Konnichi Wa!

I`ve finally worked out the computer! There`s a sneaky wee button next to the tab key that every time I hit turns the whole lot into Japanese!!!

I have tried to attach some photos of Iiyama for you all to see - I hope they work! These are only going to be testers and once I get my offical photographers certificate I will of course post some better ones i.e. when Dave comes over in September ;-)

Remember in my first post when i was rambling on about the toliets in Tokyo? Well, unfortunately they are completley different in Iiyama. My own toilet is pretty average - no extra buttons, jet sprays or even a drying function in sight. And as for the ones at my school...well lets just say anyone who has been to Malaysia will know what I mean.

So my love for Japanese toilets has been replaced. The new "super toilet" is now "100 yen stores"!!! I have pretty much kitted out my ENTIRE appartment for under 50 quid AND they do everything in pink! To give you an idea, 100 yen is a mere 50p and of a relatively high standard. The idea is everytime there`s an earthquake and everything gets broken, you can fire on down to the nearest 100 yen shop and replace everything for a fiver. Pretty good eh?!

On Saturday night I went into the Nagano for the city`s annual BINZURU festival. Managed to get to station, buy a ticket from the guy who spoke no English and board the right train. Got off the train at the right stop and found the festival. The whole thing is located on their main street where 100s of people (young and old!) dance a set routine from 6.30pm to 1am. They go up one long street (princes street size) doing the same dance routine to the same song with a few varieties depending on what they are advertising i.e. karate clubs, hair salons, McDonalds. Kinda like floats but on foot. Anyway they dance with loads of energy and dress up in funky kimonos and stuff. Each set goes on for half an hour and then they all stop and have 5 mins break and then start dancing again for another half an hour. This goes on until 1am! Its quite funny cos drinking on the street is SO allowed and everyone is too proud to litter so it actually works. Each group of dancers has a guy at the back with a trolley and loads of BIIRU (you guessed it, beer!), and then hands it out during the break. They also go around picking up litter at every stop break too. The best thing about this festival is the fact that it is for no reason at all! The mayor of the next city (Matsumoto) has a festival to celebrate some god or something and the mayor of Nagano city was like “hey, we need a better festival than the Bon Bon festival in Matsumoto so lets all dress up, dance in the street, get drunk and then clean up afterwards!!” Brilliant!

Did a massive food shop at the supermarket at the weekend and managed to find green tea flavoured Hagen Daas - I`m definitely in Japan now! When Ｉ was in school today, two teachers each brought in a huge bag of peppers, egg plants, courgettes and tomatoes from their farms so i`ve got a LOT of eating to do to get through it all! I was very grateful though as one of them doesn`t speak any English and we still managed to `chat` on Friday about the Loch Ness Monster (which involved me waving around a Nessie keyring from Dave`s parents) and she named all of the mountains surrounding Iiyama.

Ok so this is getting a bit long, but one more Japan-ism for you. On a whole, the country is very particular about it`s rubbish and recycling. When I moved into my appartment i had 3 different rubbish bins in my kitchen, each labelled with what kind of rubbish to be put in. I then received by post a note about when to dispose of what. Pretty simple you think? Well, not really as everything must then be separated into burnable (paper and some plastics), non-burnable (other plastics, tins, glass etc) and PET bottles (with label removed and cap washed out). They also make you write your name on EACH bag of rubbish you chuck out so that if it is not separated correctly then they can hunt you down and leave it on your doorstep until you do it properly! Needless to say, I didn`t sleep very well the night I put out my first lot of rubbish! Oh and oddly enough, I can only throw out batteries on a Tuesday or Thursday in June or October?!

So, I`ll sign off now as I`m sure your eyes are all sore! I hope you like the snaps - more to follow!

Japadzxx

Sorry guys - photos didn`t work! I`ll have to wait until i have internet in my appartment.