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Tomorrow evening I am going to Yamaguchi by boat so i will be posting from my phone like this until sunday. I hope it works. I`m also trying to get some pictures on this as well. This is proving tricky. Any help?

We went to a new onsen or sento on Saturday. These sento do not have special spring water but merely natural water yet this one was incredible and my joint favourite one. The best thing about this sento is that they have three large stone pots which have running water pour into it. I sat in one with legs sprawling out the side and it was incredible.

Japan won the Asian cup on Saturday 3-1 against China. Although they did this by beating the combined might of Jordan, Bahrain and China they could still teach the allegedly all powerful English something about winning. Reiko thinks I was secretly supporting the Chinese as everytime a Chinese player fell under a crunching Japanese tackle or a Japanese player dived I said so but oh well.

On Sunday it was Reiko`s birthday and so we went to the city centre and ate and shopped. We also went to a chocolate cafe where everything is made from chocolate. The cake is chocolate, the beer is chocolate and the tables are made out of chocolate. Well maybe the last one isn`t true but anyway you get the idea. I had a cup of hot chocolate, which was surprisingly bitter. But it came with two chocolate balls which seemed to come from the finest Belgian chocolate kitchen. OISHEE!

Then we did an hour and a half of karaoke at 140 yen (or 70p) for half an hour and free alcoholic tea included. I had a good time. Now they have a meter on the side of the screen which measures if you have hit the right note and if you are in time etcetera and they rate your performance against all the people that have sung that song (allegedly in the whole of Japan) We got a few first places especially as we chose mainly English songs which aren`t so well known here. I sung the Monty Python classic “Sit on my face and tell me that you love me” and garnered a first place position by being the only one to have attempted this composition. I reckon you should win something but it was just for honour.

Today after dreaming about dangerous water spiders which looked like NES systems (!????) we went for a barbecue by the beach. It wasn`t actually on the beach but on a small field next to a beach (which was incidentally next to an airport with shadow provided by a motorway high up above) but nevertheless a good time was had by all. We were taken by Maki and Tommy and their kids again. I spent all day amusing myself by kicking footballs and throwing frisbees and generally feeling like the third child. I managed to reduce Kotaro (who only recently celebrated his first birthday) to tears by directing a high velocity football at his face. Tommy jokingly said “You bastard” and I am sure he only half meant it?

Today I was treated like a panda again in the Japanese-Italian wonder restaurant that is Colore. We went with some of Reiko`s mother`s friends and ate heartily. After that Reiko and I went to the city centre to buy Heat magazine in HMV and did two solid hours of karaoke and alcoholic tea drinks (My thraot aches) and then it was shopping for Reiko`s birthday on Sunday (8 August.) I got her something nice ahahahahahaha!

Today I spent most of the day in an onsen.

There is something very liberating about standing naked outside or in waist-high water. I recommend it. After the onsen I ate sashimi which is raw fish and rice and some more green tea ice cream OISHEE!

Reiko got a letter from the job she applied for saying she hasn`t got it. I think this is good as we can spend more time together and go to Yamaguchi. She was okay about it which is good too.

I also gave a cockroach a slow and painful death. Something which I am not proud of. It has spent the last hour on it`s back writhing obviously in a lot of pain. But it is very large and slimy and I don`t want to go near it. On top of it all they fly. It has started to click as I write this. I am unsure if it is dying or calling for reinforcements. Beware the cockroaches..

Last night we went into the city centre to watch some fireworks (hanabi). This was an opportunity for Reiko to wear her Yukata which is a traditional Japanese robe. The fireworks were okay but they were mostly obscured by the large buildings in the city centre and as I had seen this kind of thing before many times they seemed to pale into insignificance amongst the bright neon lights of the city. Also as food is much more important than anything in the Shiraishi family, the fireworks were quickly abandoned for a local Chinese restaurant where we met up with Reiko`s father for a meal.

In the restaurant there was a TV showing the Japan versus Bahrain game in the Asia cup quarter final which is on in Beijing. I tell you these Japs could teach us something. They pass quickly and seem to live on limitless luck. In the previous game it was one all and down to penalty kicks. Japan missed their first two penalties and still managed to win after sudden death penalties thanks to an incredible save by the Japanese goalie. In this game they won by four goals to three thanks to a goal near the end of extra time. I reckon they should come to England and give a lecture on luck acquiring skills.

Today I saw Maki and Tommy and their kids Lyoma (Dragon) and Kotaro (Tiger) and went to play football and on a kite (with varying degrees of success) in what the Japanese would call a park and the English would call a gravel pit. It rained, there were tears all around and having been bored being left with the kids, Maki and Reiko zoomed off in the car (unawares to us) leaving us to kick a football in the rain. The rain has fortunately plunged the heat down so I can just about tolerate the heat. Today I also gained my Izumi city citizen card and am now fully registered as an Osakan citizen mwaa ha ha!

I am addicted to Harvest Moon on the GBA and green tea ice cream and am being forced to listen to questionable Japanese pop groups called Mr Children (sinister overtones anyone?), Bump of Chicken (?) and GLAY.

By the way I am still alive as you may guess by my relatively regular posts here so if anyone actually fancies contacting me, you know my email address. Apologies but subtle hints never seem to work in my opinion…..

Bye bye.

Well I didn`t go surfing in the end and I didn`t see the fireworks. That`ll teach me for writing about something that I am going to do instead of writing about things I have done. The waves weren`t big enough on Friday as the typhoon changed direction slightly and Osaka was on the outskirts of it. We drove about three hours on the way to Wakayama which cost fifteen quid for the driver each way on the toll roads. Then we realised there was no surf and so sunbathed and swam instead. I saw lots of weird fish like yellow and black striped ones which I tried to catch without success with my hands again.

Saturday, I was left on my own in the house and enjoyed a very good day free of being moaned at whilst everyone else either worked, shopped or played Pachinko. On Sunday I played Ultimate frisbee with some Americans in a large park in Osaka at Shinkanaoka. You could have called it the foreigners married to Japanese women club. These people were incredible at it, doing throws such as hammer throws which I can`t (yet) do. Not having played it for about eight years I was out of practice and they used a much lighter and larger frisbee than I was used to. As it progressed it seemed that whichever team I was on invariably lost until I finally got used to the weight of the frisbee and remembered how to catch it and I started to get good at it. I scored some and made a couple of points and we won the final game.

These people were built like brick shit houses and having been in Japan for anything between four to nineteen years spoke fluent Japanese. There were a couple of Japanese natives who also played and I couldn`t converse with them. This has shamed me into attempting to speak more Japanese to people. Inbetween each punishing game, these people would down beer after beer and inhale copius amounts of tobacco smoke with seemingly no negative effect on their running and throwing ability . This was the same when I played the five a side football. I don`t understand how these people do it.

I blame only myself for being a fat, lazy bastard but every single muscle aches now. I know this means it is working and that I may lose my pot belly and gain legs thicker than that of a chicken. This morning (Wednesday) I can still feel the pain and struggled down the stairs like an invalid. Oh well stop moaning you lazy git and feel the burn.

After the frisbee and having missed the fireworks, we went to an onsen where I soothed my aching, aching muscles. There was this thing called a healing sauna. This is where there were about twelve human sized rectangles in the floor which were filled with stones and some metallic plates. You lay down on the rectangle with a towel to cover the stones and then they turn out the lights and lock you in there. These stones get heated from below and cause you to sweat profusely. I was told that it would only last fifteen minutes so near to the end I was thinking I have to get out now I think I am going to die this has to have been fifteen minutes by now doesn`t it? After a cool down and some more onsen I felt refreshed and wanting for bed. Yes.