I enjoyed the walk through the residential neighborhood before I got to Meijiro Station, where Gakushuin University is. My friend whom I was to meet was a professor there. Since I got there quite early, I decided to walk along the main street to see what I might come across. One thing that really stood out for me in this neighborhood was that the streets were lined with trees. Outside of a park, I had never seen so many trees in Tokyo. It was quite pleasant, and gave a welcoming charm to the place.
I still had some time to kill, so when I saw the used bookstore, I walked in an browsed. I asked where the English books were, and she directed me downstairs. There was a very small and weak collection of foreign books, but that didn't bother me; I was in Japan, wasn't I? Instead I started to go through the manga selection. There were many, many comics to browse through. There were several that I could recognize, and I would flip through the pages. One thing that has surprised me, not so much about this store, but others, is that costumers are allowed to browse through books and magazines so freely anywhere. Since this is a bookstore, I don't especially find it odd that people might pick up a book, and sit and read the whole thing in the store; this happens in American bookstores as well. But I am surprised that the same thing happens at convenience stores. People will stand in front of the magazine stand, and just read the whole manga, right there in the store, without even buying it. I imagine they came into the store just to read, and then leave as soon as they are finished, without ever buying anything. I remember when I was a kid that the ethnic clerk at the local convenience store would always scream and yell at us kids who were not buying anything, "This isn't a library!" Well, apparently here there are many places that don't take that attitude, and so for this one little corner of the convenience store, perhaps it is a library.
I went into McDonalds to buy a small iced coffee while waiting for 12 o'clock to come around. Despite the convenience of so many vending machines all around Tokyo, conveneince stores and McDonald's have what I think is the best deal. Every morning I run into a 7-11 for a big carton of orange juice for around 70 yen (the equivalent to about 70 cents). But for coffee, few things beat McDonald's 100 yen iced coffee. Even though the convenience stores and markets might have something a bit cheaper, there are two benefits I find with the McDonald's coffee. The first is that I get to mix it the way I like, with two creams and two sugars. Testing out different vending machine varieties is like gambling, in that I don't know what I am going to get. Sometimes it's extremely bitter, sometimes it's extremely watery. (The only consistent I can count on from the vending machines is the wonderfully named Pocari Sweat, which is basically like Gatorade.) The second benefit to buying the coffee from McDonald's is the price. For one thing, it is less cost for more drink than many of the vending machines. But where it beats the convenience stores is that at 100 yen, I don't have to walk around with useless tin 1 yen coins I get back as change that I have amassed by buying food and drink from the convenience stores. These coins seem to be accepted nowhere, by nobody, yet mysteriously take up space but not weight since they are made of what seems to be tin. For 100 yen, I give the one coin to the cashier at McDonald's and it is a neat exchange for coffee, not an exchange for coffee and little pieces of metal garbage.
Waiting for my friend, it dawned on me that I had only met him once, and only for a short time, so I was scared that I might not recognize him, or that he might not recognize me. In fact, this was a fear that I had with my friend whom I had met earlier in Osaka and the previous night after arriving in Tokyo. In both cases, despite the fact that I could not picture their faces in my head, once I saw them, I instantly recognized them; I wasn't sure that would happen this time, but it did, so there was no problem.
After greeting him, and thinking him for meeting me, I followed my friend through a maze of alleys to a tempura restaurant. I had told him that I would eat anything, so I wasn't going to confess that this was the exact same thing I had for dinner the previous night. I still enjoyed it, and the conversation about acadmics, politics, and teaching that we had as he showed me around the Gakushuin University. The school was out for the summer break, so there were not many people on the campus as if it were a school day, but the dense trees and natural surroundings gave a beautiful atomosphere where I would love to study, and I remarked that I love the thick sound of cicadas chirping in the tress. They remind me not just of a Japanese haiku poem by Basho, but also of sitting on a patio in my family's village in Argos, Greece.
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