I have completely neglected my blog since December and since I am, once again, sitting in the staffroom all day long with nothing to do, I thought I’d try to make up for that with a few posts.

When I wrote my last post I was counting down the days until my Christmas holidays and my journey back to Ireland. I spent my last few days in Japan doing some Christmas shopping for family and friends in the covered shopping mall in Okayama City. The day before I left, I was picking up some last minute things in the mall and was stopped by a man and his daughter. The man said ‘Sumimasen’ (‘Excuse me’ in Japanese), and when I turned around, nudged the little girl who was holding a little notebook and shaking with nerves. The little girl cleared her throat and then said in English ‘May I have your autograph please’. Needless to say I was a little taken aback but took the pen and wrote my name. I still have no idea who they thought I was, or if they were just so excited to see a foreign person they wanted an autograph- either way it was very cute!

Myself and Bren left for Ireland on December 22nd. Our journey was very long and took almost 24 hours to get from my apartment in Okayama to Lusk. It was definitely worth it though when I arrived home to a house full of food, presents and proper Christmas decorations (not like the weird Japanese ones).  The Christmas holiday was a really nice break and I managed to eat all the food I’d been missing (I had heartburn for a month afterwards!) and meet most of my friends and family.

We returned to Japan on 7th January and were straight back to work on the 8th. In the time that we had spent in Ireland, it had become much colder in Japan. So, we returned to our ancient apartment with no heated plumbing, central heating or insulation and were forced to work our way through the jet lag.

Although Okayama is famous for its good weather they do get a few weeks of cold weather around January or February. This winter was colder than usual (lucky us!) and we had a week or two of cold/snowy weather. The temperatures in Okayama were probably about the same as Ireland but the cold has so much more impact here, since the Japanese obviously don’t believe in central fecking heating!

My typical winter’s day in Okayama would consist of waking up at 7.45/7.15 (depending on which school I was teaching at) and trying to get dressed under the covers so as not to expose myself to the freezing air outside the bed. I would then run in and make a nice bowl of porridge to heat myself up .

Before leaving I would stick heat patches on my feet, back and stomach. Heat patches are very popular in Japan. They do exist in ireland but are very expensive and are used only for medical reasons. They are very cheap in Japan and are designed to stick on the skin for a full day and release heat slowly. The are pretty effective and probably saved me from frostbite on a few occasions

On very cold days, I would have to leave early as it is almost impossible to cycle in frost or snow without skidding, so everyone has to go at an absolute snail’s pace. As well as this, fields in Japan are very different to those in Ireland. Rice fields are flooded with water in the summer so that the rice can grow. As a result, rice fields are usually a few feet lower than the road, so that the field can be easily flooded.  These fields are very common where I live and, for some reason, there are no fences around them making them very easy to fall into, even in the best weather conditions. In snowy weather, trying to avoid falling into the rice fields was quite the challenge and defnitely did a good job waking me up!

When I arrived in school, I would usually have a cup of tea to warm me up and then head off to the classroom. The language lab in my base school is very big and has no heating whatsoever. Myself andthe Japanese teacher I taught with, took to running around the classroom with students in order to generate some warmth. We eventually managed to procure a little electric heater to put beside our feet, which helped a little, but mostly just meant that I had burnt legs while the rest of my body was shivering. At least I finally know what my Mam is talking about when she refers to chillblains when she was a little girl

It’s now the beginning of April and the weather has warmed up a lot. The cherry blossoms are blooming and the sun is shining. I’m really enjoying the weather at the moment, it is pleasant and sunny but not hot or humid yet and as of yet the feckin’ insects have not returned………

So, it`s been about two months since I last updated. Unlike those days in August and Sepetmber when there were no students in the school, I have actually had work to do everyday over the past few months. I spend most of time in school preparing lessons and correcting exams and I give about 3 50min classes on average per day. I also started doing a Japanese language course during my free time at work, so I haven`t had anytime for facebooking or blog writing

This week, however, it is exam week in one of my schools which means I have no classes and I have jsut completed this month`s exam for my Japanese language correspondence course. So, I have ample free time for aimless internet surfing and all that. Actually, I forgot how mind-numbing these days with no classes can be, and will be glad to get back to my Christma- themed lessons on Monday

It`s been so long since I last posted I have absolutely no idea what I`ve been up to. I honestly thought I had done nothing worth posting about until I was flicking through the pictures on my camera lately and realised I had done lots of interesting things around Okayama, although I haven`t been travelling to the big cities.

