Its been a relatively quiet couple of days. Yuko is pretty tired from her work (working in your typical Japanese company slave-shop), so we pretty much vegged out.
Saturday, got up really late. Ventured into town, looked around a bit. Did some food shopping. Came home, cleaned the house up. Dull ehhh?
Then I cooked a Pork Roast! Yuko likes traditional British Roast dinners. I’ve now found an online shopping place which has a British Shop section (its primarily for buying American products). Earlier in the week we got our big consignment through of stuff for making gravy, Yorkshire Puddings, and Stuffing. (I’m not that good a cook, so I have to use Paxo, Bisto etc).

Sunday was pretty lazy too. We travelled to see Yuko’s parents, and give them their consignment of British gravy etc etc (and some as well for Yuko’s older brother). After I cooked them Christmas dinner, they decided they wanted more!
Afterwards, we then ventured off to Yodabashi camera. I really, really want to get myself a nice photoprinter now. We had a play around on the massage machines as well. Some of them are so expensive. How about 2500 quid for a massage chair. Our conclusion afterwards was that they did give you a nice massage, BUT……….. getting a massage from your missus, or a properly trained person in a health spa is FAR better.
Afterward, we ventured off to have some food. We went to a place that Yuko’s parents are thinking of going when my parents arrive in Japan in December. They thought it would be a good idea for me to check the food out, to see if my folks could it eat it.

Its pretty cold here in Japan at the moment. It was snowing in Machida yesterday, though it was just cold rain where I live in Matsudo.

Anyway, with the long journey to Machida yesterday, I had some time to contemplate things.
1. Despite the fact that its freezing cold, why do a large number of young Japanese women and teenagers (14-28 years old) still wear their really short skirts!!!! I mean, they not even going out on the pull as it were. This is what they sometimes wear as their day to day clothing.
2. Why aren’t Japanese house’s properly decorated? The old buildings, with really traditional rooms are quite cool. They look very nice, in a minimalistic way. A lot of the very, very new designer (expensive) appartments are very nice too. However, the majority of contempory housing contains a complete mismatch of furniture with no attempt of co-ordinating the design of the room.
3. Why can’t Japanese people (usually the women) ‘drive’ shopping trolleys? I mean, the UK is pretty bad, but I find supermarkets quite agitating here.
4. Talking of supermarkets, why is it necessary in Japan for there to be TWO people operating a checkout? One to put the stuff through the scanner and into the basket. The second is the one who you pay. I guess it’s part of the Japanese tradition of pointless Job-Creation schemes.
5. Finally, when will Japan finally realise and DO something about it’s aging population? It’s probably one of the reasons why Yuko and I have been talking about not staying here after 10 years or so.