Christmas and Mangaークリスマスとか漫画

Today I spent the day at my family friend's home. Her youngest showed me his extensive nerf gun collection and showed me some parts of YouTube I never knew existed (Many Nerf Gun live-action videos)

Today was also meant to be a day where I can catch up on writing these journal entries and catch up with Teresa and her family who I haven't seen for over a decade! She used to babysit me so it's weird going from seeing them as a teenager to now seeing them when I've just turned thirty years old 🤯

For Christmas the kids opened their presents and we had American style breakfast. It's my first time being out of a hotel since getting to Japan so it was nice to have the homey vibe and catch up on various things with everyone. It was definitely a strange feeling having finished all of Christmas morning before America had even entered the day of Christmas though! The time difference is quite significant.

I told Teresa that I've been looking for a couple series of books and we drove over to the book store. It's annoying to get manga in the USA so I wanted to grab a couple series while I'm here. I was able to grab Ranking of Kings, Chainsaw Man, and Spy Family. I saw a whole collection of Beastars in Hiroshima that I also want but they didn't have it at the Tachikawa location 😭 I'm going to take advantage of their military status to mail the different things I've purchased back to the states so I don't have to lug them around. Luckily, there are specific boxes that have no weight limit because books are extremely heavy. That's why I didn't buy the Beastars set in Hiroshima because I would have had to carry it everywhere. Manga in the US can be slow to recieve and expensive. I got almost three complete series for under 100 dollars so I'm happy with that 😺

Luckily I'm able to have Teresa as a home base to leave some of my luggage and heavy items so I can acquire more things on my travels and also have a place where there are people I know and can stay without having to pay for a hotel. I'll be back to visit my Japanese sensei in Tokyo so I'm glad I don't have to pay for another hotel during that time. I really appreciate their hospitality and how accomidating they have been 🥹 Without them, I might have spent my Christmas here by myself somewhere. Sometimes, it feels like I don't really have a family to go home to and it's good to be reminded that family is beyond only being related by blood.Read more