Ippoippo

Hot weekend. Read somewhere that temperatures in Tokyo could top 40 degrees in August! Great

This weekend, we ventured off to Kanagawa. Yuko had a bit of a minor health scare (after getting some results back from her company health check), but everything was all clear. Both of use were rather relieved. We then went off and purchased a BBQ. Once that was done, time to head of to Shinjuku to have a few drinks to cool down.
We visited the hotel where family and friends will be staying when they come to Japan in December. Fucking hell, some of the restaurants and bars in that hotel are expensive!!! Mind you, there were a couple of cheaper ones. (In case you lot are reading this, I’m sending you a letter with some restaurant guides as well).

Today was a lazy day. We went down to the Edo-gawa riverside to cheak out where we can setup to have a picnic/bbq next Saturday, before watching the firework display (花火 or hanabi). Bloody heck, people have already started staking out and marking their patches of land on the river bank. Yuko and I legged it off to the 100yen shop to quickly get some pegs, rope, waterproof marker etc and then back to riverside to reserve our spot!

Anyway, looking forward to the fireworks. Last year was pretty impressive to watch, and this time, we have friends joining us for food and drink. Fantastic stuff!

Thanks Bogue for this amusing little link.

I love those times in Japan when I get to speak to some random stranger.

Yesterday, when travelling home from Japanese class, I decided to go ahead and do some of my homework. So, out came my みんなの日本語 (Minna no Nihongo) book. The books are kinda scary looking at first, because everything is in Japanese. Not a whif of English.
Anyway, an old lady (guessing she was 60-something) sat down next to me on the train, and she then noticed the book. At one stage, I got stuck trying to remember some vocab, at which point she then told me the word I was trying to remember. Naturally, I thanked her, and then we had a brief chat before she got off the train. By no means was it a conversation about important, intellectual subjects, but I still enjoyed it.

Ahhh, its SARs all over again!

Following on from my earlier posting, it now seems there have been more deaths and infections in the latest virus outbreak in China.

Once again, we hear the all to familar story as well:

Also of concern is the authorities’ silence on the deaths. It knew of the first cases on 24 June but it only allowed the story out on 25 July.