Meiji Festival

This weekend is the Meiji Festival - celebrating 130 years since the university was first founded. It's supposed to run over the weekend for 3 days but it has been raining pretty much all week - until today!

There were lots of little food stalls outside offering (mostly) horrible looking food. Inside were classrooms filled with each of the University club's showcases. My favourite was the 4 strange guys in the train circle who were obsessed with trains.

I left after 20 minutes or so because I felt ill. I seem to have picked up every single cold going in the last few weeks and the current one is pretty bad. Not as bad as man flu though. Worse than child birth, so I've heard.

I prefer the school fairs in the days of Sandridge primary school. There was a fire truck and everything. I think...

China Town, Hirabayashis etc

I haven't done an update for a while for the simple fact that I haven't really done anything of note recently. However, people keep asking me to update this so...

Went to China Town in Yokohama with Penny a week or so ago. It's basically the same as the one in London except its a bit more than a novelty street. This one is about 5 novelty streets. Not sure what I expected really. There was a big panda shop though. Afterwards, we walked all the way back to the main Yokohama station and slowly got home in the rush hour.

Last Sunday I went to the Hirabayashi house to say bye to Makoto. Also saw the brother for the first time this year. He's working pretty much everyday (even on Sundays) like a good little Japanese employee but took the evening off. The Wii got dragged out after a while and I thrashed everyone at Mario Kart. The mum beat me at Wii Tennis though...

Other than these things, I can't remember anything else apart from the usual lessons. It's been raining a lot here and apparently there is a typhoon on the way. Hooray.

Jiyūgaoka

Me and Penny decided to go to somewhere new on Saturday. Went to a place called Jiyūgaoka. It's about halfway on the line between Shibuya and Yokohama.

It's probably the most European place you're gonna get in Tokyo. It was a nice place to walk around, with lots of little shops and not many people. It even had a Next... Seemed to be a posh area too. Saw a few Ferraris etc.

Also went to a traditional style tea house place there. I don't drink tea so I ordered strawberry milk like the toddler I am :)

Hirabayashi House

Went to the Hirabayashi house yesterday. It was the first time I'd seen the parents without anybody to back me up and help me with the Japanese. But I managed ok :) Had some yakiniku. With the rare Japanese treat of fruit and vegetables. I've hardly bought any here because of the prices. For example, a single tomato is about 90p...

It's quite a long journey and on the way there I had to wait on a train for about 40 minutes at a station. I'm not sure why it stopped; the announcements were all in foreign...

Week...4?

I think I'm in week 4 now. I hope so anyway as I've nearly run out of the money I brought with me which was meant to last a month. I haven't particularly done anything special this week to warrant an individual post so I'll just try and remember what I've done... Some people write about what they had for breakfast. Tip: nobody cares.

Had my first Mass Media lecture on Tuesday. Was actually alright. A few of my classmates were taking it too which I didn't realise when I first picked it. The lecturer apparently appears on TV and spent a while complaining about the price of housing in Hong Kong. We seem to be learning how backwards the Japanese media is.

I have 2 other business things. One is a seminar which is in Japanese. Each week someone does some research and brings in a few sheets of paper for the class to discuss. I understand about 5% if I'm lucky. The teacher is American though and sometimes translates a bit for me. Afterwards, the Japanese girls in the seminar invited me to go drinking with them sometime next week. I only realised this later on though. I just say 'yes' to everything without really fully understanding it at the time.

Other than classes, in my spare time I've been learning loads of new vocabulary and kanji. The picture attached is what I wrote down in today's class. Not sure when exactly I'm going to say 'development project' or 'adversity'. I don't think I've ever said them in English.

Oh, and for breakfast I had a jam on toast.

Yokohama

Went to Yokohama yesterday to see Babbs and Pete. It's fairly easy to get there (train to Shibuya, then a train to Yokohama) and only around ￥600. Unlike Tokyo, Yokohama seemed very spacious and reminded me of Germany or Holland for some reason...

Sadly we didn't see the big China Town. Will go there next time.

(yeah i can't really be bothered to write these)