I was just looking over some writing that I tried to do in Tokyo last week- just thinking-out-loud stuff that I thought I would edit a little and then upload here.  I'm kind of glad I didn't-  it's pretty bad.  There are things I would like to remember.  There are things I would like to describe to other people who have never been here.  But I am completely disorganized and haven't taken a writing class in years, so being able to control what I'm trying to get across is not something that comes naturally.
The first week was strange - the hotel I chose happened to be in an area with a lot of students but no tourist attractions, which was good but not very photo-worthy.  Jet lag was a bitch - my legs were screwed up for almost 10 days, though fortunately I was able to do a little running despite the marbles in my calves.  Coffee is really expensive - a 20 oz cup (yeah, big, I know) from Starbucks here is over 5 dollars.  That's just regular coffee, no fancypants stuff added.  Being a vegetarian narrowed things down a little, but having no kitchen and then on top of that trying not to spend $25 a day on food meant that I was under-eating pretty hard.  I have to admit that feeling wobbly from hunger was at least a twice-a-day occurrence until maybe 2 days ago (there's a small kitchen in my room in Osaka, and I finally started cooking a little).
 There are large chain stores out here, of course, but small businesses of all kinds are everywhere, so now that I'm here, I can get bananas or oranges as cheap as at home, eggs, avocados, tofu, pickles, and stuff like that at normal prices, from several different spots outside of the local supermarket.  Rice is expensive, but it's Japanese rice, so what can you expect? I could also get my teeth looked at within 2 blocks of my room. Or see a doctor or a chiropractor. Convenience stores are everywhere, and way too convenient. They carry more 'real' food than ours do, so they're a lot harder to avoid.  Most of the time they're pretty cheap, too.  I have yet to go into a Mister Donuts, but it's only a matter of time.  Have you ever seen the Japanese version of donuts? Dear god...  There are cafes, izakaya, bakeries and tiny food stalls everywhere - okonomiyaki (which I recently found out I can actually eat, if I'm careful) udon and soba, takoyaki and yakitori, gyudon, katsu, and all kinds of stuff I can't eat, and sushi of course. and vending machines, damn them all. 
Anyway, it's difficult for me to have so much time off.  I'm always happier with something to do, which is why I decided to spend a month in Osaka taking a class instead of hopping around volunteering at different places, or finding something completely new and different to do (as long as it's cheap).  Now that I'm here, I've realized that the class isn't really a good idea. It's further away than I thought, prices have gone up, and the trains are ridiculously expensive. So I'll save some money by not taking it, but I have already paid for a month in this 'guest house', so I can't just take off and do something else without wasting a lot of money on rent here. So if the class is out, I need to find other ways to try to get speaking practice in.  But I'm here alone, so I spend most of my time, well, alone.  I can't usually just strike up a conversation with any random person on the street.  A few people have come up to talk to me since I got here a couple of weeks ago, but it's still pretty rare.  People mind their own business here just like they do in Boston, for the most part.  Sure, I get stared at pretty often, but again, I'm not in an area with a ton of tourists, so I do kind of stick out, tattoos or not. If anything, though, it makes most people want to talk to me less, not more.  Most of them assume I can't speak any Japanese at all, probably.  I've heard that's a real obnoxious problem for foreigners that actually live here long-term and are pretty fluent.  I can imagine it getting old after a while.