The One and a half Gaijin, all Kansai-ben adventure.

Met up with Yoo (陽), who I suppose I could joke is my stand in for 陽, who is currently in Tokyo. Although there's the small fact that 陽 is a girl and about half the size of 陽. 陽 is also less inclined towards using words like 俺(Ore) and 行かへん（Ikahen). That said both 陽 and 陽 both speak in Kansai-ben, though after speaking to 陽 for about 5 hours straight I don't get stuck in Kansai-ben mode for the next 2 hours, which happens if I hang around with 陽.

If your computer can't read Japanese characters, I've very sorry, but you just missed a hilarious little joke about how I have two friends who's names are written exactly the same way just pronounced as Yoo (who's a guy) and Minami (who's a girl).

On the subject of Japanese name-based silliness, I've also got a friend called Yu (優） (who is a girl) and one of my new pupils is also called Yu but is a boy (I don't actually know how you write his name in Kanji but it'll be different. ).

The plan was to meet up in Kyoto (Incidentally, Yoo assures me that he does actually live in Kyoto-prefecture. I am yet to be entirely convinced of this...). Anyway, the plan was to meet up in Kyoto and head up to Lake Biwa, which is, depending on who you ask, either very beautiful or a toxic bog that makes the Clyde look inviting (A little Glasgow reference there). I was personally hoping to steer us in the direction of the "Ninja village" Wikitravel talks about, or if not the hilltop-temples at Mount Hiei, but we ended up going for some noodles in Kyoto before heading down to Osaka.In effect I ended up doing the Kei-han-shin triangle in a day... If Tanaka-sensei was following us she would probably have had fun watching me adapt dialects. I pass on attempts at Kyoto-dialect though, it's hard :-(

Anyway, apparently I seem to magnify Yoo's slightly foreign appearance (Half-German. I'm tempted to nickname him Asuka but I don't think he'd take it well... 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン reference there - I admit to deliberately writing that in Japanese to hide it's slight geekyness... In protest however, has anyone met a Japanese person who didn't like it? Apart from Yume, who it scared the crap out of apparently. And it is basically their version of Star Wars...) I guess at this point I do now have to admit to watching Neon Genesis Evangelion recently...

Back to the point (again), basically the whole day was for me a nice holiday from being what I will generously refer to as "exotically weird one" (Also know as: THE GAIJIN) and for Yoo an never-ending stream of "Here is your English menu" and "Are you a lost English-speaking tourist whom I can assist?". Not to mention the fascinating spectacle it seemed to be for two apparent foreigners to be chatting in Kansai-ben Japanese...

Amusing aside: My complete inability to navigate Osaka having been documented previously, I gave Chris (Exchange student from Sheffield) a call while on the train with Yoo (I know, rebel. Don't worry, I did that "cover-hand-with-mouth-thing-that-makes-it-ok). Conversation as follows:

Me (To Chris, in English): Hey, can you recommend anything in Osaka?

Chris (In English): Yea, the castle's pretty cool. Shinsaibashi is also good.

Me (To Yoo, in Japanese): Hey, have you been to the Osaka castle before?

Chris (In Japanese): Yea, it's pretty cool

Yoo (At the same time, also in Japanese): Yea, ages ago

Me (To Chris, in Japanese): I wasn't talking to you!

Yoo(In Japanese): Oh, sorry..

Me (To Yoo, accidentally in English): No, not you sorry...

Yoo(In Japanese): Eh? Wat?

Me (To Yoo, in Japanese): Never mind

Chris (In English): Oh, I get it, your friend's Japanese!

(Head explodes)

Speaking of head-pain, I very nearly knocked myself out on one of the stupidly low doors in my halls :-( Worst bit is that's about the 4th time I've done that on that door...

Went on to Osaka castle, which is distinctly un-authentic given the interior elevator (Himeji is better), then for some (more) noodles in Shinsaibashi, where the shopkeeper rather amusingly said he was really surprised that I ordered something written in Kanji (月見定食, which was very nice) on the menu, and that he expected me to order something written in phonetics. I'm honestly really not sure how to take that...

Gold star of happiness also goes to random Hankyu Men's (Department store. No, I didn't buy anything) shopkeeper-girl, who randomly started talking to me in Japanese without any encouragement :-)

Philippines in a week! :-) :-)