Japan is awesome

I love Japan. I had Sushi for breakfast for only 210 yen (about a pound)... I only had four pieces... But still!
Today we went down to Shirakawa. I love it. The houses look really traditional and old fashioned and it's got some really awesome places. The place we went to for sushi was called "Genki Sushi". It was really fun there. Plus we had endless free green tea... Which I found suprisingly nice... It was powder rather than in a teabag...
We then went to the 100 yen shop (although not everything is 100 yen, as I very quickly discovered, just cheap). Oh god, it was amazing... It's absolutely huge and has got loads of absolutely random stuff. Plus, they were playing a CD of J-Pop music... But this was all played on synthesised saxaphone. It was hilarious... I hadn't even realised until I recognised one of the tunes as being an Arashi song, then started humming along.
After that we quickly stopped by at a convenience store, then we went to a place called Black Shop. I'd heard a lot about it from the gaijin staff as being the place they get their music, posters, instruments, games etc from... But seriously!
I was amazed by Black Shop. It's like someone got every geeky shop I've ever been in, smushed them together, then gave it drugs!!! Downstairs was clothes, games, retro games (Seriously, I saw a SNES), films and sweets. Upstairs was music, fishing stuff, posters, porn and manga. This shop is absolutely HUGE and set out as confusingly as I think humanly possible. I browsed the music for a long time, feeling very confused... They supposedly had some sort of order... But I couldn't work it out, even with my ability to read hiragana (which was used to seperate the different artsist by name)... I couldn't find any posters I wanted either. Most were Jpop bands that Hannah's more into than myself. Although there was a hilarious picture of NEWS dressed in absolutely ridiculous clothes with glitter, sequins and feathers and everything and they all look really unimpressed.
I didn't get a really good look around in the end because we had to leave to catch the bus back up to BH.

So, today I bought:
A plastic cup for toothbrush and things
A glass cup for drinking
A bag to hold plastic bags (I thought it was a washing bag... But it's not... Oh well, at least I've now got something to put plastic bags in)
A really cute writing set
Washing powder
Soap and an adorable flannel that came as a set
A bundle of random CD's for only 105 yen (about 60p)
A News calander from 2005. Oh god, they all look so very young.

Shirakawa is way fun. It's so rural that there are NO other gaijin around, at all. So it was fun, the three of us walking around, getting people looking at us. Some guy drove past in his car and waved at us, so I waved back. I then asked if we knew him or if he was just waving to us because we were gaijin. Helen and Mel explained that he worked at the hotel pool. Later on another guy waved at us from his car, again I waved back... None of us knew who he was...

When we got back, there was some comedian filming some sketches in the main house. We watched for a bit... He was dressed up as a geisha and talking so fast I couldn't even guess what he was saying. None of the Japanese staff knew who he was... So he's either on the brink of fame... Or just not famous...

I just had some really tasty food at the staff resteraunt. They actually make really good food there. I just had some lamb in a spicy sauce of some sort... The chef was a different one from normal. He doesn't usually talk to the staff, so he didn't know any English... So he kept talking to me really quickly in Japanese... I was like "slow down", trying to use my hands to indicate speaking slowly.... According to my dictionary to say "please speak slowly" you say "Moo sukoshi yukuri hanashite kudasai."
Moo - Again (the "oo" in "moo" is said more like an extended "ohh")
Sukoshi - A little
Yukuri - Slowly
Hanashite - Speaking
Kudasai - Please
This is how I'm teaching myself Japanese at the moment. I pick out an example sentence out of the dictionary and then analyse all the components. It's helping me understand the grammar a bit better.
Oh, and while we were eating dinner, there was a kids programme on TV... Where this guy attacked the bad guy using dango (a sort of rice cake). Then, when he hit the bad guy in the mouth everyone suddenly seemed to be really relaxed and this old woman fell in love with him and started chasing him... It was so hilarious! But really weird... I think I will take moms suggestion to learn using kids TV.
I've just realised that my little finger on my right hand is only ever used to do a ' when I'm typing. The rest of the time it sticks way out, away from the rest of my hand. It's really weird... I've only just noticed whilst typing this.

I'm kind of glad I've got nothing to do tomorrow... I'll have a relaxing day in. I'll probably have a good lie in, then tidy up a bit, then maybe have a bath. Then I'll probably teach myself some more Japanese or relax in the living room or something... In fact, I might go to the living room now. It's only 6:30... People won't be going to the pub for a couple of hours... Yeah... I'll see if I work out how to use the DVD player... Plus, it's the only room in the house with tatami mats... And I love the tatami mats... They smell so nice and they feel so nice under my feet, so soft and warm.

I've noticed actually... Japan seems to have a specific smell. I always noticed on my imported Shoxx magazines or Loli bibles, they smelled really nice and unusual... Japan smells kind of like that. It a really strange, sort of sweet smell. It's really hard to explain! Come to Japan, then you'll get what I mean... Or you'll just contine to think I'm weird for smelling Japan...

So yeah, another one tomorrow morning, probably... If anything interesting happens later...