Day 92 in Japan - Goodbye Jakub

The morning was pretty much lost, as Sam and Jakub slept forever (and I was happy to let them sleep, while I read my book and felt generally sore and sorry for myself - the sinus infection thing hasn't gone away yet). By the time we all got mobile, it was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, so we turned on the TV... only to see MY HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND! Yeah, that's right! There was a brass band festival on in Akashi Park, which was apparently televised, so we got to see the kids doing the cool marching number that I have heard them parctising for months, and then a really awesome number that they have only been practising this week - THRILLER! I guess it must be for Halloween, but they were doing the whole Thriller dance thing. It was really awesome, and I was so happy that I got to see them do their thing. Akashi kita, I love you!

After that, we did head out for lunch - we ended up having okonomiyaki at a place we haven't been to before in Okubo. It was really quite good, and we'll totally go back. We also got roped into filling out what we thought was a questionnaire about internet. We MAY have signed up for NTT internet? I don't know. I don't think so. Anyway, we got a pumpkin balloon out of it, so I'm pretty happy with the results. We all were, as you can see below.

Pumpkin ballon. YEAH!

Headed into Sanno to say goodbye to Jakub and did a bit of shopping. Went into a bookstore that turned out to be an adult shop above the first floor. Of COURSE we stayed, but only for a few minutes, because it was all dudes inside and I was startgin to get some really odd looks (and paranoia that any moment one of my teachers or students would walk in). But we didn't flee before taking a photo of the used panty wall. Yeah, they really do exist. My day was made and my faith in humanity destroyed. There were also a lot of fleshlights. If you don't know what that means, don't google it.

Maybe best not to look too closely at this if you want to be a happy person.

By now, I was starting to feel really crook - I had a full on temperature (and not just from the used panty wall), and it was really time to get home and rest. The rest of the day passed pretty peacefully and in a bit of a blur - I slept on an off, had a bath to try to stop the aching in my joints, and washed my eyeballs with soap to try to forget the weirdness of the bookstore.

Food Highlight of the Day: The okonomiyaki lunch was really good! The modanyaki (like okonomiyaki with noodles) with mochi cheese was gooey and delicious, and they make it on the grill in front of you, which was fun to watch.