still sleeping

this morning I woke up quite regularly, at 7.30, and had my pre-arranged breakfast at 8. quite a complicate ceremony, one has to reserve the night before and the meal is served at the requested time. as usual in Japan, you are supposed to pay immediately after (this country sticks to currency and seemingly hates credit cards), instead of charging to your hotel account as in any other country.
however, the first part of the morning was a royal mess. I was like completely stoned by the jet lag, and had even troubles in standing upright. after the beautiful sunny day of yesterday, today it was raining like hell, and I had no umbrella along. the thin man mr. Yamada at the reception handed me pitifully a transparent plastic umbrella, quite obviously a girls' one. I got off of the building at 9.30 aiming to reach the lab which is -technically speaking- at only 5 minutes walking distance. at about 10.30 I was still wandering under the rain with a terrible headache, my shoes totally soiled in mud, unable to find the way to the lab. magically, another thin guy with a baseball hat came to rescue me. he must have been a park guard or something (I got lost in a vast park with tall trees and traditional japanese buildings here and there, later on I discovered it was the Komaba historical park).
So, a little before 11am I eventually got into the lab with my mud-soiled shoes, greeted my friend professor Fujita, handed him politely my little present (a box of Guylian chocolate bonbons from Belgium) and we started talking work (I was drowsy droopy and eyelids at half-mast).
later on, I spoke briefly with a student from which I could not get one single concept straight. he was trying to explain me some idea of his about frictionless levitation, in a broken english, so badly broken that we ended up drawing doodles at each other.
after some time I got bored and started lying to him. I mean, not exactly lying, I made up some wild things which I told him in my best english, so he could not understand a word. Now, that was fun! of course he knew that I am his professor's idol, so I couldn't be wrong for no reason on earth. Therefore (he must have thought) I misunderstood what Cleri-sensei said, poor me! In the end, he was probably blaming himself for my own nonsense. but he was a kind chap, he even came back to help me with setting up the wireless connection, so at least he got something right.
around 5pm, we had the first little shinsai (earthquake) since my arrival. it was a swift vibration, just one or two seconds maybe, but up there at the 5th floor it was quite evident.

highlight of the day, the doomed search for a soba-ya around Komaba.
Sense of direction. I remembered I had been at a glorious soba-ya the other time I visited here, so I was determined to find it again. I usually have a fantastic sense of direction, and very rarely get lost even in places I've never seen before. I just remembered a few details about the street, and started following my mind-track. for those of you who now just start laughing, I found the spot easily without mistake! and it was night moreover. it was around 7.30 and in the beautiful soba-ya there was just a couple eating their dinner. so I said to myself, it's too early, there is no one yet in the restaurant. I'd take a walk around here and will come back a little later. so I went for the walk, and walked a lot, trying to get lost in the desperate maze of tiny little streets. stopped at a convenience store to buy milk, then stopped at a pastry shop to buy some carbohydrates for tomorrow's breakfast (I had enough of omelettes with bacon, already, I hate hyperproteic breakfasts). then decided to go back, it was about 8, found my way to the soba-ya and.... it was closed!! I ended up in another, more working-class restaurant, where I could get anyway some great soba with vegetables and shrimps. and finally got back home. now, it is unbelievable how just two 0.5l beers can make one's mind absent. on the way back I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, so I found myself back on Uehara street over and over. with the typical masculine stubborness of such cases, I insisted to keep going where my infallible (...) sense of direction lead me. and (to my own surprise) after some meandering I found myself at the front gate of the Komaba faculty house...