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On Wednesday we went to buy some clothes and I spent a large proportion of my insubstantial funds on them. This is my own fault really as we brought a lot of clothes with us on the plane. We were in fact 20 kilos over between us (the customs bloke in Osaka airport stoppped us as he thought I was smuggling stuff in as we had so much) but thankfully the lovely lady at the check in in Heathrow decided to turn a blind eye to it. All thanks to Reiko I`m sure. Having unpacked the 10th jumper in the 30 degree heat and realising that as it hasn`t yet got below 20 degrees in the day and that I actually need t-shirts and short sleeved shirts and not jeans and jumpers, this was a neccessity.

After shopping we went to the beach and I got my first ever feel for warm sea water. The beach wasn`t as good as Poole or Bournemouth`s but the water was incredible. It was like having a lukewarm bath instead of an ice bath in England. I feel this when I am in a car. Even with the windows wound down and my head out of the window for wind, it feels like a hairdryer on the low heat instead of a cooling sensation. This obviously makes a difference to England which I am pleased for though.

Thursday was a very good day. Reiko and I saw the Hanshin Tigers play baseball against the Tokyo Giants. This is a very popular game as it is the equivalent of Manchester United against Arsenal. It also meant I could get drunk and bang two mini baseball bats with 50,000 other maniacs to cries of kattobaseh fujimoto (hit it hard fujimoto) and HOME LUN HOME LUN GEORGIE. Reiko has to help me out with the chants a lot as I get the names wrong or don`t understand the chants. They also have a Hanshin Tigers song which I want to learn and sing it with everyone else. I got some funny looks from people in the crowd, but after their initial shock, I think they are happy that I am at least not supporting the other side.

Hanshin Tigers won 11-0 and the bloke who`s top I have (Akahoshi) played incredibly scoring some runs and as Tokyo are my most hated baseball side, I had a good time. I`ve really got into baseball. A lot of the time it`s blink and you miss it stuff. I often am there trying to follow the chants and the number of times you should hit the bats together for the particular chant and then the bloke throws it and he`s off. Japan have a team for the olympics this year and Fujimoto is in it so I`ll be following that I hope.

That day I also saw the Prime Minister of Japan. It is election day on the 17th July I think and he was in Osaka campaigning. In Japan all of the candidates hire vans or buses with many loudspeakers on them and babble away in Japanese with their followers on the bus in a kind of uniform with gloves etc smiling and waving at everyone in the street hoping that some people wave back. I saw Mr Koizumi the prime minister in Osaka centre flanked by about 12 security staff on the top of his bus. He looked a bit funny as he was about 2 feet smaller than his security giving him the impression he was a midget babbling on in Japanese. I caught the word America a couple of times but didn`t understand what he was saying. He is a very popular Prime Minister and will probably get reelected this time as well. aha

It sounds like I am just having a bit of a holiday and not making anytime to finding a job doesn`t it. Well that`s correct and I think I deserve it. What do you think? Do you want to fight about it? Just kidding, I have made some effort to find a job. We also went to the advice bureau for foreigners trying to find work in Japan. They advised we go to another association which we`ll probably do on Monday. Maybe.

I had a bit of a holiday day today as well. We went to Nara which is a city near Osaka. They have deer running around wild in the parks and often in the streets. It was possibly the hottest day so far of my stay and I am going brown instead of white to red and back again which I am happy about. I saw the most unexpected thing as well. We went to the lake in Nara and I looked in expecting to see some birds like swans and the like but I saw lots and lots of turtles. I couldn`t believe it. I took loads of pictures but with their weird looking green and red striped serpent heads and feet they started looking a bit sinister - a bit like massive spiders swimming so I stopped looking at them. Reiko`s mum took us for dinner in Nara hotel which is a really old hotel where royalty stay when they visit Nara. I had eel which I thought was going to be disgusting and slimy but tasted like white fish. They had covered it in soy sauce and grilled it and served it on rice in a very traditional japanese ceramic box. Eel is supposed to be good for stamina as well aha so I was happy about that. aha again!

The mosquitos have stopped biting my hands and arms and have decided that as my legs are (or rather were) virgin territory for them, they had better make a go of taking them on like the Americans did with the Indians. I have a whole batch of mini colonies on my left leg. I look like a bloke with some awful contagious disease. I expect to come down with malaria or Hepatitus B within the month. (I realise this may not be funny a month down the line in hospital at death`s door.)

Well that`s about it for this time, I`ll try and write more often so that each post can be a bit shorter. Aha! Bye bye.