ダニエルの冒険

Seán left the hotel about 10am and I told him how to get to the train station. I didn’t hang around long myself and went to the station myself after an hour or so. I looked for somewhere to eat at the station but didn’t see anything particularly appetising so I decided to leave it until I got back to Okazaki. (more…)

Maid cafe, retro gaming, anime, games, gadgets, gundam, seiyuu, neko-mimi… this day had it all. We woke up about 9am and decided to go to Akihabara (“Electric Town”, aka Akiba). We got the subway from Jinbocho to Suidobashi and then rode the Yamanote Line to Akiba. We still hadn’t eaten breakfast but I remembered a nice place from last summer and we ate some great Oyakodon and Katsudon. (more…)

I went to Okazaki station, queued to talk to the Shinkansen ticket salesman, decided on what ticket to buy, handed over my credit card, he put it into the machine, and I was told immediately that it was no good. I walked down the street to the nearest bank, tried my AIB banklink card, and that was no good either. I remembered that post offices seemed to be a bit better so I kept walking until I got to the nearest post office, tried there and managed to get 50,000 yen out for the weekend and got my ticket. (more…)

Another fun day of school over. Or rather, another week over. I’m going to keep this quick as I’ve to head for Tokyo soon. Once I have this written I’ll clean up a bit here so dirty dishes aren’t sitting around while I’m away and go to the train station and find out the best way to go (Nagoya or Toyohashi or whatever). (more…)

There’s a speech competition next month and I’m considering taking part in it. I’d be really nervous and probably choke, but it would be a great experience. For homework today we have to write the outline of a speech and do a short one-minute speech to be delivered to the class. Every morning a name will be drawn and that person will have to give their speech to the class. I have a lot to say about Japan, but it seems to all be divided into two categories:

• Things which have already been spoken about in previous years, or that are just very obvious.
• Things which really would not go down well in a Japanese audience, whom I’ll be addressing in the end, if I go ahead with it.

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I just tried my Pow (PigCow) burgers again, since I had some diced onion left, and they were great! I got it done much quicker this time and they looked and tasted a whole lot better. I got some buns for them too and I didn’t need to use my cooking gloves at all! I really am getting the hang of this cooking thing. (more…)

Today I once again donned my Frying Gloves and followed Niall’s recipe for beef burgers and they turned out great! Before I left Ireland, my grandma told me “you can do anything you put your mind to” and she was right in this instance anyway! After I went for Yakiniku with Hiroshi, I realised how ridiculously easy cooking meat is: all you’re doing is heating it up and then it’s ready to be shovelled into your mouth.

I went to get the ingredients as soon as I was out of school. (more…)

I went to Nagoya this morning. A friend from Ibaraki, Hiroshi, came down to Nagoya last night and we agreed to meet up this morning.

I got on the train and, as I do, sat next to the prettiest girl in the car. I asked her how long she thought it was to Nagoya and we started talking. Her name’s Sayuri and she gave me her number and offered me a tour of Okazaki some time soon, seeing as she lives here. Looking forward to that ^_^ (more…)

Laundream is the name of the coin laundrette next to my apartment block. That’s “Laundrette” and “Dream” put together, in case you didn’t get that. Pretty clever, huh? I asked a friend from my class on Skype about it and was told that of course I’d need to buy detergent or else the clothes won’t wash. I went into the laundrette and saw a blonde girl sitting down reading a book — definitely not Japanese. Her name’s Jo and she’s an Australian girl living in the same block as me and she explained that the machines automatically dispense detergent and do all that other washing magic: all you do is put in clothes and coins and wait. (more…)

I went to an Irish bar last night. It’s the place on campus where I have lunch every day. It was raining while I walked there and was still raining two hours later when I came home. The weather here is much less changeable than in Ireland. (more…)