Living necessities & a job

Yesterday brought about the changing of the futons! This means we had to exchange all the futons in the dorm for winter weight ones. This meant an early rise for some (9am?!) and a flurry of activity.

We sleep on a western style bed, with a bottom futon on top of the bed (I suppose normally people either put this directly on the floor or on a futon-stand) and a top futon (kind of like a duvet) then there are the "pillows" like a small bag of beans... should be quite comfortable for some....

So we had to remove all the bedding we had to exchange it for the clean ones and winter weight top futons. The new top futons are THICK! very heavy but much more cozy than the light summer ones. Good timing as yesterday Autumn happened.

Very strange as suddenly Autumn just came. The day before it was sunny and warm during the day, a little chilly at night but in the day fine to wear a t-shirt... then yesterday not possible. Still bright and sunny but chilly! Sudden Autumn, instant Autumn. It is a shame about having to wear a jumper but a bonus is that the leaves are starting to change colour. This will be really beautiful and a great season to be here to see.

Example of traditional futon arrangement.... hmm comfy?

Other than getting on with class and so on, I got offered a one-off job. I had decided not to work here as I wanted to use the time to travel and study and have a break from having to work every week as I do when at home. However a one-off opportunity to do a narration for a tourist video was offered to me so, why not

They needed a female, British accented person to record a narration for a video about a craft centre. They had got in touch with the university who asked me because of my teaching and examining background. I did also have to edit the text a little as the translation was not so great (which I actually had help with from the university´s international officer) so it was all good practice.

It went fine and I didn´t make too many mistakes (!) and interestingly I also got to see inside a modern Japanese house (the recording was done in the house of the director of the company). The house was perhaps smaller than I had thought a typical Japanese house would be (even smaller, I think, than my flat) but seemed quite compact - kind of like a typical Ikea catalogue flat maybe.

But most interesting was the "pet" - the robot cleaner! It was chugging along chomping on the dust and dirt on the floor. People actually have these!

Looked a bit like this one from madeinchina.com......

I could be persuaded to get one....