day 8 - back in sobriety

11/06/07 12.17
the other guys are gone and now i`m alone here with the host family (or what`s left of it, almost everyone seems to have gone to work). mami and me are going to go somewhere now, but apparently there`s not much sightseeing to be done here. i`ve got some time left, so i`ll just fill you in on some strange observations; first of all, married people always call eah other tou-san (father) and kaa-san (mother). and every japanese is a pro at scissors paper stone (janken). really, they are amazing! if there are 8 people doing it they don`t need half a second to see who`s lost and who`s still in the game. and everybody thinks that heineken is german beer. japanese white bread comes in pretty big slices (but only 5 slices to a package). and most sweets are strange. smoked cheese. chili octopus chips (quite good actually). that kind of stuff. anyway, i`m amazed at how easy it is to live without having any idea what you`ll be doing or where you`ll be the next day (or in some cases even in the next 30 minutes).

21:18
i`m back and in front of the pc. i think i have enough time to write the blog right now, but i want the written and the online version to be identical. there seem to be about 6 million cicadas outside right now, it`s really LOUD. and forget what i just wrote, all that comes now is online exclusive, woo. today, as i wrote above, i went out with mami (aka sandra). when we set off, we wanted to go to the historical museum of himeji, but that`s closed on mondays. so we went to the himeji castle, which is upposedly the prettiest castle in japan. and now that i`ve been there i can believe that, because it really was great. the weather was nice (but as always a little bit too hot) and there were many tourists about, among them a high school student group from alaska (a japanese class). anyway, the castle has nice surroundings, a beautiful park and everything, and looks like it made a great defense position in these old times. to enter, you had to first cross a bridge over water. form then on, you went uphill, in rings around the castle. there were several heavy gates on the way and lots of firing holes in the walls. there were also many hidden doors for soldiers. the inside of the castle was original, not like osaka castle, and there were several exhibits of weapons and armors from that period. you had to climb a lot of steep stairs to get up to the top of the castle (seventh floor). inside, as it is customary in japan, you could not wear shoes. they did offer slippers, anyway, but they barely fit my shoe size (which isn`t very big for a european). there was definitely no way for a person in a wheelchair to get anywhere near the top of the castle. afterwards we went to the park and then to the city, where i went into a record store. the prices are higher than in germany, but they had a pretty good selection. i bought the new 65daysofstatic album to which i am listening right now. we had takoyaki on the way and went back here to have dinner. that was it pretty much for today. anyway, i`ve had a lot of different japanese specialties so far, let`s count `em: tempura, temakizushi, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, standard sushi. okay, maybe it was only 5 so far, heh. anyway, 16 cards and 7615 Yen.