Day 61 in Japan - Lazy Thursday afternoon

Didn't feel so great, so we stayed in most of the day. I slept a lot, and blew a lot of dust-coloured snot (from Sports Day yesterday) out of my nose. Mostly, I read I Shall Wear Midnight - the latest Terry Pratchett book. I ordered it specially and have been delaying opening it until I could spend some decent time reading it. And today was that day.

Creepy-looking Okubo at night - this is just south of the station.

In the night, we went for a walk to the shops just for something to do, and ended up eating dinner at Saizeriya with the entire under-16 population of Akashi! Apparently a lot of school kids were out in the class groups celebrating their successes or commiserating their failures on Sports Days. I ran into a few class groups from Akashikita, which was a little embarrassing considering that I had chucked on whatever rumpled clothes I found on the ground, didn't brush my hair, smelled a little bit, and probably had dust-coloured snot running out of my nose. But it didn't deter a few of the girls from the local Commercial high school (meaning that they are from a notoriously low-level academic school, which turns out girls to work in shops, according to one of my teachers), who came up to talk to Sam and I for ages! Even though their English was terrible, and our Japanese seems to be going backwards, we chatted for about 45 minutes before we ran out of there. We went to check out the price of Pokemon Black and White as well - the new "reboot" of the Pokemon series launched on Saturday, and EVERYONE here is playing it! I think it has ended up being the fastest selling DS game of all time, and my kids are all asking which Pokemon I chose. We aren't planning on buying it, because we wouldn't be able to understand the existential angst, clever pop culture references, deep insights into the human condition and intriguing plot twists that are sure to come with any Pokemon game in Japanese.

Food Highlight of the Day: Yoghurt Scotch Taste drink. Wasn't as bad as I expected - kind of like a tangy, really strongly fake-banana flavoured off milk. Next time I may invest my 120 yen elsewhere, though.