Singing poo and happy up!

(For April 19)

Multi-purpose seats at the station

And so ends the first week of classes.  It’s been so tiring and my feet are a mess, but I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in this course.  I’m sure by the time I get home, my Japanese will have moved to a new level.

After class, I went with two classmates, Ulla and Ka Sim, for a Japanese curry.  I love Japanese curry and this is the first time I’ve eaten it on this trip.  As usual, it didn’t let me down.  Ka Sim has enrolled in some extra classes, so she left us after lunch and we hit the shops.

I would have to rate our visit to the IshikawaSan Café & Shop as the most hilarious.  This appears to be the Japanese equivalent of the ABC shop and has many knick knacks and souvenirs that relate to various TV shows.  There was a group of young students in the shop while we were there and they discovered a plastic poo that sings a song when it’s switched on.  I burst out laughing, which the kids seem to find as amusing as the singing poo, so we had a good inter-cultural exchange.  Just for the record, no, I didn’t buy a singing poo.  I did buy a couple of unnecessary things and received a free bottle of peach water called “Happy Up”.

Curry for lunch!

We also visited Daiso which is a 100yen shop.  It’s so hard to resist buying everything in the shop, but I noted a few items of interest and will visit Daiso in Osaka at the end of the trip.

We visited Kinokuniya, where we browsed around looking for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test text books for Ulla – without success until I toughened up and asked a staff member in my best Japanese.  She then took me to a shelf and pointed them out.  I was very relieved (and proud) to discover that she had understood my request!  That didn’t change the fact that they didn’t have the book that Ulla wanted, but that’s quite beside the point.  I was also pleased to note that the books that I got for 105 yen at Book Off the other day are 760 yen when new.

For stopping earthquake wobbles

We also went to UniQlo which has some fabulous clothing items for very reasonable prices.  Ulla found some things, but I’ll keep this for Osaka too.

For storing begetables

We found it very difficult to leave our shopping as there is so much cute ‘stuff’ that we wanted.  I’m much better at resisting tempation than Ulla, but it’s not easy.

We wandered our way back to Starbucks at the station where we had a chai latte and did a bit of emailing etc. until it was time for my bus.

We had a lovely dinner (as usual) and a chat about Adelaide (with the assistance of a souvenir photo book and Google Maps).  I finished off the night with some laundry and a soak in the bath.

Tomorrow we’ve got a day trip to Kaga for a visit to an onsen and some sightseeing.  I have to get my bus into town from a different stop tomorrow, so that might be interesting!

Hopefully you’ll hear from me again.  If not, send the search party to the vicinity of the Takeda bus stop near Goshomachi.