For Halloween we went to a JET party which was a costume party and all-you-can-drink for four hours! Needless to say, it was a good night. I ended up winning the prize for best costume for my Hawaiian Barbie effort (made from an assortment of pound shop accessories and some bowls and brown paper for my coconut boobs). Halloween isn`t really celebrated in Japan, so this is about all we did for it.

The following week Enda and his girlfriend Masae came to visit us and once we`d finally dragged the boys away from Pro Evolution Soccer, we did a bit of sightseeing around OKayama. We ended up doing a bike trail around the outskirts of OKayama City. It was really great, there were lots of beautiful temples and tombs and all that malarky. We were also lucky enough to stumble upon a Japanese archery competition, which was really cool, although I think Brendan got a little too enthusiastic about shouting encouragement at the contestants!

The bike trail was only supposed to take 3 hours but thanks to the absolutely awful map we were using, we got lost and it ended up taking about 5. It was all worthwhile when we came upon the 5 storey wooden Pagoda, completely secluded, and surrounded by rice fields. Although I had seen a ot of temples and shrines at this stage, their effect ahd been somewhat lessened by the huge crowds, vending machines and souvenir shops inside the temple grounds. When we arrived at the Pagoda the sun was ust setting and we were the only people at there. It was a beautiful sight!

When we returned, we were starving and decided to go for all you can eat yakiniku (literally means fried meat). It`s basically like a barbeque, but inside. Every table had a little barbeque grill built into it and the waiters brought out plates of raw meat and vegetables which we then cooked ourselves on the grill. The guys were so enthusiastic they went a bit overboard with the amount of meat they ordered, and then realised they had to pay for left overs. I didn`t think it was possible for two men to eat so much- it was disgusting!

Afterwards, we went for a nice soak in the Japanese bathhouse. We have a really nice one near our apartment buiding with baths and jacuzzis up on the roof. It`s really cold outside and the bath is so warm, it`s great!

The following weekend, since we could see that the weather was about to take a turn for the worse, Bren and I decided to make the most of the mild weather before it turned cold and we headed down to Okayama Castle and the Japanese gardens for a picnic. We then rented a rowing boat by the river surrounding Okayama Castle. It would have been very romantic if either of us could actually row, Instead we went around in circles for about an hour, and eventually managed to claw our way back to the shore. It was fun though and the views were great.
There is a teacher in Bren`s school who is really obsessed with all things Irish. She has visited Ireland on two occasions, which is very rare for a Japanese person, and speaks a little English although she is a Home Economics teacher. She invited myself and Brendan over to her house for lunch one weekend, and to be honest we were a little scared, as she had said her husband was going fishing and we were going to eat what he caught! I had visions of a meal of raw fish heads and sake. However, when we arrived, we were very pleasantly suprised!

We had about 5 different courses, one of which as crab. I had never eaten crab before, and couldn`t believe it when she brought out a huge plate of fresh crab, one for everyone. It was absolutely gorgeous! There were four other guests eating with us, one was an English teacher who shared Brendan`s colleague`s love for Ireland and the other three were friends of her husband who worked in a sake factory. hey also spoke no English which meant I got to practise plenty of Japanese. Since these guys worked for a Sake company, they brought along a huge supply of alcohol and showed Bren how to drink sake from the crab`s head once you`ve finished with it- it was very cool!

Our next course was oysters deep fried in breadcrumbs, I think this may have even topped the crab. It was soooo good, I had to restrain myself from being rude and eating them all in one gulp! After another few delicious courses we moved onto dessert. I told the hostess that I had a bit of a sweet tooth and she proceeded to give me 5 desserts- I was delirah!!

This was the first meal I had eaten in a Japanese person`s home, so it was a really great way to see a bit of traditional Japanese life.

