trying to catch up

"trying to catch up on things i've done" sounds like I did a lot... in fact, I did not.

I mostly sleep, eat and just do nothing at most of the time. Sometimes I go out on my own for groceries or really just as an excuse to walk/move a bit.  I did start to look up vocabularies (got a huge ass list by now of about 15 pages) for one of my papers... and went to print it out at 7-11 (Convience Store).

I once went to Himeji on my own, and just walked through the city until I reached Himeji Castle and decided to see the City Zoo next to it. It was only 200 yen. Considering the size of the animal cages and territories, you do not wonder about the 200 yen fee. I always found german Zoos way too expensive. