Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kouzui". It means flood, as in, too much water. This relates to me rather directly in that I managed to flood the main floor of my house over the weekend.......... haha........... ha.........

See, the place I live in isn't really a "house" per se. It's a side building attached to a restaurant that has the amenities of a house. There's a kitchen, bathroom, shower, etc. The room I'm in is more like a living room, hence it's rather large size. I have 9 tatami mats which, judging by people's reactions when I tell them, is about the equivalent of eastern Europe.

But what it doesn't really have is provisions for laundry piping. The water comes from the bath tub and drains into the shower. That's not really a problem except that the drain pipe and shower door can't be used at the same time. So Matsuda sensei (who lives upstairs and is a yoga instructor) and I have to make sure we put the the pipe to drain into the shower come laundry time.

As you might be able to guess, I forgot over the weekend and proceeded to flood the floor with a few mm of water. Luckily, the floor is a hard surface so cleaning was as simple as opening the side make-shift porch door and sweeping it all out into the 30 degree day. Then we wiped the floor down and that was that- it took about 15 minutes. Of course, I only found out about this method after I spent an hour trying to mop up the water. But now I know...............

I also distinctly recall having told Matsuda sensei that I would never ever flood the house when I first got to Japan, to which she just nodded and laughed. Now I know why haha........... she said Paul, who was here before me, has done it three times. And herself three times. So I'm allowed two more times as well. Four is too much, but 3.5 times is ok too, if I can figure out how to half-flood something...........

But, always positive, Matsuda sensei just considered it summer cleaning and proclaimed how beautiful the floor was afterwards ("kirei", if you remember the past Japanese word of the week =P). So all is well.

I had some time left over to go to Ikebukuro to visit the Toyota Amlux Salon before meeting a friend for dinner that night. The Amlux Salon is a sort of glorified-dealership-cum-museum, with 4 floors of Toyota models and some bits and pieces of racing heritage.

Staffed with impeccably uniformed women, it was pretty interesting to browse. One rather interesting display was of something called the i-Unit. It's Toyota vision of personal, multi-purpose transport. It even had a video where people in space-rabbit suits galloped around a dry ice rink..................... apparently that will be our future............. sweet!