It was Brendan`s birthday on the 1st Novemeber so I bought him a trip to an onsen (natural hot spring) up in the mountains of Okayama. Since it was booked out for ages, we didn`t actually go until the first weekend in December. We got the bus from Okayama station and the views on the way up were absolutely amazing. Okayama is covered in mountains and mountains here are completely covered in trees. In December in Japan, all the leaves tur bright orange, red and yellow so the mountains were gorgeous.

About 50 mins into the journey, we were all relaxed looking out at the views and all that when we heard the announcer say`Yunogo Onsen`, the name of the town we were going too. We were pretty sure that it wasn`t our stop but we said we better check with the driver just in case. Brendan went up to the driver and asked him in Japanese if the next stop was ours. The driver said `Yes` so Brendan beckoned for me to hurry up. We were paying (you pay when you get off a Japanese bus, not on) and I asked the driver where I should put my money but he didn`t answer. I could see that he was absolutely terrified of us, what with us being big scary foreigners, so we just threw the money into what we thought was the right place, said `Thanks` and got off.

When we were off the bus, the directions that we had for the onsen didn`t seem to make much sense. Nevertheless, we wandered around for a bit but coulnd`t see any building that looked remotely like a luxury hot spring resort. We rang the hotel and asked the receptionist to explain how to get there but she said she had no idea where we were. Eventually, we gave up and went into the nearest convenience store. The lady who was working there informed us that we were 50mins away from Yunogo Onsen by car and we weren`t even at a bus stop.

We couldn`t believe it, the bus driver had been so petrified when Brendan spoke to him, he had just nodded, stopped and let us out in the middle of nowhere, not even at a bus stop! We asked the lady in the shop what we should do and she looked up the next bus for us and showed us how to get to the bus stop. I have to say, I was far from happy with the bus driver but the people in  the village were so helpful when they realised we were lost. The bus stop was about a 10 minute walk away from where the bus driver had dropped us off and everyone was really enthusiastic about helping us, so it wasn`t long before all was forgiven and I was in love with Japanese people again!

When we finally arrived at the real bus stop, the receptionist had sent someone down to wait there for us and make sure we found our way to the hotel. I have no idea how long he was waiting for us, it was so nice!

The hotel itself was really luxurious.There were natural hot spring baths downstairs and the rooms had their own wooden outdoor baths too. There were also hot stone beds, and massage chairs. It was great! We got a bit fancy Japanese meal served to us in our room at a Japanese style table by a woman in a kimono. We had, lobster, prawn, sushi, miso soup, rice, beef, tofu and lots of other stuff. It was gorgeous!

We were given our own Japanese happycoat things so we lounged around in them for the whole weekend, I`ve never been so relaxed in my life!

This weekend I had my Christmas party, it was very bizarre but very fun. We went to a hotel in Okayama City and had all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink. Japanese people cannot handle all-you-can-drink, at all and they were all pissed in a matter of minutes. It`s very strange to see the shy, serious middle aged male teachers transform completely in a matter of minutes. At the start of the night, we played a game where the teachers who organised the party had turned photos of certain members of staff into different animals. So, for example, the first one was a pig and everyone had to guess who it was. It was all very strange! We then played Bingo, (wild) and I won a cup with Santa on it!

Afterwards, a group of a few teachers did the school dance. The teachers who went to Housen High School when they were children always have to do this dance at every party. It`s gas because most of them are middle aged men and, of course as it is Japan, the dance is really cute and they`re all prancing around singing about the school, it is very cute!

Then, it was everybody`s turn, we all have to stand in a circle, hold hands and sing the school song (every school has a song and a dance). Of ocurse, I have no idea what the words are so I mumbled along unconvincingly while everyone else gives it their all.

We were kicked out of the hotel pretty early but most people decided to go home. A few of the young teachers and the PE teachers decided to head to a few more bars. We headed off to a traditional bar and I had some yummy rice wine and a few suspect dishes of finger food that I wasn`t going to be let away with not eating!

A few plates of squid and shots of sake later, I realised that I had suddenly become a member of the Kendo club (Japanese sword fighting), argh. One of the PE teachers is in charge of the club so it should be interesting to see how I get on with that in the New Year!

