. After we waddled out of the restaurant, we decided to walk our bikes back, mercifully. From there, I stayed up for a little longer waiting for a call from my parents, and then laid down to sleep
This morning, I woke up early for the 9am seminar, and wasn't feeling too hungry because I was still full of pizza, but my mouth was dry so I went and bought some drinks. Anyway, I decided to walk to the seminar (in the rain) to kill time, but as it transpired, there WAS no seminar (typically as I missed last week's one -_-). So I just got on with my experiments, all of which have failed thus far today. I have a PCR waiting for me to put on a gel tomorrow, so I guess I'll see how that goes
Japanese class was alright. As it turns out, the New Word test is tomorrow, but we did have a surprise in store - we were told we have to give short presentations in a few lessons' time. Oh joy -_- After this, I went back to the lab, and did as described above - failed
At about 6, I headed out to the kaiwa club, getting a phone call from my mum just as I got there. After standing talking for a bit, we biked along to the Korean restaurant, which was very good. I had something called 'ishiyaki bibinba', along with a selection of side dishes which were shared among the table. I finally got to try kimchi, which was kinda spicy, but tasty. After the meal, we all headed back to my room, and that's where I am now
It's now 1.30am, so I should probably go soon. Night all :-)