A Fairly Excellent Day

Today was pretty awesome.

It's Wednesday, which means I have no classes and since Julia hasn't started school yet, it was one of our last chances for a day-long adventure without weekend crowds.

So we got ready and headed out to Sendai. We started with a pizza buffet lunch (at a place I had read about but never been to) which was pretty great actually. The pizzas were small and few offerings that I really enjoyed, but the tomato-moz-basil option and the basic cheese were both totally delectable. After picking up a slice of something green (too excited/hungry to bother reading the Japanese-only description written on a short note near the pizza) that I realized later was zunda (mashed raw soybean with sugar--a Sendai-specific sweet) I decided I had been adventurous enough and went with salad instead. The zunda wasn't bad, just not what I wanted on pizza.
Julia was free, but does not have any affinity for pizza, so I brought her some items from the small salad bar, all of which she rejected. I spied fruit-filled yogurt in the dessert area and brought it along, and she ate it-- or at least the yogurt. She carefully dodged each mango and pineapple chunk, carefully partaking only in the yogurt.
I later brought her more of just the yogurt and finished off her remaining fruit. I would later get her something she actually liked for lunch elsewhere.
There was also a free juice bar, and as I'm still harboring some post-nasal drip, I made the most of my $10/45minute beverage festival.
It was actually pretty great. A lot better than I thought it would be.

Then we walked through the arcade, with me trying desperately to catch the Farfetch'd Pokemon for my mom, and failing again. Again! The little blighter will not show himself.
I charged my phone at 3 different restaurants/coffee shops during the day trying to catch him. Could not make it work.
Oh well.
In the mean time, we went to the Owl Cafe, surprised to find it now the home of a meerkat and several rabbits in addition to the now adolescent miniature pigs and the same owls as before. I got to pet a fluffy owl.
And the meerkat.
And the marmoset.
Julia was freaked out a little because the meerkat was very curious about the smell of her slightly-wet pants. It was awkward, but not traumatic, so yay! They also have a twice-daily flying session, in which they put all the owl-prey away in cages and have three of their best trained owls fly across the room to perch on the gloved hand of an owl-cafe employee, only to have volunteers from the audience join the action afterward for the same interval. The barn owl perched on my left index finger, and I thought of David Bowie, and it was a good day.

Then it had been an hour and Julia was getting tired so we went for a little walk, still chasing and not finding the Pokemon. I found some pokestops that were lured, so I gravitated toward them but still couldn't catch my guy. In the process, I found a new favorite coffee shop, under an AU shop in a building that may have housed Zara back in 2011. I'm not really sure, but it was super convenient, with tablets at the same seating area as the outlets, so I could charge my phone while Julia played with ice and watched a few trial episodes of random innocuous anime.
It was rather excellent.

I kept stopping for lures, but never did find the guy. Instead I spent a little bit at a few places, buying coffee so my phone could charge while my daughter made small talk with every person who would look at her for more than 2 seconds. She is just that way. She stayed close to me today though, with no running off in random directions, so overall it was good.

Now we're home, and about to head out for some last minute groceries (and a last-ditch poke-walk of desperation...)

But the day had actually begun with me telling the Amanda Palmer facebook group that I was happy to be the unofficial Japan-guru but that I could not plan any more trips, and directing people who were interested in coming here to my previous blog post on the subject.
This may seem like me saying the same thing over and over to strangers who don't care, but in that group, anytime Japan is mentioned, someone seems to tag me, and most of the time it is no big deal. Yes, they have crazy chocolates. No, the fixing-broken-things-with-gold thing isn't really common these days and most people throw perfectly good electronics in the garbage when they get new ones. Yes, some people are pervs and the rate of harassment committed upon young women in this country (myself included-- in Nagoya, once) is appallingly high.
Anyway, most of this isn't a problem but as I said in the post before, I can't keep doing the planning craziness, and since I will put myself into that position, it is better if anyone planning a trip like that looks at my blog post and only bugs me if they want to head up this way.

I posted this to a group of 4000 people, only a handful of whom I know online and none have I met in person. I posted this with more than an inkling of trepidation, as I was sure, just like the Engrish discussion, someone would decide I was being an asshole for something that didn't seem asshole-y to me at all.

On the train back to Shiogama, I checked Facebook only to find a number of comments to my post, all positive. Some were people asking if they could meet me for coffee if they did get out to Sendai, to which I replied of course. Some were just celebrating the attempt to do something for my mental health. None were negative or strained or weird.
We'll see if that holds out, but it's nice to not feel like I cannot be understood.

Also, my city-cost blog post about lolita/punk/vk fashion in Sendai (with 2 pictures of your truly) has been posted.
See it here.
So...things went well. Yay!