so being the average uni week, it goes by with not that much interesting occurring (well not interesting to those that weren’t there at the time usually).  time to cover a few of the more minor details of my life over here?

the two kids you see above live over the road from my family.  taka-kun and tomo-kun.  it was tomo-kun’s birthday yesterday, so they were still playing with their new presents.  yes – both of them got presents, because there would be quite a lot of screaming and crying if only one did.  boy can they scream :/.

anyways the toys they got were boukensha figurines – basically the original power rangers which are somehow still popular in japan.

we went out to a family restaurant called Saizeria for dinner last night.  this is one of the places with drink bars – which means you can drink all the melon soda you want, but the amount you drink is very proportional to the suffering experienced as you make many visits to the toilet during the night ^^;.  this particular restaurant has a nice selection of pizzas, pasta dishes and some very mouth-watering desserts.  unfortunately even though i didn’t eat lunch, i couldn’t manage a dessert after a single main course..

i had a macaroni cheese with crab dish, as well as garlic bread and a lot of drinks.  it cost around 800yen (just under AU$10) – quite good value really.

speaking of family restaurants, i was watching a news talkback show this morning and they were talking about this incident that occurred last week at one.  a family went to eat, and at first they were told that quite a large selection of the dishes weren’t available, and to choose from specific salad and meat dishes.  when they did just that, and waited over 30 minutes for their meals to come out, the meat was hard and basically not consumable.  along the way the staff fobbed them with excuses and said to wait just a bit longer.  it was only when they got to the counter to pay that they were told rather impolitely that there was no chef there that could cook the food..  just a whole bunch of part-timers trying to cook the food.  no apology or anything.  quite bad really :/

soo i’m hoping that doesn’t happen to us.

on the way to uni yesterday we were met with a sparkling stream of whiteness on the road…

the first thing that came to my mind were pachinko balls! and i’m pretty sure thats what they were too. that blue container is the kind that is used to store large amounts of the balls for those hardcore gamblers. i guess one had a bit of an accident on the way home last night ^^;.

sooner or later i had to post a picture of this. in one of our classrooms we have this mysterious rectangular box with this sign on the side. i guess its meant as an emergency escape out of the building, but would you feel safe following those instructions then risking your life down 3 storeys being held up by this.. thing?

if a lot of males wearing no pants is your thing, then you would’ve liked the matsuri in himeji today. personally it wasn’t that great :p

of course, the main attraction was the large crowds of well-clothed guys holding up the yatai (floats). it was good for about 2 minutes – nice atmosphere and all. the melon soda + icecream was also good.

i was paying more attention to this guy’s camera setup. if only that camera on the right was a HD one he would be the winner…

the day was finished with a trip to a kaitenzushi restaurant about 30 minutes drive from our house. being a popular restaurant, there was a queue of people waiting at the door to get in and grab their favourite sushi off the conveyor belt. we waited about 15 minutes – which was apparently quite lucky considering the festivals on around the area.

what to say. it was tasty? :p

i guess only the japanese would think of having a bar of wood at head level to ensure that while customers can share the sauces etc. in the middle of the table, they don’t have to endure the experience of staring at a strange while they eat. it kind of sucks when you have friends on the other side though.

anyone want a riversiblu shirt?