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I haven’t had enough to write about this week, and I haven’t taken enough photos this month. 

I don’t want to become slack, so I have pressed the ‘compose’ button and am forcing myself to think of something to write about.

I have started to think solely in language from our textbook, so am being lazy and preventing unnecessary wastage of brainpower by naming this post after one phrase that is still floating about from a class earlier today.

Strangely enough….

Patrick wanted to watch a football game this afternoon, but didn’t have much luck.  Although there was a Visa symbol on the counter at the ticket store, they refused to accept his card.  They told him that they could only accept one of their Visa cards.  Patrick was presented with a Red Diamonds (his favourite team) branded Visa card application form and was expected to apply on the spot.

The same thing happened to Michael when he joined the gym, so he now has a Gold’s Gym Mastercard.

This seems so odd to me.  I was quite sure temporary residents shouldn’t be permitted credit accounts in Japan, but I might have been wrong.   I guess they’re not so different to store cards in Australia, but that they can be used anywere. 

Something else a little odd is the Dog1st store in Shinjuku.  Not only do they sell prams and diamante necklaces for dogs, which I am entirely used to by now, but they also provide facials for dogs.

We went to watch the football again this evening, this time it was an AFC Champions League game, Japan’s Urawa Red Diamonds vs. Shanghai Shenhua.

Patrick and I were thinking of cheering for Shanghai, but decided against it for safety’s sake. Actually it turned out that it was much more fun to sing along with the 28 thousand Japanese fans instead.

The stadium was one built for the 2002 World Cup, so it was really impressive. We pretended a little we had World Cup tickets and it was all the more exciting.

I have never heard such a loud crowd, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like in a real World Cup match…

I should have known Patrick was up to something when he sent me a second “I love you” SMS for the day.

He had been shopping in the afternoon, and bought himself some new running pants and a new cap.

I was going to buy him the cap as a surprise anyway, so really he has just done himself out of a nice surprise.

I told Patrick afterwards that now I know that the second SMS he sent was just a guilt SMS. He insisted it wasn’t a guilt message, but a ‘comfort’ message. Hmm.

Luckily, as well as sending comfort messages, Patrick is clever enough to agree to walk me home after work if he has done something bad, so we have walked home nearly every day this week.

The 109 building in Shibuya looked extra cute in it’s decorations this evening, so we took some photos on the way home.

We are going to watch a Tokyo VS Shanghai football game tomorrow. We are going to sing and clap loudly for Shanghai.

Hope we don’t get beaten up!

Patrick thinks we need a hobby. He told me so last week.

He thinks we should have something we both love doing that we can do together in our free time.

I think he is silly. We already have a hobby… actually we have two. We like to sleep. And when we are not doing that, we like to eat.

Our day is generally organised around these two important events.

I read a lot of student files, and the hobbies listed inside. Generally a lot of the files list “drinking” as a hobby.

At least our interests are healthier. Often the files list original combinations of interests such as “Aerobics, Drinking and Yoga.”

A housewife’s file listed “napping” as a hobby, which I liked. Businessmen usually enjoy “Drinking and Golf”.

But back to our hobby…

Patrick and I have found another yummy restaurant, all by ourselves. We took Karen there this evening.

Its a Shanghai style noodle restaurant, where all the fresh ingredients are stored in an open cooler in little pots or on skewers. We choose all the ingredients we would like in our noodles and pass them across to the chef who cooks them up for us.

Yum!

We have to choose on a level from 1 to 5 how spicy we would like the noodles to be. The first time we went, we thought 3 would be a good level. Luckily, a kind woman who overheard advised us that 3 would probably be too hot to eat, so we downgraded to 2. Thank god for that, even the 2 was almost too spicy to eat.

I wonder how anyone can survive a level 5 noodle?

The restaurant is really cute anyway, it looks very new and the decor is lovely. It only seats about 10 people but is worth waiting outside for.

Things in Japan are generally smaller than we are used to.

So far we have discovered only a few exceptions. 

The apples here are big.

The hairstyles are big (and not just on the women).

The crows are bloody huge.

Finally, if they are not really small, the cars are really big.

This Hummer looked just the thing for a quick trip down to the shops.