I`m sitting in work at the moment trying  to avoid the mountain of Engrish self-introduction essays lying on my desk waiting for me . It seems everytime I sigh with relief, thinking I`ve corrected the last of them another 60 land on my desk. With 16 classes of 40 students I suppose I shouldn`t be surprised!

 As usual, I`ve completely lost track of what I`ve done since I last wrote but I`ll do my best to remember the highlights. Last weekend was a bank holiday again, they`Re mad for their bank holidays in Japan- not that I`m complaining. The Yuke had sent me a shinkansen ticket from Okayama to Tokyo for my birthday, so I used this opportunity to ditch Bren and go shoppping with her

I arrived in Tokyo station on Saturday afternoon and after a few hundred phone calls and walking around the station about 10 times we finally found each other (I haven`t changed). We decided that since we were already at the train station that we`d head to Yokohama for the day.

 Yokohama is famous for its Chinatown. I had heard that it is pretty cool so was interested in checking it out since it`s only about 20 mins from Tokyo. When we arrived the sun was just setting, although it was only about 4 o`clock (it gets dark so early in Japan) and it turned out that this was a perfect time. We had a quick look around the shops in Chinatown which consisted of a huge amount of merchandise displaying pictures of two pandas in various compromising positions. The buildings around Chinatown are really impressive and there`s a lovely temple in the middle of all the shops which was really beautiful.  We tried on some weird Chinese masks and hats, had the best nikuman (Chinese pork bun) I have ever tasted and then headed over to the harbour.

Although it was the Chinatown which had originally sparked my interest in heading to Yokohama, it was the harbour that really impressed me. Yokohama is beside the sea so there is a gorgeous walk along the harbour where you can see the gigantic cruise ships and a lovely view of the lights and the city. The sun was just setting as we arrived and there were couples everywhere looking into each others eyes and all that. It was very romantic altogether, I almost proposed to Yuka on the spot.

After our romantic walk, our bellies were glued to our backs so we decided to go to a restaurant where one of Yuka`s friends works in Yokohama. We had been warned that it was a little posh but we still weren`t prepared for what we found! It is possibly the fanciest, most expensive restaurant I have ever eaten in. Of course, we got it all at a discount price, since we were VIPs so our 6 course meal which included octopus, shrimp, curry, soup, rice, miso soup, salad, bread, two different types of steak, tiramasu and numerous drinks came to about 30e! It was so good, even if we did feel like we would die afterwards!

 The next day we headed to Harajuku for my second time this month. I am very glad I don`t live nearer this shopping heaven, I am sure that if I lived in Tokyo I would be in severe debt by now! Myself and Yuka spent two or three hours there on Sunday morning and I came out with two pairs of shoes, a pair of boots and new glasses! While we were shopping we also came across a man sitting in Harajuku wearing two glass bottles as earrings, they were filled with water and had live goldfish in them!

After our shopping we went to karaoke, just the two of us. We sang for an hour, and had to be asked to leave because we were so engrossed in Celine Dion we never noticed the time go by. We then headed to Roppongi the foreign people`s district in search of a club. We ended up in a place called Gas Panic. It was a fun place, and Yuka almost got herself a Phillipino bride!

 I headed back to Okayama the next day with all my shopping and was broke but delighted with myself! Last weekend was the end of the bank holidays for a while unfortunately, and since we are paying for our Christmas flights so there`ll be no more trips to Tokyo for a while, I`m sure the Harajuku girls` incomes will lessen considerably!