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A noodle shop in Kyobashi, Osaka which bills itself as quick, cheap and delicious.

Here`s some posters for live events in Osaka.

I came out of the onsen early last night to be faced with another problem for the English native speaker in Japan - the desperate English seeker.

I`d spent the last hour dreaming happily in scalding hot baths and saunas to come out and find a seat on a crowded evening in the waiting area. I eventually found one and noticed a middle-aged woman circling me with a determined look on her face.

“Bugger, I`ve stolen her seat”, I thought but the truth was yet harder to take. She sat down next to me and started to shoot questions at me like a quiz show host in the 30 second quick fire round. I came to the conclusion I`d pulled a crazy one. But she wasn`t crazy, just eager to for the aygo love.

In this situation is it rude to tell her to bugger off? I felt like a prostitute who services her clients all day and then comes home to her boyfriend. The only people I talk to English for free are my colleagues, fellow natives and my wife. The others get charged by the hour. In advance.

This is the area in which I live - Aobadai in Izumi City, Osaka nearing sunset.

In the same vein as my previous post, here is a graffiti-laden wall about the Yoshimoto comedians.

One of my requests was for the mundane sort of photo you won`t usually get a view of in the blogs which like to portray Japan as a nation where flying robots with lasers rub shoulders with geisha under sakura trees permanently in full blossom.

I like to think that there is a certain beauty on the other side of the coin. And with that in mind here is a train passing a bridge in Kyobashi, Osaka. Unless this type of window into my world makes you cry out with depression, I`ll post a few more of these over the next week.

Thanks for all the comments. Posts are coming up. In the meantime Spelling with Flickr

I`ve hit a bit of a slump blogging wise and need some help to get out of it so I`d appreciate it if my wise, kind and loyal readers might have any requests for subjects you`d like me to talk about, pictures you want to see put up and discussed or anything else that springs to mind?

Thanks.

After reporting that I rarely took a bath last year I must regrettably inform you I haven`t been to a dentist since I was 16 and am loathe to go in a foreign country whose occupants make the malformed English smile look like a row of pearly whites.

Any (ex)-expats have any recommendations/stories about dentists in Japan?

Last week I was lucky enough to go on two day trips with the children I teach. On Wednesday I went to Osaka zoo with the first graders. My only demand was I wasn`t placed with Yuto`s class. Yuto is in the Bible. He with the 666 tatooed on his forehead and accompanied by high-pitched staccato violin picking.

My wish was granted and I did a good job of helping the teacher manoeuvre forty kids through shanty homes, tramps and crazed cars on the way to the zoo.

Once inside I continued the exemplary job until my eyes rested on an adult male tiger roaming his uncaged area. “Jesus Malarkey Christ!” I exclaimed and abandoned the children in an attempt to get as many photos as I could on the whistle stop tour.

There were many groups of school and Kindergarten kids there all wearing their uniform and a cap in a different colour for each school and it often got hectic trying to sort the kids out from each other.

On Monday I went sweet potato picking which is a traditional autumn activity for school children.

The plot I was allocated yielded two small potatoes and a larger one whilst everyone else got around eight. There was something fishy afoot but I clung to my prize like an Olympic champion displaying his medal.