Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's back to work I go....

I've just had a four day break, but tomorrow it's back to work. As much as I'd wanted to go away for this break, I'm happy I didn't.

Sunday, as I posted, was spent at the St Patrick's Day parade and around, with a DVD binge in the evening.

Monday was spent with friends in Saitama (about a million miles from Tokyo) having lunch, wandering around and swooning over my friends baby, again. Soooo sweet!

Tuesday was spent blitzing the apartment, faffing around with photographs, and having a DVD binge in the evening.

Today I woke up and, looking out the window, saw four portaloos being delivered to the area of mud outside my window. The same area of mud that used to hold a building and that was noisily knocked down over quite a long period last year. The portaloo sightings don't bode well. How long are they going to be here? What are they going to construct? How much noise will they make? And how early will they start? It's all questions, questions, questions...

I also had a couple of very odd dreams last night. One involved someone drowning in about 4cms of water, being filmed for a tv program but not being allowed to take my bags with me whilst being escorted out of a large house by an ex boss. I snuck back after to collect my bags, but they'd fallen behind a sofa. I also had to get my shirt back as it was on a plastic maniquin. There were other bits about it that I don't remember any longer. The other dream involved losing or forgetting a kid somewhere. I don't remember any more about that though. Odd. Too many DVD's and red wine, I guess.

Anyway, today, I met up with an Aussie mate from London, and his Aussie chef friend who lives here and spent a lovely day wandering around Ginza, Harajuku and Shibuya sightseeing and browsing in, pretty much, every gadget and toy shop we passed on the way.

In the Sony store, I totally fell in love with the I-Fish and I really want one. I can't figure out if it comes with an MP3 player or not but it's so cute. And it wriggles around, and makes nice noises and has lovely colours. Swooooon. I'm in love. With a fish. This fish. Sooooo cute :D

We also got followed around, or it felt like it anyway, by a van blasting out music by a cutesy boy band, Kat-Tun, who are about to release their first CD, or something. And I mean blasting. Of course, this meant people were going camera crazy taking pictures excitedly of the van. We also saw some school girls running after it to get pictures. It was a van. With pictures of the band on the outside. A whole gaggle of school girls then turned around to pose for my mate Rob to take their picture. He was in heaven, although slightly concerned he might have to explain having a picture of a dozen 15-year olds wearing knicker scimming skirts!

We played with light sabres in one shop and didn't get told off, which amazed me, and little amazes me here any more; visited Meiji Jingu; wandered through Yoyogi park; and actually got a table in the Starbucks at Shibuya crossing (the one Scarlett Johanssen sits in in 'Lost in Translation').

Then I had a curry with another friend. Nice four days in all. Especially as the horrible weather stayed away until this evening.

AND I've been as organised as to email people about my birthday in two months so I can book a table and not faff around a week before saying, I don't know if I want to do anything. Which is what I normally do. Aren't I good? Definitely a sign of getting older though!