Hi all,

Today was a very relaxed day and we didn't do too much. John went to work in the afternoon so we took a trip to Kamiooka with him to see where he works. When we got back to Kamazowa Bunko where John lives, Faz and I braved the supermarket on our own so we could cook John a nice English meal for his birthday (or at least as English as you can get with Japanese ingredients)! The supermarket trip was very interesting and took a little while. Our biggest challenge was working out which carton was milk. In the end we found a carton that had a picture of a cow on it so decided we must be in the right area!

On the way back to John's apartment we noticed a building where some woman were wearing some kind of warrior clothing and fighting each other with bamboo sticks. We started taking photographs from the street and then one of the women came out and asked us if we wanted to go in and take pictures, an invitation we readily accepted! We later found out that we had been inside a dojo and witnessed kendo, a Japanese marshal art using bamboo sticks..

When John came back from work we had a lazy evening eating and chatting.