This morning was a slow one. We didn’t have much on the schedule so we spent much of the morning catching up on emails alongside toasted English muffins and coffee. Today was to be a day of preparation for the Saturday costume party in honor of Liam and me (Liam’s birthday being the 25th). Neither Meghan nor I had any idea what to do for our costumes but had decided a good way to go about discovering a costume would be to head to a 100yen store (equivalent of a dollar store) and limit ourselves to 500yen (5USD) each. 100yen stores often have tons of kooky stuff so we thought we could save some money and come up with something clever at the same time.

This turned out to be easier said than done. We milled about the 100yen store for some time and were eventually overcome with hunger. “Maybe our hunger is impeding our costume creativity,” one of us considered. We headed to a nearby restaurant to grab some tasty although smallish omurice (ketchup rice wrapped in omelet). Somewhat fed, we headed back to the 100yen store to further consider our options.

A good while later, we emerged victorious and had spent less than anticipated. Meghan was to be a Kindergartner (who, in Japan, wear colored hats and don massive, hard shelled backpacks) and I was to be a Japanese mailbox. Nothing too clever, but still fun. All that was left was to actually build my costume and build Meghan’s backpack. We headed back to Liam and Hiromi’s to begin the workshop.

Cutting and gluing. Measuring and bending. A couple hours later, our costumes were mostly finished and we headed out to meet Brad, another friend of ours who had moved to Osaka at the same time as Liam and Hiromi. From his apartment near Shinsaibashi, we made our way to Slices – a Canadian pizza joint that Brad promised was quite tasty. He was right.

Meghan and my hunger levels have been uncontrollable since we got off the bikes and into Osaka. It’s quite strange. While cycling, we could eat only a couple rice balls and cup noodle in one day, all while cycling almost 80km, and be satisfied. Now, with very little physical activity, we found ourselves almost constantly hungry. Our dinner at Slices saw that hunger reach a disasterous peak. Not only did we both have main dishes, but after we had finished, we ordered a huge pizza slice each! Needless to say, it proved to be too much food but, due to our extreme hunger of the past several days, we inhaled the pizza and, finally, after what seemed like 2 days of constant hunger, we were full. Very full. Thank you Slices. I can now go back to being a human being with a regular appetite.