Yesterday, I went to the town hall of Toda to apply for my Alien Registration Card; with this I will be able to open a bank account, though recent legislation has made it difficult for people that have lived here for less than six months to do so, and be part of the National Health Insurance scheme, which means that 70% of any medical bills will be paid for by the government (I think). We, the Residents' Assistant and I, took the Toco (Toda Community) Bus from down the road, stop 16, to stop 5. The bus stop has a picture of a little cartoon girl's smiling face and the same little girl smiles on the sides of the bus.

Today I went to uni to drop off a couple forms. On the way to the station I went to the big supermarket to get a couple onigiri for the day. I was pretty proud of myself for having found the quickest way there that didn't mean following the way to the station and turning on to the supermarket's road. Along the way is a laundrette; it looks like this.

From far away I thought it might've been a nursery for little kids.
Some notes about bikes:
- many people of all ages ride bikes
- most bikes look like this one
- the lock they use on their bikes is so discreet I thought that no one locked up their bike until the locks were pointed out to me
- you're not allowed to take your bike on the train (there are lots of stairs to climb at stations after all and there's rarely enough space for bikes since they're so big), so there tends to be places you can park your bike near the station; sometimes it's multistorey like a car park

Here's something I saw at the supermarket and had to show you. The LCD displays are the prices. I've also seen a train with large pictures of pokémon on the side. When paying at some supermarkets, the cashier attendant puts your money into the till which counts and dispenses the change. Very techy and cool.

I was feeling adventurous and sick of my long commute, so I tried out a different route which looked like it would be shorter and knocked off about 20 minutes from the route I was shown. I'm so glad. After dropping off the forms I found a cool place to sit outside and eat an onigiri. I can't read what it says on the packets of them, so the filling's always a mystery but not always a pleasant surprise. Fee also had to drop off a form, so we met up, I showed her where the office was, then we went to pick up her inkan. We then went to McDonald's cos Fee was hungry and we're not sure what she ordered apart from it being like a big chicken nugget and very tasty. Afterwards we went near Takadanobaba Station to go shopping for clothes and things cos we don't have enough clothes for this hot weather. Unfortunately most of the clothes were either for Autumn or hot weather, but we did find one clothes shop above a supermarket that did pretty much all sorts.

(I'd like to show you the photos I took of the cooler-than-clothes stuff we saw in the shops but the camera and computer aren't co-operating. I'll have to try again tomorrow..)