It’s gonna really suck when I get home to Scotland and go back to getting no valentine’s again. I got less this year than last but that didn’t bother me in the slightest as the ones I did get were from people very special to me. Thank you – you know who you are.
St Valentine’s Day is wierd in Japan. It’s everything that Hallmark et al would love to make it in the west. You give presents to everybody! Lots of my students were giving them to their friends – it’s nice but it must spoil it if you have someone special you want to give a gift to.
Also, Valentine’s Day is when the girls give gifts to the guys, White Day (March 14th) is when the guys get to reciprocate and give gifts back. It feels weird to get presents but not give something back. Aww well.
On Sunday I had a fantastic day away with Akiko. We went to Iwakuni, they have a fantastic wooden bridge. The bridge had to be replaced recently but it is still a traditional Japanese design and very pretty. We also took the cable car up to the castle which is on top of a mountain. It’s pretty but as usual a reconstructed castle. I’ll put some pictures from the trip on the gallery in the next week.
While we were in Iwakuni, Akiko took me to an ice cream shop that sold the strangest flavours I have EVER seen! I mean, they had garlic, wasabi (horseradish), spinich, tomato, pumpkin and the clincher was *natural viagra*!!!!!! I decided against getting that incase it did actually work! Which would have made for a very uncomfortable ride home!
After Iwakuni we went to the onsen at Yuno, it was great! The water smelt terrible but it was very hot and relaxing. The guys there were good fun and chatty. I found out the Japanese for star is hoshi, language exchange in the nude – how surreal my life gets sometimes! The hoshi thing is quite cool because that’s the name of the Japanese-American officer on Star Trek : Enterprise! Fits, don’t it?
I had a great day yesterday and I owe a big thanks to Akiko, she’s such a star and has made my last couple of months here much more enjoyable.
Thank You Akiko-hime!