Friday started with me being woken up by the unexpected arrival of June. Her host had to work and so left her at my place before going to work. It was a pleasant surprise to have June around though. And so I washed up and was greeted by another hearty breakfast. This time round, I had a chatty breakfast as Ron chan and June joined me at the table. Topics ranging from Singapore's food to Chinese New Year customs were brought up and by now I realised that June was really good at making small conversations interesting.

Today was gonna be a day trip out to Otaru, less than an hour's drive from Teine. But first we are going to Kira's place to meet up with Junlong, Wai Kit and Linghan. This is the first time I've been to Kira's place and its actually a Pet Clinic on the first level and their home on the 2nd and 3rd level. Very impressive. We were greeted by 3 well groomed dogs, 1 Shiba(he's really cool!!) and 2 golden retrievers, inside a large cage as we proceeded towards the door. They're so handsome and adorable that you'll instantly like them. But as it was freezing, we hurried inside.

We took a while to admire the place and also for everyone to get ready to move out. Unable to resist the lure of the 3 adorable dogs, we decided to take photos together with the dogs before getting onto the car. It didn't take long before we reached Otaru. We stopped near a Post Office, which is important to take note of as other than a building for Linghan to get excited about, it is also the venue where we have to come back to later to meet up with our host mamas. Samuel joined us at this juncture.

This is really our first time walking along the streets in Hokkaido. Traditional Japanese buildings were lined up on the streets alongside more modern ones and also cutely decorated ones. Being our first shopping and sightseeing trip, we took our time to look around the place and check out almost every stall that we pass by. Thats was a variety of stalls selling stuffs that ranged from raw seafood to chocolates to glass products.

But the catch of the day was a seafood stall that sells Scallops cooked on the spot. And my oh my, were the scallops huge! It was cooked fresh from its shell and the scallop was so big that the chef had to cut it up into pieces for his customers. We ordered 3 of it and piping hot scallops in the cold winter is certainly more than welcomed! With Wai Kit around, you can be sure that we will not start eating until shots of the scallops are taken from every angle and with every combination of the personnels that was present, are taken. It was fun though taking all those shots and when we were finally done with the photos, we tucked in like we haven't eaten scallops before. The scallops tasted as good as it looked, if not better.

After gobbling down the giant scallops, we continued walking along the street. Time passed quickly and we had to go back to the Post Office. We bought some nice chocolates on our way back. Otaru is in fact a pretty big place but we didn't manage even to complete 1 street with the time we had.

Next up was lunch and we were brought to a Kaiten Sushi Restaurant where sushi is served via a conveyor belt. The sushi there were made with extremely fresh ingredients and the portion of the sashimi were generous. The sashimi totally covered the rice beneath it! Sugoi! There was a queue though and we had to wait for our turn. Being a large group, we had to be separated into 3 groups. The freshness of the sashimi were delightful and we soon found ours table filled with plates of sushis. It wasn't a problem finishing them all as they were delicious. After everyone had their fill, we left and everyone headed back to Kira's place. On a side note, I left my Shiroi Koibito Chocolates in Kira's car yesterday and so they brought it up and put them in the house. I remembered to collected this time round and we were sent to Yuka's place shortly.

I had an ominous feeling about going to Yuka's place. My fears were soon proved right as just as I thought everyone had forgotton about the Mecha holiday dance, we were brought to Yuka's place to revise them! You should have seen the look on Wai Kit and Junlong face when they saw the DVD. LOL. Anyway, since we were early, Wai Kit, Linghan and me decided to do a reconnaissance around her place. As we walked, we stumbled upon a small supermarket and got ourselves some snacks. It was really cold at night in Sapporo.

Back home, it was getting a bit boring as we were just watching TV with nothing really interesting showing. Then finally, Yuka came back and we started cooking dinner. Everyone helped out and we had a spread done within 45 minutes. Amazing! After the now routine "photo taking before eating", we tucked in. And yup, I guess the dinner was meant to give us energy to practise the dance as we were ushered to the TV and Yuka played the DVD for us. No escape this time.

Soon, the other host mamas which included Peko chan, Miyan and Ron chan, with their ever live-wire kids started streaming in. The place soon became lively and I unwittingly became nanny again. The kids were soon queuing up for their turn to try the Robert-swing, Robert-throw-me-into-the-air and the Robert-balance-me-on-the-ball funtime. All the gym sessions really did me good! Didn't waste the membership fees!

Kids are really funny. You see, one moment they can be so full of energy and the next, they can be fast asleep. And one moment they can be so happy, the next, they can be crying. This time round, I had the unenviable task of cheering up Kaito who was sort of reprimanded for being a little selfish with the ball. But I guess he was just too engrossed admist all the fun. He backed off into a room with tears welling up his eyes. I really didn't know what to do and i just tried whatever came to my mind. I can't really communicate well in Jap still and so I just tried a little tickle here and a little swing there and keep saying "Daijoubu" and "Superman". I guess it did the trick as he started smiling as I swung him around and making him "fly" like superman.

To my surprise the host mamas swarmed towards me and started "worshipping" me. It was funny! I was glad I managed to "save-the-day" though. Then its back to dance practise..........and you know what, I thought if I finished learning the dance quickly, I could excuse myself from the practise and play with the kids. But I was so wrong! I could never have guessed what they had in mind. They made me "leader"!! For goodness sake, I wasn't even good at it or what, I just managed to memorise the steps faster. No amount of presuasion could get them to change their minds and the fellow homestayers were certainly more than glad to have escaped this arrow.

ANd so practise I did and soon it was time to head back home. After the goodbyes, Ron chan, Mebae and me left. Back home, I played Nintendo Wii with Mebae and Naoto. This is the first I really played Wii. We played Mario Kart and Wii Sports. It was so interesting and hey! I'm actually not too bad with it k. After Wii was PS2 with Naoto. Being a soccer player and a fan himself, it wasn't hard to guess what game was coming up. YES, its Winning Eleven 08! Being already familiar with the game, we didn't waste much time choosing the team and get the matches going. He is good I tell you. I wasn't too shabby myself though and we battled around 5 matches with him edging out a few more times mostly in the extra times. Really happy to have found someone to play winning eleven with in Japan. I don't know how to describe the feeling of playing your favourite game in a foreign land. Its like an away game against a good opposition.

Anyway it was getting late and Ofuro I went and quickly went to bed under the confort of my comforter and blankets. I managed to pass them the Shiroi Koibito I bought for them too, explaining that I had left them in Kira's car the previous day. Good end to the day and I can't wait the the next day to come.