Everybody's leaving :-( sob sob

So we've sadly come round to this point...

Good-Tony left this morning (probably sitting in KIX departure lounge at the moment...) to go back to America. I'm going to miss living down the corridor from Hong Kong film-star royalty... (Tony Leung hehe) (Coincidentally Bad-Tony also left today...)

Louise left last week (Granted she was only in Kobe for 3 weeks...), Alexis left Sumiyoshi a few mins ago to spend a few days in Tennoji before he goes back to France, and Chris leaves in a few days...

I'm leaving 5 weeks from yesterday... Seriously, what I wouldn't do for another year here...

Oh, we had お盆 (O-bon) this weekend. It's a Japanese Buddhist festival to remember your dead ancestors. Interesting task: Go ask Japanese person under the age of 30 if they know what it's for... lol.

So anyway, I went up to Fukui-ken to go see Yoo again. Met a couple of his friends at the 鮎祭り (Fish Festival?) who were pretty cool, one of whom had a truly amazing command of English swear-words hehe :-). Another one, assuming I couldn't speak Japanese*, was speaking to me in mostly-not-bad-English for about 10 minutes. I'm not sure if this was mean or not but I just let her keep going with that assumption (answering only in English) until Yoo "outed" me. Is this bad? I don't know, I kinda figure it's sort of what you get for not asking...

*Given Yoo speaks only Japanese and a bit of German, this really doesn't make that much sense...

Incidentally, Year Abroad lesson: No matter what language your speaking NEVER assume that nobody has a clue what you're saying.

Special mention goes to Louise, who shouted accidentally "Vagina" rather loudly in an Osaka Starbucks. The Japanese woman sitting next to us gave us some interesting looks...

Unless you're speaking in Danish. Not even the Danes understand that sh*t lol.

We were having a chat about how I don't really like how Kyoto is full of tourists who can't be bothered to learn a bit of Japanese, and they asked if that meant I didn't like Japanese people who couldn't speak English. Basically, the way I see it is the difference is, when Japanese people (actually this goes for pretty much all non-English speaking countries) go abroad, they don't try to speak their home-language to whoever they meet there. Japanese tourists aren't generally in the habit of waltzing into Starbucks in London and expecting the barista to understand "アイスチョコをクリーム抜きでお願いします". This is however, exactly what tourists do here. I think it's just rude to make your own laziness someone else's problem like that.

Oh, and we went swimming in the river next to Yoo's village, which was great 'cos it's still roasting hot here (and the water was as clear as glass). They say it'll get cooler soonish. I was here last September so I know this is a complete lie :-) hehe

Ryota seems to have become a fan of this foreign cinema over in West Kobe (新開地). It's a bit like the Cameo or Filmhouse in Edinburgh (This reference was put in for the sole benefit of my mum.). I have to question it's selection on occasion however... "Did you hear about the Morgans"????

Oh, and "The Karate Kid" is called "ベストキッド" ("Best Kid") here...