金曜日 - "kinyoubi" - Friday

In principle, those are three of the kanji I know.  The first one is "kin" and means "gold" or "money."  The second one is "you" (think yo-oo) and means "weekday" and the last is "ni" or "bi" and means "day."  I can write all three of them with reasonable accuracy, but it takes me some thinking time.

Today I figured out the reason a sink in the apartment drains slowly.  It's gunked up.  After work I will attempt to find some drain cleaner to dissolve the plug so I can brush my teeth and shave my neck without having water collect in the basin.  It's a small thing, but it will improve life a bit.

Susan has given me some yuzu jam (it's rather like marmalade), dashi (dried flakes for making soup stock), biwa (the local name for loquat), and some plum liquor.  She is the type of person who looks for ways to care for others.  She knows that Jen and I consider food to be a very important part of understanding a culture and is doing more than I ever would have expected to help me.  I'm very grateful for her.

Now, I don't know how many of you have had loquat.  My guess is not many.  Slightly more of you probably have had jackfruit.  The two taste nothing alike, however they share a similar trait.  Neither one tastes quite like anything else.  The other similar trait they share is very large seeds for the size of the fruit.  Jackfruits are about as large as a rugby ball with seeds that kind of look like chestnuts.  Loquats are about the size of figs with seeds are a little smaller than acorns.  Susan told me loquat seeds sprout pretty easily.  I'll see when I get back to Michigan.  I can hear Jen thinking "Another tree."

It's been raining for the past few days, but there are sunny skies predicted for tomorrow and Sunday.  I have a few places I'll bike to.  I plan to climb Bizan Hill in Tokushima Central Park.  I also would like to head to the coast and see the Pacific Ocean.  Each should be about 15-30 minutes by bike.

One last thing.  Before Jen went to bed, she and I were chatting online.  I prepared a summary of a television show for my Comparative Cultures class, and use a recommended translator application to cast it in Japanese.  (As a check on accuracy, I back translated some of it to English again, and was pleased with how little changed.)  I told her I have achieved the pinnacle of academic success.  I was watching an episode of Buffy during work hours with a legitimate purpose.  I have won the game of professor.