I realise the blogs have slowed down but I'm not doing as much sightseeing as I did at the beginning. I'm now settled in the house and regularly spend time with the house mates. There have been a couple of blog worthy events on which I was waiting on photos.

Sunday morning at 6:30 I hear a knock at my door and Jareks voice. I don't function well at that time of the morning so I took a while to respond. Today was also Sunday and feel I had a right to a lay in. Jarek shouted again asking if I was up and my brain tried to figure what the hell was going on and why I was being woken up only 4 hours after id gone to sleep. Jarek had a boat race. It was starting to come back to me. Jarek had been invited by a friend to participate in a dragon boat race. And I had said I would go watch. Jarek had prepared by going to bed early after a big carb meal. I had stayed up watching films till 2 and ate crap. Jarek was in a hurry and he knocked again. I shouted come in but he didn't…it was then I realised he was actually in his room knocking on the wall and I could hear him clear as a bell. I prised myself out of bed grabbed some clothes and just had a enough time to brush my teeth before leaving the house. In my Zombie like state I cycled behind Jarek, squinteing at the bright sun and yearning for my bed. We reached Nipponbashi station 15 or so minutes later and locked up our bikes. Jarek was still trying to get hold of the friend that had invited him and was having no luck. We crossed the street and met with a group of people that all seemed wide awake compared to me. I was introduced to a Russian guy and a Japanese woman as well as the Japanese guy that would be driving us to wherever the event was going on. Jarek introduced us and spoke in Japanese to the group. I caught the odd word but nodded along and said good morning where I thought was appropriate. No one could get hold of Jareks friend. Jarek turned to me and said "Looks like your rowing" This woke me up. My planned day of chilling in the sun taking photos and reading a book had just become a day in a boat about rowing my ass off… I was excited.

The trip to the harbour took about 25 mins and I we all talked about where we were from and what we do. The usual introductory conversations. On our arrival we went to the changing rooms and were all supplied with team t-shirts and Jarek lent me the shorts he had packed. It was a sunny day so I donned my cap and we headed out .We were introduced to the team leader. This was the guy that would be beating the drum on the dragon boat to keep us rowing in beat.We were shown the boat and all grabbed an oar. Those of us new to this helped push the boat into the water and were asked to climb aboard. We were then taught how to row. The method is not like I would have thought and one arm is always locked straight and the other pulls the oar. The oar is also pushed down and parallel to the boat rather than stuck out like in normal rowing. We had our lesson for about 30 minutes and then docked the boat and walked back to the seating area. There were 6 teams and only 2 boats so each team took turns to have a little practice. I was introduced to the rest of the team. It would seem we were the foreign team consisting mainly of Europeans we were called the "special team" this made us sound like we were a little simple.

Jarek gave his camera to a Japanese girl who was wife or girlfriend of one of our team mates and she took many photos of the day. Those I have included were taken by her. We spent quite a while sitting around and our first row of two was at 10:45. We all had to do a warm up before we competed and each team stood in a big circle and did exercises together stretching limbs etc. after the warm up it was time to row. We all grabbed life jackets and an oar. Everyone had a white life jacket except the only one that didn't stop me from breathing was this bright orange thing I was handed. Looking like id been tangoed I walked the pier to the boat and took my position in row 6. We first had to row to the starting line. To the beat of the drum we rowed first slowly and then faster along with the tempo. We reached the starting position and men in dingys held the boats in place to ensure we were level. A fat Japanese man in a shell suit and ray-bans sat on the harbour wall above us on a little seat. He held up his gong to quieten us and then shouted Ready, steady, go!. What followed was not very impressive. Our team of first timers was up against an all Japanese team that did this several times a week for fun. We rowed our asses off and for the most part we were in beat although the boat next to us just kept passing us until we were watching it in front. I'm sure I soaked the guy behind me with my ambitious rowing . We came in second as expected from the "special team" but it was good fun and we rowed the boat into dock and began to wait again for our next go.

At this point Jareks friend Andy arrived and apologised for being late. A heavy night before had resulted in him oversleeping. It was strange to find out he was from Birmingham, he had also attended the same university as me and had lived on the street next to me albeit a couple of years before I arrived in Birmingham. About 30 minutes later we were up again for our second go. But it worked out much the same as the first. This time around I was sat next to this very proper and pretentious looking Japanese woman who would hardly register anyone else's presence let alone have a conversation. She wore a pink shell suit on top of which she wore a pink transparent raincoat/poncho over the top along with her pink Dolce & Gabana sunglasses. On the first stroke of the oar some water splashed her glasses and she stopped rowing. Everyone else was rowing like a maniac. And she sat there oar in lap trying to dry the small specks of water from her sunglasses. I couldn't see why she had even decided to do this if she was scared of getting splashed it also occurred to me that she was now dead weight and it would take very little to push her over board. I was tempted but resisted the urge. We lost again but no one seemed to mind. It was good fun and none of us had ever done this before.

After the races had finished the barbecue was to begin. This was interesting and involved 4 large BBQ's and a cooler of beer the size of a dingy. They made large stir-frys and the other BBQ'scooked meat. The race to get to the food was intense and usually you had to queue at the BBQ before the food was even placed on it. I missed out on the first couple of rounds but my competitive streak got the better of me and I muscled my way to the front after that. I needed food and no one was gonna get in my way. The BBQ was great and over the next few hours I met many people e both Japanese and foreign. Lots of pictures were taken by everyone. I had a great time but it was a tiring day. About 6 o'clock we had a lift home and I crashed onto my bed and slept for an hour or so. I slept well.

Since then the following week has been fairly mundane. I have spent my evenings playing lan games with the house mates and my days cycling around Osaka. I had work to go to too and on Friday and Sunday I had two shifts at the English speaking café. The job isn't hard but sometimes its difficult to make conversation. I've met interesting people. Two school teachers that like to travel seemed to take a shine to me and we spoke about pets and where in the world they have been. My favourite visitor so far was the elderly gentleman of 69 who has studied English for the last 50 years by listening to the radio and watching John Wayne movies. His English was so good that our conversations were about the loss of tradition in British society and the effect of Japanese culture on the world. Sadly the people that joined us couldn't understand what we were talking about and the conversation lowered to the standard of what food do you like and what did you do at the weekend. This is when the job is hard. Finding simple conversations yet not repeating yourself and trying to keep everyone interested. We are paid on the day and over those two shifts I made about 50 pounds. This is enough to pay for food for the week and will slow down my spending.

My other news is that I have another job. Starting the 16 of December I will be working at Hakuba Ski resort until March 31st. I was originally offered a job as ski lift operator. This would mean standing in the cold all day making sure people don't fall over. This is not for me. With a little negotiation I am now working food and beverage. This means my Japanese level needs to be much better. So I'm studying every day from now till then. At the moment I am learning Hirigana and can read some of the signs I see now. It makes it easier to learn new words.

Next week is my birthday and also Halloween. For Halloween there are a few parties and I managed to cobble together a cheap Jason Vorhees costume.Should be a fun night. I'll take pictures and let you know.