A Day Out with Kentaroh

Most of my Fridays over here in Kamloops will be occupied with dinner and gathering with my usual hang out friends. Sad to say, today didn't appear to be any of my regular Fridays as most of my friends had their own plans. Cindy, one of my Hong Kong friends was invited by her Hong Kong friends over for a drinking party while Maaya, my Japanese buddy had to attend her friend's hip hop concert. It so happened that my Korean roommate was away in Vancouver until this coming Sunday, so I decided to volunteered my place for my usual friends to party and make lots of noise; but seeing that most of them had plans of their own, such rare opportunity was wasted down the drain. Fortunately for me, today wasn't as boring and dull as I feared it would be when Kentaroh, one of my Japanese friends took the effort to hang out with me.

At first, I never thought about asking Kentaroh over to hang out with me since Maaya reminded me once that Kentaroh is always busy. Just this morning, I wondered how I was going to ensure that today will be a good day. I had plans to study my dreadful Statistics today but I never thought about studying the whole day as I knew it would be so lifeless. A chapter of Statistics will do fine today but knowing that a chapter wouldn't occupy the entire day, I had to figure out how to fill my remnants of the day. Knowing that walking might give me some ideas, I decided to stroll my way to the university's computer lab which was located not far away from my residence.

On the way to the computer lab, I bumped into Maaya's new roommate from China. Bei Di is her name and she's a year younger than me; I happened to know her at the beginning of this summer semester at a dinner gathering organized by Maaya. After exchanging greeting, she asked me where was I going. I briefly told her that I was on my way to the computer lab and since she took the effort to fired up a conversation with me, I was tempted to ask her out for dinner today. On the other hand, after realizing that there's a Chinese guy who's always hanging out with her (which she always regard as just a mere friend), I decided to drop my intention of asking her out for dinner as I didn't want to be a "thorn" in the potenial courtship between Bei Di and this guy who's always hanging out with her. So after exchanging good bye, I continued my way to the computer lab.

At the computer lab, I fired up a computer before checking my mail and updates on Facebook. I then logged onto Meebo's MSN Messenger to see who was online. It so happened that Kentaroh was online so I decided to say "hi" to him as we haven't seen each other for a while. Although I knew that he is usually busy, I still decided to ask him whether he was free to hang out with me today. 3 minutes later there was no reply from him so I thought, there goes my Friday all by myself. Fortunately for me, things didn't turn out the way I fret it would be; Kentaroh eventually agreed and he told me that he will drop by at my place at 3:30pm today. Joyfully, I told him that I will be looking forward to seeing him later before I logged off Meebo. I left the computer lab and returned to my apartment to begin my studies for Statistics.

As 3:30pm arrived, I went down to the lobby of my apartment and waited patiently for Kentaroh's arrival. I had my Statistics text book with me, so I decided to read while I waited for him as I thought time waits for no man. 10 minutes later, he arrived and we greeted each other. He was curious about what I was reading so I immediately showed him my Statistics text book. Realizing that Kentaroh is a 4th year business student who was graduating very soon, I asked him a couple of 2nd year probability questions which I had problems solving. Fortunately for me, he solved my problems and at the end of his brief tutoring; I realised how careless am I not to notice the little details he pointed out which I ridiculously missed. After finishing my Statistics, I went up to my room to leave my book behind before the both of us headed for the nearest bus stop.

We took a bus ride to downtown mainly to visit this video store which rumored to have very rare international movies on its shelves. I was looking for a new movie (shown last December) about the Chinese civil war entitled Assembly and I was hoping that this video store has it. Unfortunately, the shop keeper regretfully said that there is no title in his stock. However, I still insisted on getting the movie as I wanted to watch it badly, so I asked the shopkeeper whether he could place an order for me. Fortunately, the shop keeper said he could make a few calls to get a copy of the movie I wanted. After giving him my name and my phone number, I thank the shopkeeper before Kentaroh and I left the video store.

Our next visit at downtown was an electrical appliances shop which was located not far away from the video store. Kentaroh wanted to get a digital camera, so I accompanied him to the electrical appliances store. While he was browsing for his digital camera, I was at the High Definition (HD) TV section checking out prices for a HD TV. I thought about getting a small HD TV for my Play Station 3 but after a lay down of prices on an average HD TV by the sales man, I know I had to pray for the sky to rain money if I wanted to get a HD TV. I then asked the shopkeeper at the store regarding my investment on a Blu Ray movie for a standard telivision set only to be told off that it wouldn't be a wise investment. Unless I had a HD TV with me, I wouldn't be enjoying the high definition video quality and great sound quality of the Blu Ray movie. Kentaroh wasn't happy with the variety of digital camera offered at this store, so we left shortly.

As the day was getting late, we decided to go for dinner. Mexican food was on our mind for dinner, so we visited my favourite Mexican restaurant in downtown: El Mariachi. It has been a while since I visited this restaurant and my visit today surprised me a little when I noticed they had new staffs running the restaurant. The staffs at the restaurant weren't the only change I noticed but also the food price. Frustrated to know that my usual dish just sky rocket by $4, I felt reluctant to come back again to this restaurant. The dissapointment didn't end there when I was told that the hot Mexican waitress who happened to be my favourite server was not working there anymore. I was tempted to change place for dinner but since one of the waitresses handed me a menu waiting for my order, I thought it would be rude to just walk out. Eventually I had my dinner over there and I ended up paying more than before. Well, at least the meal was still good and I thought it was slightly better than usual; so I guess it wasn't so bad after all.

After dinner, Kentaroh and I visited the park next to Thompson Rivers. Before that, we got ourself a cone of ice cream from the dessert store not far away from the river. Over there , we took a seat on one of the few benches in the park, enjoying the beautiful scenery of Thompson Rivers while feasting on our ice cream. There were a dozen of ducks wondering near the river and Kentaroh was tempted to catch one of them. Kentaroh wanted to lure one of the ducks with my ice cream but seeing that was my ice cream he was using as bait, I rejected his suggestion. We were observing the interaction between the ducks only to be interrupted by a speeding cyclist who ran through the ducks violently. Despite witnessing such ruthless behavior, we couldn't help but to laugh at the way the ducks avoided the cyclist desperately. When we finished our ice cream, Kentaroh taught me how to bounce a pebble on the surface of the river. Initially I had difficulty sending the pebble bouncing through the surface of the river but after a few tips and advice from Kentaroh, I managed to pull it off. After a few minutes of stone throwing, we left the park and headed home via bus.

Fortunately, today wasn't as boring and dull as I feared it would be when Kentaroh, one of my Japanese friends decided to hang out with me. As mentioned earlier, Kentaroh is going to graduate very soon which I couldn't be any happier for him. At the same time, it's also hard for me to know that he's graduating soon as I will be missing a good friend. All I can do right now, is to spend as much time with him before he graduates and return to Japan.