Day 48 in Japan - I HAVE A KEITAI!

Today's day at school quite good. I (once again) forgot to order the school bento, so I braved the school canteen for the first time. It was slightly daunting, because I had no idea how it worked. I walked into a room full of kids, and watched for a little while to try to figure it out. There is a little booth at the side of the room, where you walk up and order things off a list. Unfortunately, the list is in Kanji, so I just listened to the boys in front of me and ordered the same thing as them. So I ended up with curry rice. Or at least, a ticket for curry rice. I then stood around for a little while looking confused, before some students took pity on me, and walked me over to the other side of the room, where I handed over my ticket, and got a HUGE plate of curry rice for about 230 yen. they offered me a spoon, which I thought was them being kind to a silly gaijin. So I politely declined and took some chopsticks instead. I then struggled with my sloppy curry and finally managed to eat it all with a few odd stares from the kids around me. I just assumed that they were surprised to see me in the school lunch room. (Can you tell where this is going yet?) After lunch, I put my plates in the stream of water, and then handed them over to the nice lunch ladies, and was just about to head out when a group of four girls approached me giggling. They finally managed to ask me why I used chopsticks to eat my lunch, and I said that lots of people in Australia can use chopsticks. They laughed, and then explained to me that in Japan, you always eat curry rice with a spoon, and that I looked very funny eating it with chopsticks. Damn, so much for trying to blend in! No matter - they laughed, I laughed, and they promised me that next time they saw me eating in the lunch room they would tell me if I was doing anything funny or wrong.


After lunch, I fancied a drink, so I stopped by our school's vending machine. There were three girls standing there, obviously alarmed but happy to see the new school gaijin. They were all nudging each other and trying to push each other forward to talk to me, so I put them out of their misery, and said hello. They were really happy to talk to me, and they helped me to choose my drink - a Lemon & Cider. Delicious! They managed to get out "I want to be your friend", and giggle a lot, and then chase a bunch of soccer boys over to talk to me as well. It was really nice to be out of the formal classroom setting, where the kids were willing to try to talk to me without worrying about an audience.


Anyway, all that stuff about school is just foreplay, because the main event of the day was... MY BRAND SPANKING NEW IPHONE.

We got a phone call last night telling us that my phone would be ready to pick up today. So, I met Sam after work and we rode our bikes up the hill, stopping to watch the beautiful sunset over one of the ponds that give Okubo it's name.

Hi Sam! Nice shirt. Now get ye to Softbank.

This is one of the "kubo" (puddles) that give Okubo
 (kanji meaning big puddles) it's name.

The sunsets here are really beautifully red and orange.

Got to Softbank and met up with our old friend Mai! She is so lovely, and I loved her particularly hard today, because she had my shiny new toy!! We sat there for a few hours, chatting about my new phone, her trip to Macau, her boyfriend, and planning to catch up for dinner on a double date in a few weeks.

Mai and mai phone (get it? Ha! I'm funny)

Afterwards, we had kaiten zushi. Just to make this day perfect.

Food Highlight of the Day: The lovely Mai just got back from a holiday from Macau with her family (her Mum and grandparents), and she brought us a present, which just proves how absolutely fantastic she is. She brought us fruit pastilles that were flavoured like apples and mangoes. Like, they actually tasted like apples and mangoes - not just like apple flavouring and mango flavouring. Delicious little sugar bombs.