Assessment day

The last part of my journey was rather interesting. I found out that the person sitting next to me was a physicist and we had a great conversation on his field work which is plasma research. After a decent breakfast and a successful landing the only thing that was left is to get to the school and grab some cash from an ATM. I always prefer to use may debit cards, but my friends made quite uneasy with the lot of warnings about not being able to use their cards. My doubts are largely gone now. If you have a major embossed debit/credit card you are good to go.

I am most happy to announce that you do not have to worry any more. Both the wine and the palinka survived the trip. Which made me more than happy: not only do I have stuff to show off with but I do not have to wash my clothes straight ahead.

Luckily I had a good night's sleep before having my skills assessed. That said I had to buy a futon to sleep on first, so I headed to a major super market and bought one with top covers. May seem straightforward but believe me, it is not. I was shocked by the variety of goods for sale.

I had my assessment today but it will take some time before I get the results. I do not have a good feeling about it, but that is the way it usually is with me. I do not have good feelings and I get excellent results. Let us hope it is not any different this time.

Afterwards, I decided that I will familiarize myself with the Japanese foods and beverages, so I headed to a supermarket. The results are amazing by all means. I think I will have to take multiple turns since there is so much difference compared to European food. It turns out that you can get by from about the same amount of money as in Hungary at about the same level. That said, I always preferred the somewhat more expensive but higher quality stuff, so this statement may not hold as a general truth e.g.: it surely does not hold if you only buy Tesco economical products. But if you do not wish to pay attention to your health, you can get by at extremely low costs even in Japan. I suggest instant noodles. The amount, quality, variety and pricing of the beverages - yes alcoholic - are a bit above my taste, but still very well in my target range. Today's winner was a tie between the rice oil and Asahi beer. The rice oil stands right next to the olive oil. I do not have the slightest idea of what that is good for, but it sounds interesting, doesn't it? Whereas the Asahi beer stands on my desk and I think it's worth the effort of bringing it home.

Some information on timezone offsets. I was quite confused by misinforming people on the topic, but now I have a more complete picture. The confusion was caused by the daylight saving time. Hungary is GMT+2 in summer and GMT+1 in winter,  but Okazaki is GMT+9 at all times. At the moment it is +7 hours but that will change to +8 hours on 25th October if my interpretation is correct.