The next day there was a school fashion festival on in Brendan`s school. It sounded interesting so I decided to get up and cycle into it despite my very sore head, and I`m very glad I did. The third year students put on a full fashion show with clothes they had designed and made. It was very professionally done and the clothes were quirky and Japanese, it was really interesting.

There were also lots of stalls with food that the students had made and accessories, clothes and other things that hadn`t been shown in the fashion show. It was very impressive!

Well, I`m gonna stop there because my fingers can`t type anymore. It`s been a great few months but I`m really looking forward to getting home to my big Christmas dinner, and a nice big Flake yoghurt…..mmmmmm

I haven`t written much about my job here and school life in Japan and since I spend a huge amount of my time here, I decided to finally write a little about it.

School in Japan begins much earlier than in Ireland, the teachers have a morning meeting every morning to discuss any issues, events etc. for that day. Therefore, I must be in at 8.25 so I can be seated before this meeting starts. I have no idea what they could possibly be discussing for so long every morning, but my only contribution to the meeting is to stand up and say `Ohayao gozaimasu` (Good Morning) with everyone else and I usually daydream through the next 10 minutes since I have enough difficulty understanding the simplest conversations in Japanese, never mind the frantic instructions of 5 teachers, all shouting at the same time.

The Japanese are OBSESSED with meetings, seminars and feckin` speeches. Generally, what an Irish person would get done in 10 mins before heading down to the pub, a Japanese person would discuss for 4 hours with anyone available, make a speech, and then work for 10 hours. In the end, the result is the same, so it can be hard to resist the temptation of shouting `Get on with it` during the millionth unnecessary seminar or ceremony.

Thankfully, as an ALT without a homeroom class, I manage to avoid most of these tedious ceremonies. Since there is usually some sort of speech, ceremony, or organisation meeting every other week, it means I get a lot more free classes to sit around writing my blog, so I can`t complain

With countless meetings, seminars and so on, it won`t be surprising to hear that Japanese teachers stay later than those in Ireland. However, how late they stay was certainly a shock for me! There is some teacher present in the school from 6 in the morning until 11 at night. What they are doing, I don`t know and why they need to be there, I don`t understand. When I was going to school in Ireland, the principal turned up 10 mins before everyone else and opened the gates and I seem to be literate, so what is the reason for this madness?

Well, the reason seems to be that what is important in Japan is not the work you do, but the fact that you`re present. Teachers play solitaire, read the paper, sit around eating ice cream, drinking tea, gossiping and basically doing all those things that Irish people do in the comfort of our own home. Regardless of how hard they work and how much work there is to do, Japanese teachers are expected to stick around until at least 7 or 8. Some teachers stay in as late as 11 every night.

To an Irish person, of course, this sounds like absolute hell, but the fact is that, as a result of the amuont of time the teachers spend together, the Japanese staffroom is a nice place to be. The teachers know each other very well, are almost like family.　In　Japan the same emphasis isn`t placed on family and `quality time` as in Ireland. It seems to me that most Japanese teachers enjoy hanging around, tapping away at their computers while having a bit of a gossip.

Luckily, as an ALT and a foreigner I am not expected to work these crazy hours, so I work from 8.25 to 4.10. In Ireland this is a pretty long day for a teacher, but in Japan I leave at the same time as the primary school children and come home before them.

One day a week I teach an English club and finish at 5, when I am coming home at this time I meet hordes of five to 10 year old children just leaving school. Primary school children of all ages walk to school by themselves. I have even seen some getting on buses , trains and metros by the themselves. Since Japan has such a low crime rate, and since Japanese children are much more obedient than their Irish counterparts, children don`t need to be accompanied to and from school every morning.

Life for students in Japan is also very to different to those in Ireland. Many students come into school at half 7 and practice their chosen club activity for an hour before starting school. They are in classes form 8.40 until 4 and afterwards are expected to stay until about 6 taking part in a club activity. After that, many of them head to cram school for two hours, then after cram school they come home, eat and do their homework until about midnight. When I told my students my typical day in school when I was a secondary school student, they couldn`t believe it.

I live only 5 mins from the school and when I`m going about doing various fun things at the weekend I see students in school uniforms going to and from the school at crazy hours. The school NEVER closes, even on Bank Holidays we see students and teachers in there working. I have no idea what they could possibly be doing!

