Typhoons, critters, lint rollers and 'interesting' emails...

The bikes still standing have just been picked up by their owners.
(Image courtesy of Petra)

So some of you may have heard 

that there was a typhoon in the Japan area, but luckily for me it did not come near Okayama. The only problem for us was high winds, causing the hundreds of bikes neatly lined up across the university to topple over like dominos with every gust of wind. I saw many bikes sprawled across the floor, with the remains of their lights, locks or baskets scattered around them. My bike however is apparently made of stronger stuff, even though I found it flung into the middle of the path, it seems to have survived its battle with the forces of nature.

Not my picture obviously 

Those of you who have me on facebook may have heard that I have become a bug removal expert. I seem to constantly find stink bugs in my room (pictured left), so named for its ability to release a pungent odor, as a defence mechanism, or if you simply try to move it. However I have become rather skilled at removing them without alarming them. Though I will damned if I know how on earth they are getting it! Even when I had not opened my door/window for a few days, the buggers still manage to ninja in. On top of this I have also been confronted by a cockroach, big enough to hear scuttling across my floor, also too big to be caught with a glass. As I refused to kill anything unless I have to, my attempts to capture it resulted in me frantically tipping the contents of my bin on the floor, chasing the creature with said bin, and then once captured, getting down on all fours and slowly pushing the bin across the floor, out into the corridor and outside onto the fire escape where I released it. Ohh on top of  all that, this was also the first time I saw the individual in the room opposite mine, I think this display may have affirmed a crazy British stereotype for him.

I know what you are thinking,
and yes I am wearing a monkey suit... 

As my bedroom, dining room, living room, kitchen and study are all one room, which share one floor, I feel it is quite important to maintain the cleanliness of that floor to some extent. Every method I have tried up until now (mopping/wiping) have taken far too much effort, but today whilst in the 100 yen (63p) shop I was confronted with a brilliant product. It is essentially a giant lint roller, which I can now use to roll across the floor, with the sticky paper collecting all the dirt. Once I am done, I can remove the paper, bin it, and save the roller for another day. Genius.

I mentioned in previous posts that I recently got a new phone, and have since discovered that Japanese people do not use texts (it costs extra). Instead everyone uses emails and applications such as 'Line'. Somehow my phones email address ended up on a spam list within a day of me getting it (I suspect the phone company may have sold the email addresses, seeing as at that point even  I wasn't sure what my email address was). As a result I am constantly getting spam emails both in English and Japanese. The English ones seem to be trying to sell me stocks for whatever reason, and I was curious to what the Japanese ones said. A friendly Japanese guy was showing me how to use the Line app, and so I took the opportunity to ask him to translate the emails for me. As he read the email, he started to look worried and said 'this...this is private', whilst looking incredibly embarrassed, and just about managed to explain that my spam email was of a rather adult nature, but was far too shy to explain any further. He looked almost upset that I had asked him to translate it for me, and simple stated 'please delete this and please don't reply to it'. I felt so sorry for him that I had stuck the poor boy in such an awkward situation, but I still really want to know what it said! 

Bonus:

 

Oreo hot chocolate. Yes, it is as tasty as it sounds :D 

These rather nifty items are clips to seal food products once you open it or put it in plastic bags. However these ones allow you to slide the little black bits so you can indicate the use-by date of the products. Less than £1 for 9 of them, pretty neat ey?