Weekend

Had a relaxing day today, though I decided to stay up after breakfast instead of going back to bed. I played the organ a little and watched a lot of anime: Escaflowne.

In the evening I played a game of pool with Rushen (he won 3-1, again!). Hachi-san gave us each a little 5yen coin with a ribbon through it. It's called a otoshidama (basically "year coin") and is a practice whereby families give money to their children at New Years. Also, Hachi tellss us this interesting fact: the Japanese for 5yen is go-en (五円) but it also has the homonym ご縁 meaning "karma".

Later I went out in Futsukaichi with Drummond and a guy from university called Yoshi that we know. He brought his friend Mariko who was one of the people on his trip to England last year. We went to a restaurant called 五風 (gofuu - "five winds"). We had "all-you-can-drink" for £7, and Yoshi and Mariko had some things to eat - things I had never seen before and looked quite tasty including one dish that came in a black bowl that was piping hot and had an egg on top. We had a good time chatting in English and Japanese. I like Yoshi; I think he is my first friend who actually attends the Economics part of the university and not the welfare collge.