July 27, 2008 - Sunday

Hot and sunny, rainy with strong thunder and lightning later on.

Today was a pretty good day but I didn't sleep that well. My husband didn't sleep well at all, and spent a lot of the night tossing and turning. He got up early, I didn't. I was having a very cool dream, when I was awakened again. Sigh. I did get up, and had some of the very nice coffee that we had bought locally a couple of weeks ago. It was a little ironic for me. Fumihiko woke me up, so I got up and got dressed, but he was sitting around the house in his skivvies!

We spent a lot of time on our computers and at one point I was surprised to discover that Fumihiko had booked my tickets from our local airport to Haneda and back for my holiday. He had not only booked them, but paid for them too. Wow! I in turn booked a hotel for the night I come back from Canada. While I might be able to clear immigration, and customs quickly, there's no guarantee, and I might not be able to catch the last plane home from Haneda. I'd have to change airports after all. I think just knowing that I don't have to rush off will take a lot of pressure off me and I can enjoy the trip home more.

In the afternoon we went out for lunch. We had a lovely lunch at Moku-Moku. It was cold pasta today. I've never really had cold pasta before I came to Japan, but it's not bad. I wouldn't usually eat it in winter though, although I did once by accident!

After lunch, we hit a hardware store so that I could get some things for my school. I was running low on things like TP, multi-purpose cleaner, and printer ink, so I picked some up. We did a quick trip home to drop off some stuff and then drop off my shopping at the school, then we headed off to AU.

AU is the company that makes our cell phones, so we decided to go and upgrade them today. Mine was fine, but Fumihiko is on his second battery and his camera part doesn't take good pictures anymore. Since we both had the same model I thought we should both change at the same time. We went to the office and asked the woman which cell phones are bilingual, so she made me a list. Fumihiko and I looked all over the store but there weren't any that I really liked. I don't need a cell phone with a tv in it, I hate Japanese TV. I don't need one with a music player, I have an iPod. I don't need one with relaxing multi-coloured lights, I just need one that takes good pictures, is bilingual and is pink. Preferably metallic pink like my old cell phone. They didn't have any. Oh, they had metallic pink ones, but they weren't bilingual, they had a camera one with a cell phone in it, but it wasn't bilingual, and they had waterproof ones, but I never go swimming anyway, so bleck. I searched around the store and finally found one that I could live with. It was black, easy to read the buttons and didn't seem to be very expensive. When we went and talked to the lady again, oh my gosh though. The phone would cost me over 30,000 yen right now, and I don't know how much every month. I basically wanted to know how much more I'd have to pay every month, but I didn't get an answer that I could believe. At that point, I just said no. There's nothing wrong with MY cell phone, so I'm going to keep it. I had taken off my cute little pink strap from Hong Kong and taken out the photo disc, but I put the strap back on and put the memory disc back in. I'm not getting a new phone right now. If I had loved the new phone I would maybe have gone for it, but I didn't. My current phone is great, does all that I need, so I'm sticking with it.

Fumihiko, on the other hand, got himself a new phone. He got the one that I was drooling over, the camera with a built in cell phone. It looks gorgeous, but was very expensive. Still, an actual camera would be quite expensive so I think it works out okay. He's still in the process of learning how to use it. It's not bilingual, so that's why I didn't think about getting it.

When we finished at the phone company we went to the bike shop to pick up Fumihiko's bike. He's having it fixed up. Next month is the fireworks in our city, and we're going to go. There's no parking so the easiest way to get there is to go by bicycle. He hasn't used his bike in ages, in fact, I think I used it last! The bike store man wasn't there, so he couldn't get his bike yet. Maybe tomorrow night.

Tonight we had a lovely dinner at our favourite restaurant, Bistro Des Points. Our main course was Shonai pork, but we also had two kinds of fish, salad and cold pumpkin soup. Our dessert was peach melba with yogurt ice cream and coffee. It was so good. The one bad thing about the evening was a man in the corner of the restaurant was berating two young boys very loudly. Fumihiko was rather more upset about it than I was. After it turned out that it was the boy's sumo coach, but still, seemed inappropriate for a public restaurant...and an expensive one at that.

We came home and had a quiet evening. I watched Zodiac. Fumihiko tried, but fell asleep on it. Unfortunately, the thunderstorm came up during the movie and our TV reception died out in spots so I don't know what happened there, but over all, I think I'm glad I didn't see it in the theatre.

That, rather long windedly, was my day. Oh, one memory, I have to remember, it was just too funny. When we turned down the road to my school, there were two old Japanese ladies side by side, pulling weeds just off the road. They were heads down and very much bums up facing the road. I got a good chuckle out of that, but Fumihiko didn't even notice!

Got to go. Night night!

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