Here comes the sun (doo-n-doo-doo)

It's only been May for one day and already it feels like summer - the weather today has been similar to what would probably qualify back home as a nice summer's day. Not too bad so far, but it's gonna get a lot worse - apparently May is usually hot, June is rainy and July and August are very hot and humid. Argh.

Went to the north side of Okazaki for the first time on Sunday. It seems to be lot more exciting than the south bit - more interesting shops and restaurants and so forth. We had dim-sum at this Chinese restaurant, which was very nice. Also it was my first time getting the bus here, which is slightly different - you get on at the back, take a ticket, and a display tells you the charge, which increases the further you go. When you get to where you're going, you put the ticket and the appropriate change into a machine next to the driver. The drivers (like the police, train staff, traffic attendants and pretty much every other public servant I've encountered thus far) are immaculately turned out and seem very friendly. Makes a nice change from the surly middle-aged blokes you get back home who growl at you if you ask them the simplest question (I'm generalising but you know what I mean).

So yes, that's been about the only excitement recently. However, I've made discoveries in the arena of wacky Japanese soft drinks. The Japanese seem to prefer to receive their vitamin intake in drink form, and lemon flavored, vitamin-C enriched drinks seem to be all the rage. I'm quite partial to C.C. Lemon (Vitamin C - 1400mg! boasts the label) and I've had the irritating song from the commercial running through my head for several days now ("Sank yuu Shi Shi Remon! SHI SHI REMON!" I think you can watch it on this page).

Also good is Pokka Lemon (see left), which claims that it will maintain you in "SARA SARA condition" (Sara-sara, according to my dictionary, is the sound or proess of things running smoothly). On top of the 1350mg of Vit C you'll receive, Pokka Lemon has recently started selling with little free gifts attached to the bottle. What did I get? Why, a miniature tape measure, of course!

I've also found Nobi King, which I can only describe as tasting like sweet fruity watery milk. I only bought it for the comedy name (as you can see from the photo of the label (right), the first "I" is printed quite small, leading me at first glance to think that it was called something completely different altogether).

I've added some of Leonard's pics of Osaka to my Flickr page, so check em.