I’ve been offline at my aunt’s house in the sticks. Seriously, she lives at the end of the bus line, and there aren’t many houses further down than hers unless you get on a boat and cross over to an island. My uncle, before he passed away (the big brother of my not-really-my-aunt) built a big house out there near the ocean with a beautiful view.

My uncle spent a lot on the house and even the garden. I heard he might have spent tens of thousands on the trees in front.

The house is a little hard to use, but it made my uncle happy and I suppose that’s what matters. We spent a lot of time just hanging out with my aunt, but my mom, sister, and I took a brief shopping trip to Fukuoka where we got sort of lost and couldn’t find any stores or food that were worthwhile. Of course, after resorting to lunch at Mickey D’s, we ended up finding plenty of things we could have eaten. I had a meeting with the Colonel, but we ate dinner from a bento stand on the way home.

This morning, my sister and I loaded ourselves into a train for Tokyo. I’m not a big fan because I spent most of my time in Osaka and there’s a difference between the two. But undeterred I took the train to shop in Akihabara where they looked at me funny when I asked if they had RFID readers.

I was looking for Thanko which is really called the “Rare Mono Shop.” I was lost and I even resorted to going to an “internet cafe” which isn’t a Starbucks with free WiFi like in the US, but dark closets with computers where homeless kids spend the night. I spent the minimum for 30 minutes trying to find the Thanko store but it didn’t help. It took me about an hour and a half to find the store, which was closed! Fortunately, they had a second shop that was open, and a Japanese guy with a cowboy hat was looking for it too. With his help I found the store.

I barely got back in time to meet friends for dinner. Chico Hayasaki went to high school with my sister and she brought another artist friend, Hirofumi Nakano, or HiRON. We had dinner, and then more matcha latte’s at Starbucks.

I should shut the hell up and get some sleep because tomorrow we’re heading home. Fortunately, I crossed the last eating thing off my list: I made it to Mos Burger!