Day 36 in Japan - Showing off our new home

Today we got a decent and much needed sleep-in before a lazy McDonalds breakfast/lunch (I hate the word brunch and refuse to use it except when declaring my hatred for it). Sam and I took Andrew on a big walking tour of Okubo (well, the bit around the station) and he continued our Japanese lessons. It was really brilliant having a cultural coach with us at the restaurants and places that we actually go to. He explained signs, menus, ordering systems and even pointed out a few of the excellent places around that we had overlooked. We discovered Cafe Gusto and Saizeriya - two super cheat eateries around here that we can go to for a quick and fairly Western-style meal when we are feeling a little homesick (or in my case, pizzasick). We also played a bit of the taiko drumming game at the arcade, but Andy and I failed and then got our arses handed to us by this boy who had to stand on a bucket to reach the drums. Shameful.

The destroyer of our egos.

And speaking of shameful, we saw a Japanese boy band performing at our local shopping centre while we were out walking. They were doing a charity gig to support Japanese free TV or something. I have no idea who they are, but in my head, they are like the ageing rocker boy band on their way to obscurity and resenting the shopping centre gig in this tiny little place. Their dead eyes support my theory, don't you think?

We ended up wandering through shops, restaurants, department stores, supermarkets, the hyakuen store and a few eateries for hours and hours. After dinner (Saizeriya, an Italian-style restaurant with very cheap wine), we took ourselves out for more karaoke at our super close karaoke place. It seemed a little dodgy going in, but it turned out to be pretty good - 1900 yen for 2 hour nomihoudai (remember, that's all you can drink) and karaoke with a good range of English songs. Considering it's a 5 min walk from our house, i think we will be sounding more time there in the future. Finally got home and abed by about 2 am, which is a late night for me on a school night.

SupercallifragilisticexpiKARAOKE.

Food highlight of the day: Pizza from Saizeriya - not the worlds best pizza , but much less than the usual $40 pizza over here. More like $4 and when paired with a $2 glass of wine, it was pretty perfect.