While I was riding last night, I noticed that my bike was broken. The rim had cracked in several places. I panicked, wondering what to do. It was night, so I couldn't do anything at the time, but I came up with several plans. It would depend on how bad the damage was, so I thought through every possibility. At the first bike shop I went to, the staff told me a new rim would cost 240,000 yen! I went to another bike shop and was told 40,000. That's still steep, but after talking it over, it seemed there were no other spare parts at all. Even when I searched on my laptop, there were no cheaper rims. Paying that price really hurt, but I figured I had no choice. Spending money always makes me anxious, and it's also the reason I always spend over two hours in convenience stores. Sometimes I get so anxious that I can't think objectively. To convince myself that buying a new rim was the right choice, I wrote down my reasons.

Reasons to fix the bike now:

I have to fix it anyway, and it would cost over a hundred pounds in the UK too. The experiences from here to the end of the tour really are once in a lifetime. They're so essential you can't put a price on them. If I don't fix it, I'd have to take the bike from Kanazawa to Tokyo. That would be inconvenient and cost money too. I was told they could fix it now, so there was no need to wait for a spare part to be sent either. With that kind of time I can get to Aomori, and if things go well I might even make it to Hokkaido. Before coming to Japan, I thought I'd have to pay over 300 pounds to take the bike on the plane, but I didn't have to. Thanks to that, I had money saved up that I never needed to use. So why not use it now to finish the tour?

After getting the bike fixed, I went for ramen. While I was eating, I started talking to the guy next to me. He said his name was Yūichirō and he was a third-year student. We left the restaurant after talking about university and our worries and hopes for the future. He'd taken an English proficiency test called TOEIC that morning, but he said it hadn't gone well. Even so, he's interested in languages and apparently studies lots of foreign languages as a hobby. He's also been to the UK for a month as a language student. He said he'd like to live in the UK someday too. After we left, neither of us had any plans, so Yūichirō showed me around Kanazawa's downtown. It was really fun, and I felt like I got to know Kanazawa a little better, so thank you, Yūichirō!

I'm currently looking for a home and a job at the same time, so I'm always stopping at cafés. I went to Starbucks twice in these two days. Even in Kanazawa, I'm already a familiar face to the staff. They're probably thinking, "who is this foreigner?" What I can say for sure right now is that I like Kanazawa. It's hard to explain, but it just feels comfortable. The population is around 400,000, so it's close to Bristol and Sheffield.