The relationship between the teachers and the students in Japan is miles apart from the way teachers and students in Ireland interact. The Japanese staffroom is open for any students who want to speak to teachers, about anything! Therefore, there is a constant stream of students coming in and out of the staffroom to speak to teachers all day. If a student calls a teacher, they will drop everything and attend to them since the student is always right in Japan. Again, the relationship between students and teachers is more like a family relationship since both groups spend all their time in the school. Japanese teachers do much of the work that parents are expected to do in Ireland. If a student gets injured or sick, the teacher goes with them to the hospital and stays all night. If a student is caught committing a crime, the teacher is often called rather than the parent. Teachers seem to be really involved in their students` lives and know everyone`s hobbies, like/dislikes, personal problems etc. This is not surprising since students spend so much time in the staffroom fighting for the teachers` attention.

Last week, to celebrate the end of mid-term exams and the school festival all of the staff in Housen went out for some food and drinks. The restaurant where we were eating was in the city centre in a place I had never heard of, and, inevitably, I got lost. After 20 minutes cycling around in circles, I found my supervisor who waited for me outside and we headed into the building. Since this was a meal to celebrate the end of the exams, I didn`t think my presence would be particularly important. So, we burst in the door 15 mins late, in mid-conversation, expecting to see everyone drinking and eating happily. What we actually saw was the whole staff waiting politely for their special guest (me!)- aaargh! When we began to walk to our table (the main table in the middle of the room, beside the principal) everyone stood up and began clapping, I was so embarrassed, I thought it would never end.

Once everyone sat down, and the attention was off me, I began to enjoy the food, drinks and conversation. Many of the teachers were taking bottles of beer and going around the room serving everyone. This seemed a little strange to me, but it seems to be the Japanese people`s way of starting conversations. Since I am the new member of staff, and a lot of teachers had been too shy to approach me in the staffroom without the aid of beer or sake, a lot of people came to serve me. It would be rude to say `No` so I had to drink everything that was poured for me. I could see that I wouldn`t be able to last this pace for long, and thought the only way of leaving the building still able to ride a bike would be to take a bottle of beer and go and serve myself.

I was a little nervous, since Japanese people are so elegant and particular about ways of pouring things etc. but I managed to serve some people and avoid drinking for a few minutes at least. I need not have worried about getting too drunk and making a show of myself because Japanese people have absolutely no tolerance for alcohol whatsoever, and I was the soberest one of the lot after the two hours all-you-can-drink. It was a good night because I met a lot of the teachers I had never spoken to before and it wasa little surreal to see all the big, middle-aged men get drunk and disorderly within the space of about 10 minutes.

Well that`s my impression of Japanese school life so far. I suppose working in Japan as an ALT is a great situation to be in as I am not subject to the same sandards and hours as the Japanese teachers but still get to enjoy the obedient, enthusiastic students and the relaxed, friendly atmosphere of the Japanese staffroom. Lucky me!

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!

Last weekend was a bank holiday for Autumnal Equinox Day (whatever that is) and myself and Bren decided to head to Tokyo. Fortunately (well, for him) Bren got a press pass to the Tokyo Gameshow which was held last weekend. I have to say I was less than enthusiastic about going to the conference which was sure to attract all Simpsons fat comic book guy lookalikes in Japan. Not to mention the nerds actually nerdy enough to fly to Japan for this sort of thing.  I expected it to be a mainly Japanese crowd but clearly I wasn`t aware of the amount of nerds (otaku in Japanese) there actually are with a thousand euros to spare, because the place was swarming with big fat gaijin (Japanese word for foreigners)!

 Despite my attitude heading to the Gameshow which was less than enthusiastic, I had a really great day! The gameshow was held in a a futuristic spaceship/turtle building and we managed to avoid the queues in the blazing sun thanks to Bren`s press pass.

After we got our tickets we began making our way to the main entrance, nerds all around us were breaking into awkward little sweaty sprints, unable to contain their excitement and trying to get to the 4 hour long queues for Metal Gear Solid as soon as possible. They were very cute!

