Tidbits

There is a song that I've heard played at the seafood section of several grocery stores. It's called Osakana Tengoku (おさかな天国). Apparently, it was a hit song at one point. It has several almost-puns in the lyrics, so it's kind of funny too, or so I've read. You can watch You Tube video of the song here.

For several evenings, I've heard a cat outside Yamamoto House. Not loud or long enough to be annoying or anything like that. Just enough to make me curious about the cat. Well, today I went out late to go the grocery store, and came across a cat sitting on a car. I think this is my serenading cat.


I now have a video game!! I bought a Nintendo DS Lite today. For very academic reasons -- really! There are several "games" available for studying kanji (Chinese characters) and improving your handwriting of them. I now have two kanji "games". The one I got for handwriting was so popular that when it first came out, stores restricted purchases to one per customer. The initial supply actually sold out. Now, imagine trying to sell something like that in the US for people to improve their handwriting!

Today we had our safety session for the Mt. Fuji climb. After that, I went shopping with another woman in my class for any supplies we didn't have. I guess I'm one of the few that brought hiking boots to Japan. I have high energy food, a water bag with straw that fits in my backpack, some oxygen, clothes for hot and cold weather, sunscreen, a hat, a parasol, a camera, and various other things to deal with the possible ugliness of altitude sickness. We are going most of the way up Friday night, finishing up on Saturday morning, then coming down. I was told not to plan anything for Sunday. Still, I'm looking forward to it!