gross food trash and used cds

So today my roommate came back from her part time work. She works about an hour away, so sometimes I have the apartment completely to myself. These times are pretty nice because I can do typical foreigner things without looking like a total idiot...

For example; laundry. 
I didn't really need to do laundry until my roommate left for the weekend, and the I finally realized there was no way I could spend another night sleeping in the same pajama tshirt and shorts that I had slept/sweat in for almost a week... 

Okay, laundry! Can't be too bad. We have a washing machine, so it's pretty much the same as home, except I have to hang my clothes to dry, right?

Um... Well the washing machine (sentakki) was all in Japanese. And there was plenty of katakana (engrish) but I absolutely couldn't find an "on" button. I found "off" though... Gosh. Luckily my roommate wasn't home to watch my button mash the poor sentakki. Finally, I hit the combination of buttons that made the machine start to go, and I was so relieved! Looks like the same strategy I use in Super Smash Bros. also works in situations like this. 

Other than that, I can *mostly* handle not burning the apartment down when my roommate is not here. I'm a little nervous about cooking still, because honestly we only have Japanese ingredients and I have no idea what the packaging says for the most part. I mostly make eggs, toast, and coffee. 

But the thing is, in Japan, if you have any "food trash," that also has to be specially taken care of. In the sink, there's this interesting bin with netting where you dump all your food trash. At first, this was hard to comprehend because in America I would never through food in the sink because it makes such a mess. It's actually kind of nice to have the bin.

BUT. Usually at some mysterious point in time, my roommate gets rid of the food trash from the sink and somehow gets rid of it... And I honestly had no idea where to put it. I actually forgot about the food trash until one night as I walked around the apartment there was this awful smell.

I walked around the apartment, thinking, maybe it's the bathroom!
Maybe its wet clothes drying outside?
Maybe it's my bed? Should I do more laundry?

No... it was the food trash. Gosh I really had no idea what to do with it. I realized there was a mesh bagging in the bin in the sink that was disposable but, where the heck do I put it?? Looking at the food trash, all I could think about was that I wish I had eaten all of it so I wouldn't have to deal with it. Even the egg shells...

I finally looked through everywhere in the apartment, and finally found the mesh bagging in the compartment in my kitchen that kind of looks like a mini refrigerator. I wrapped up the old food trash... 

but then where the heck do I put it? It's not burnable paper-trash! It's not cans/bottles kind of plastic. It's not plastic wrappers! 
Trash in Japanese is really complicated and specialized and with four or five different bags of trash hanging on the wall, I had no idea. I ended up wrapping the food trash in a plastic bag, and tucking it on the floor next to the other trash bags and hoping my roommate wouldn't think I'm a total idiot when she returned from work. 

So far laundry and food trash have been the most confusing things to deal with by myself in the apartment. I'm waiting for a moment where I do something completely wrong and my roommate just laughs at me. 

Aside from apartment business, I've been trying to get to karaoke as often as possible. It's fun because I really like music, and it's a really great way to study. I always pause in the middle of songs and point at the lyrics and shout "I learned that kanji today! I still can't read it yet, but I'm supposed to! :D"

Well, whether I can read all the words on the screen or just make up my own words, karaoke is really fun. Especially because in the apartment, the walls are pretty thin and even playing music on my computer feels like I'm making a disturbance in my apartment. So far my favorite place for karaoke is a little joint on the fourth floor of some sort-of-sketchy building near campus. There's these big colorful signs and you enter an elevator to access the karaoke place. It's a little creeper but this karaoke place has a ton of English and Japanese songs, so it's perfect for foreigners like me who are still learning their Japanese!

There's alos a lounge area, and there you can read manga, drink milk tea, or even play some video games. There's also some used cds....

I flipped through them today, because I thought "what the heck, why not."

....
.......

One of Superfly's cds!!!

hfosaifaosfafsf
I really love Superfly, and I was really excited to be able to sing Superfly songs in Japan. But! But! To find a cd in a little karaoke lounge of all places was totally unexpected! This album has a lot of her covers I think. It's one of her older ones, and it only cost me 100 yen.

Okay, so it's kind of beat up, missing some of the pages inside, and sort of cracked on the back. It's totally jank. BUT. It's the first physical Superfly item I've ever had I'm really really excited about it! And the cd plays fine so... what more do you need? :D 

That ended my day on a pretty great note. The store clerk may have looked at me a little strange when I was so excited to hand over 100 yen for this, but whatever! :D 

Happy times in Osaka....