It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for 2 weeks already.  I’m over 1/3 of the way through my trip here, and I still haven’t seen any of the things I want to see in Japan.  Work is busy from all areas, and balancing the time is very difficult.

Yokohama

We went to Nauko and Ryu’s for lunch today, in Yokohama.  We managed to find their house by walking – from what I remembered last time, all we had to do was walk up hill…and up…and up some stairs…and up another hill…..it took about 3 phone calls for directions, but we eventually made it.  Their kitchen table was *covered* in food!  We already knew we were having Tomaki Sushi, and Kaoru had told me it would be different than what she made, as everybody uses their own fillings.  But I wasn’t expecting *that* much food!  It was sensory overload though!  It all looked and smelt amazing!

Ryu explained that at his English class this morning, they had been studying Psychics and Horoscopes.  Basically they look at something on CNN and discuss that.  It seemed to make sense, as a good way to find a topic to improve your language skills.  But obviously having an Aussie guest for lunch forces you to speak English, and that helps a lot!  So it’s good to be able to do my bit, given the meal they were giving me!

Naoko and Ryu

We seemed to eat and talk for hours.  We were there for 4 hours in total, and never got up from the kitchen table.  There was always food there, and we would just make a sushi roll as we wanted it.  Yep – this is the life!!!

After going to Bic Camera to buy a light globe for the bathroom (it blew this morning), we made it home just in time to feel the earth move again.  This felt a lot stronger than the last earthquake I experienced, and after turning on the TV to have a look, it was under the tables for us.  We were back out after a minute or so – it was a “Level 3” in our area, which is on a different scale to the Richter scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_seismic_intensity_scale).  It was “Level 5” closer to the epicentre, but that was a fair distance from us.  On the TV we could see footage from a camera mounted in Tokyo, that showed how severe it was there.  Aah, the fun of it all!

Back at home, we were going to have some noodles, but we were just too full still, and couldn’t fit anything in.  So a bit of blogging, a bit of studying, and it was bedtime.