Today, I met my academic advisor at the Kumamoto campus. But first, I had lunch with Kisako and two of her friends from her department. The canteen was too crowded, so we decided to buy some obentou (Japanese packed lunch boxes). Mine was probably the largest and most expensive, but it looked so tasty I had to try it! And very tasty it was too.

Kisako's friends are really nice. We talked quite a bit about Britain and Japan, in both Japanese and English. One of them also told me where I could buy Dir~en~Grey and Malice Mizer CDs, which are two Japanese bands that I really like.

My academic advisor, Yamanaka-sensei, is also nice. Meeting him wasn't at all scary, like I thought it would be! We just drank green tea together (I'm slowly getting used to it!), and talked a lot about Britain. Yamanakasensei has travelled around England a lot, I learned, and is really interested in British culture. We talked half in Japanese and half in English, which was also good practise for my Japanese. One thing about Japanese is that you have to use completely different forms of the language when talking to different people. With Kisako, for example, we talk in "plain form" Japanese, the shortest form that you can only use with people close to you. But when you talk to superiors, you have to use more polite Japanese, as I did with Yamanakasensei. Fortunately, I learned polite Japanese before plain form, so like several other Durham students I find the polite form easier to use and understand! However this does make talking to Kisako a little harder!

I cooked for myself for the first time this evening. Using the recipe for mushroom risotto as a base, I made a very simple stir-fry of rice, mushrooms and onions in soy sauce. It actually turned out edible to my surprise, although I did burn the onions. Helen also gave me some advice on cooking rice in general (i.e. washing the starch off first before you cook it!) so maybe my next cooking attempt will be more successful.