When we got inside we were bombarded with leaflets, loud music, flashing lights, cosplayers and booth babes. It was a little overwhelming and, I have to admit, far more exciting than I had expected. I`m still not sure whether the sights I saw were extremely cute, like so much in Japan, or very seedy and a little worrying.

Every corporation had a stand with giant screens showing trailers, demonstrations of the games and, of course. the booth babes, who seemed to be drawing by far the biggest crowds. These `booth babes` are pretty Japanese girls very scantily clad in maid uniforms, army gear, leather boots and whips, bikinis etc. They`re only purpose is to stand there and look cute for the otakus. At every stall there were 20 or 30 middle-aged men standing taking countless pictures of these booth babes while they struck various `cute` poses. Despite the clear sleaziness of it all, it seems to work. The girls seem to adore the attention, and the fat nerds are only delighted to actually stand within a few metres of a girl. Another thing to be said in its favour is that the girls were soooo cute in their little costumes. I think Japanese people look cute and harmless no matter what they`re doing really. They seem to adopt some parts of Western culture that are crude and make it cute, innocent and adorable, I don`t know how they do it!

After looking around at all the stalls, we headed out to where all the cosplayers had assembled. Cosplayers aren`t a million miles from the booth babes. They are costume enthusiasts, mostly young girls, who like to dress up as video game, or anime characters. These costumes were generally tamer and more innocent than those of the booth babes. They were very professionally done but it was all wasted on me, I`m afraid, since the onlt Japanese cartoon character I know is is that yellow fella from Pokemon. Still, it was great to see and there was one 50 year old guy who was walking around with little chipmunk ears, who I particularly enjoyed.

After the Tokyo Gameshow, Brendan decided he hadn`t seen enough technology for one day so we headed to Akihabara. Akihabara is the nerd district in Tokyo, it`s a shopping area, about the size of Dublin City, dedicated entirely to electronic gadgets, computers, games and the likes. Not surprisingly, Brendan was very excited by this and we spent THREE HOURS there. I`ve been having nightmares about surround sound 5.1 and Ipod Nanos since then!

In the evening we headed to the Italian restaurant where Yuka is working and which was absolutely gorgeous. Yuka swindled us some free food which meant that we had a full three course meal and drinks for about a tenner each. It was so yummy. Thanks the Yuke!!

We then went to stay overnight at an internet cafe, which was an interesting experience! Tokyo is ont a cheap place to stay and since we already spent all our money on laptops and projectors this month, our choice was capsule hotel or internet cafe. Since most capsule hotels don`t accommodate girls, we decided to stay in Media Cafe Popeye for the night. It cost only 15 e for one night to stay in the centre of Tokyo and, surprisingly, wasn`t too uncomfortable. We were given a computer booth with a flat seat so we could lie down comfortably. There were also free drinks, manga, dvds, playstation games and a lot more, but this had its drawbacks, because Bren drank so much free Coke that he only slept  about 3 hours, feckin eejit!

The next morning I woke up bright and bushy tailed after my night on the flat seat- now it was my turn to seek revenge for the day of nerdiness inflicted upon me! We got up and headed straight to Harajuku and Yoyogi Kooen, where the Harajuku girls hang out. Harajuku is the cool, hippy part of town, a little like Temple Bar, but with no rain, skateboarders or Avril Lavigne lookalikes!

The shops there were really cheap and had lots of cool stuff in them. I had 10 euro left to spend on clothes so spent an hour hunting for bargains in the shops then headed to Yoyogi Kooen for the Harajuku market. There, I managed to buy one skirt, one dress, one pair of shorts and two tshirts with my tenner, so I was more than satisfied with my day`s work! 

After I had done my shopping, we spied a Laos festival on by the stage in the park and went to have a look. It consisted of an old man warbling and a few students bowing, so we had a look at the few people dressed up in the lovely traditional Laotian clothes so we could tell Sabrina we had seen it and then we fecked off back to Harajuku station.

We got the bullet train back to Okayama and somehow managed to make it home on our bikes with Bren balancing his newly puchased speakers on his knee while we cycled through the city.

All in all it was a really great weekend and I can`t wait to head back up there to see the Yuke for some karaoke and shopping in October

 I put up some pictures of what I`ve been doing over the past few weeks on http://picasaweb.google.com/poolady