Thursday, 4th December

Today Yuko took us into town so that Chrissy and Emi could have haircuts. We met the hairdresser who was super stylish and awesome and hung out for a bit in his rad salon. After he got started I went for a walk and found Mikawa-Anjo station. I bought a can of coffee from a machine and lingered on the bridge for a few minutes watching a Shinkansen barrel past. I also went to a boring supermarket and an enormous second hand book/cd/dvd/game shop. There were so many games that I wanted to play but I don't know enough japanese to understand them.

On the way home we stopped at a shop that the hairdresser had reccommended. It was an amazing variety shop that had CDs, clothes, toys, books and Australian/NZ chocolate and biscuits. Bizarre. I was transfixed by a small DVD player playing Rube Goldberg machines from a TV show called Pythagoras Switch. Chrissy bought the book/DVD for me yay.

After lunch we visited a day centre for the elderly that is owned by Emi's dad. We had a lot of fun talking to the group of old men and women who were staying there and I think they enjoyed speaking to us. We spoke as much as we could in japanese and Emi helped interpret the rest. They had all tried to remember our names and when they were heading home they said "Sankyu! Shi yu agen!".

This evening we had dinner at Emi's brothers' house with his wife and two little children as well as Emi's grandmother. Dinner was miso flavoured nabe (hotpot). It was delicious. After dinner we looked as some photos and played jenga with the kids. Moka (2) didn't quite understand the game but seemed to especially enjoy it falling over.