Massive catch up

I haven't written here for a few days now and there's so much to write about! I admire Myra's blog, it's so up to date and concise (there's a link to it on the right). I could easily ramble on for pages and pages but no one would read it and I can't be bothered with that, so I'll stick to my list formula. I like lists, you know where you are with a good list. Just some disconnected points of things I've noticed or have happened to me recently.

• Long plastic umbrellas. When it looks like it's going to rain everyone has one hooked over their arm, even small school children. They do sell compact umbrellas but everyone uses the long ones. And outside lots of shops there's a stand with long plastic umbrella bags to put a wet umbrella into when you go in the shop to keep the floor dry. Good thinking, huh?
• Banks suck. Just give me my money! I guess I should have informed santander I was moving to Japan for a bit, and I guess some of the transactions done recently look hella dodgy, but still. Thank God that's all sorted out. Which leads me to...
• Skype rules. Seriously love being able to talk face to face with Q and Mum and Dad. Especially reassuring when instances such as those mentioned in bullet point 2 occur.
• Tiny tiny dogs. I guess they fit better into tiny Tokyo apartments.
• Walk on the left. There are ridgy flagstones down the centre of all the pavements to help you keep to the correct side.
• None of the rules apply to bikes. Seriously, why are bikes allowed on the pavement.
• Buying onigiri without being able to read Japanese is for the brave. I usually aim for the pinky orangey label which has lovely fishy tasting pink stuff in it, yum yum, alas today I picked up ikura which, as I learnt, is salmon roe. Not what I needed when I was feeling delicate.
• The honesty of Japanese people. Maybe I'm making sweeping generalisations here (at least it's a positive one) but stuff just doesn't get stolen here. David left his wallet on the bar of a dodgy club for 5 minutes and when he remembered it was still sitting there, untouched. Karan lost his brand new, less than 12 hours old mobile phone in a club. The lady who found it spent all night ringing his contacts trying to arrange for us to collect it and then agreed to post it to him the next day. Perhaps we've been lucky but seriously, how lovely is that.
• 100 yen shops are addictive.
• Fur lined ceremonial gowns aren't a good idea in 35 degrees and 60% humidity. Poor professors at the opening ceremony.
• Purikura is fun!  These large photo booths you go into, you have about 5 or 6 photos taken in really quick succession against a green screen, then you run out of the booth to a screen behind the camera where you can edit the photos. The program automatically edits it to give you massive eyes, small mouth and clear skin, then you can give them cute borders and stuff, and you print them out as stickers, infrared and/or email it to your phone. It's really fun and doing it makes you feel very Japanese.

kinda scary, kinda cute

I could have written so much more but this will do for now. Lots of photos to come too! Lessons finally begin for me tomorrow so I'm quite excited to see how that goes. My first class is Japanese so hopefully I can keep up - I'm in the lowest level so I guess I don't really have a choice. I'm also sort of squatting in my accomodation at the minute... I wasn't able to pay my rent to due to my bank card being blocked. Not exactly an ideal start.