I had a Japanese exam yesterday. I thought that it went ok.

As a consequence I have been doing little else apart from working and studying for the past week.

I met up with Japanese friend in Shibuya last night. We had dinner which was nice.

Currently it’s Saturday. I’m in the communal room watching TV. Video hits is on.

Some of the clips are good. I like the Banzai clip with Kimura Kiera. Minimal yet fun.

Last night after I left my friend in Shibuya, I came back to Kichijouji. I determined to walk around a bit looking for a green tea flavoured soft serve place. I couldn’t find one so I started to go in the direction of the guest house. While I was buying another type of ice cream at the convenience store I bumped into some of the other house mates on a beer run from the park.

I momentarily considered swapping my ice cream for beer but thought the better of it. We walked to Inokashira park.

I sat around for a while with the others in the park.

One of the house mates played Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit on acoustic guitar.

He is french but sang the English lyrics well.

A  drunk offers us some food that I decline with my politest Japanese. Despite his drunkeness, he wasn’t too insistent.

We talked a bit about a date I had been on. I tried to ask some of the japanese housemates about the dating rules in Japan but I am still confused. Just play it by ear I think.

Soon after I finish my ice cream I leave for the house. Once there, I see that one of the Japanese house mates was watching the american version of Vanilla Skies with Tom Cruise on the communal TV. I haven’t  seen it in a while. It’s pretty good.

I start the morning by looking at some speeches at www.ted.com. I watch two speeches: one about Bird Flu and the other on The Eradication of Smallpox.  I am not really worried about Swine Flu (now A(H1N1)) because the World Health Organisation (WHO) said recently that there were only 7 recorded deaths all in Mexico.

It’s Golden Week at the moment, which is Japan’s longest holiday, being 8 days. As a result of this I have a break from Japanese school. During this week I should be studying Japanese but instead I have to finish some work on a website first. I am close to finishing this work so there is hope yet for my language studies. I finished one main part of the site last night which was good.

While I wait for my rice to cook, I watch the communal TV. My rice is ready. I am going to have nattou with my rice.When I get to the kitchen I see that someone has thrown my nattou into the bin. Its packaging is still intact so I retrieve it.

I am now eating the nattou on rice. Normally I eat them separately. Today, because the packaging had been in the bin, I empty the nattou onto the rice and throw away the packaging. I ask my a housemate if pouring the nattou on top of the rice is the correct way to eat it and he says that it is the way most Japanese people eat it including himself.

The scales here have a table showing height to average weight. I now weigh 67kg which is considered a little under average for my height. I have been eating well so I tell myself to do more pushups.

Normally when I want to get some exercise I go for a walk through Inokashira Park to Kichijouji. Yesterday I decided to go the other way when I left the front door. This way took me through the backstreets. I noticed a sign. This sign had a picture of a dog on it and it read “I can reach the fence in 2.8 seconds. Can you?”. I found this sign more accusatory than the usual “Beware of Dog”. I walked along a creek and eventually I found another park full of people enjoying Golden Week.