Cherry Blossom Adventures

• I was going to do a weekend wrap-up post, but now that it is Thursday it does seem a little late. But in a couple of sentences…Cat, James and Mai W celebrated their birthdays on Saturday night in a bar in Harajuku…we had the place to ourselves (about 30 of us) for a couple of hours and it was great fun…we headed to an izakaya in Shibuya after that (I hate finding places for lots of people on a Saturday night though…never anything available!) and I taxied it home about 3am…Totally random but saw Taiichi, a friend I met a couple of years ago in Australia and hadn`t seen since…new he was back in Tokyo due to a mutual friend and he just happened to come with that friend out of Sat night…Love it when you see people you haven`t seen in ages! Great fun, and I think the birthday kids had a good time. Sunday took Shun and I to Yokohama to watch 10 year olds play soccer (He helped a manager from work a couple times training the kids)…another friend from Shunpei`s work came too (His name is Junpei…it is so weird to say their names together) and in between games we headed to landmark near the grounds…Love Yokohama…could live there! We ended up having dinner in a really posh Italian place close by and drank three bottles of wine (Keep in mind shun had two glasses and fell asleep…he is not much of a drinker). Monday kept us inside, and I slept until 3pm…lucky it was another public holiday)

Some photos over at flickr here, but here is a couple from the weekend

• I am going through another book stage…remember a couple of months ago I decided to join a book challenge. Well now I have decided to do the challenge listed here as well. Read 8 books from 8 different categories in 2008……Yep, 64 books (Although you can have 8 crossovers which brings the number anywhere between 56-64)….I am working on the list…Trying to use book thats I already own (Which is a lot) but it also meant I went through the books that I have and realized that if I want to read some of the books on my shelves next year in this challenge that I should get started on the books that I am not putting in the challenge that are still on my shelf, now (if that makes sense) Meaning I have about 30 books to read before the start of the new year. Since I discovered that three days ago I have read three books….Yep, that is right, three books in three days….And I surprised myself…One was chick lit, one was non-fiction and another was short stories…the latter two I don`t read much of. I have decided my categories for the challenge and they are favourite authors (Anything by favourite authors, especially books that will come out next year while I am doing the challenge, books from a series (Most series I have started already, a couple of books I have been meaning to read that start series etc), on my shelf for more than six months (Mostly classics and non-fiction since I buy them thinking I will read them and then put them off until I have nothing else left to read), mystery/suspense ( I read mainly mystery and suspense novels or chick lit), chick-lit, young adult/children’s fiction (Revisit some childhood favourites and go back to reading YA which up until I was 15 or 16 was all I read really…therefore it is technically what started my love of reading), Japanese authors or books about Japan (Classics and modern fiction plus some non-fiction) and Australian authors (Figured since I was doing Japanese authors I couldn`t leave out the Aussies!). Shunpei and I both have our own bookshelves…mine however are overflowing, and a lot of my books are on shun`s shelves too. Hopefully this challenge will take away some of them……although I will probably just end up buying more and more books….I can not help it! 60 books or so in a year won`t be too hard for me…..I think on average I would read about 150 books a year……although I really have no idea. I have decided to start keeping count of what I do read from this month to see how many I do ready on average! Expect a post soon only about books!
• Book recommendations- I love getting recommendations of good books, especially if they are going to fit into one of my categories above!!! Please recommend any books and authors that you like!!!
• I have five cups of coffee today, I just realized. I think that is why I am slightly wired…..and not making much sense when I type. For the first two points I used about double the amount of words I should of to explain things. I think the coffee also means I will not be sleeping anytime soon…..
• My health has been really bad. It has been one thing after another in the last couple of months. A couple of colds, a couple of bouts of bronchitis, a couple of asthma attacks (one last night), weird stomach pains, chest pain (Which I had for ages, turns out after a lot of tests that I had tears in the cartilage between my ribs…probably from moving or from coughing all the time- The coughing is also why it is still not getting any better…you name it, the last couple of months I have probably had it. And it really sucks…I am sick of getting sick. I work in a job where there is two of us teachers and that is it…which means that taking time off work would mean leaving the other teacher/owner by herself. So I don`t feel as if I can take time off work……..I doubt it would help much anyway. Any recommendations on how you stay healthy? My mum recommends zinc powder…haven`t been able to find any yet…I did see some zinc tablets but am putting off buying them in case I can find zinc powder. I also drink lemon C drinks when I feel a cold coming on…….
• Okay time to watch gossip girl and private practice! I am a TV junkie…(As well as a book junkie, Internet junkie and coffee junkie….It is no wonder that I have put on so much weight since returning to Japan now really is it?)

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