I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast.  After a cup of tea, some food and water, and addressing a few work issues, it was time to start the day.

Arisa had the day off school (public holiday) so Mio went shopping, while Kaoru and I took Arisa for a few hours.  We went to the electric store, where we had heard they have a robot that talks and interacts with you!  So we thought that could be a laugh.  It was called “Pepper”.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCFYw8mIqcc.  Unfortunately his English translation wasn’t very good, so whilst I had half a conversation with him, it seemed very primitive.  However Kaoru’s conversation in Japanese made a bit more sense, it seemed.

While in the shopping centre I had an email from the stadium in Brisbane with the World Championships, so I had to give them a call.  I knew there was a chance of something like this, but since no issues came up in the 4 days I was there, I was quite confident it would be the same.  But alas, people will be people, and will break things when I’m not around.  As always, it was just user error – somebody doing something stupid.  At least I got to use some of the credit on my mobile phone – seems a waste to recharge it every time we come here, and then I don’t use any :).

We had Siu Mai dumplings for lunch (ok, eating Chinese food in Japan – I know – but Arisa picked it) and after a bit more walking around, we caught the train back to Mio’s.  Much to Arisa’s disgust we were going to walk to Mio’s from the train station (about 15 minutes) but it was raining, so we called Mio to come and pick us up.

Back at the house we had some time to kill, before the evening’s guests started arriving.  It was Youichi’s birthday, so since I was there, Mio decided to invite some more people around and have a party.  One of Kaoru’s cousins who I hadn’t met before came with his wife and 3 children, then a friend of Mio’s and her husband and 2 children, Kenichi (Kozue couldn’t make it) and another friend of Mio’s who I had met before.  So it was a very enjoyable night, and Mio’s bar was well and truly open!  It was a work night, so it didn’t go too late, which was a good thing.  Kozue came to pick Kenichi up around 8.00 so I went out to say hello to her.  Minami was asleep in the car so I didn’t get to see her and Yukari.  But we were seeing them tomorrow so that was OK.

After everybody had left and we had made a start on cleaning up, I had a bath and went to bed.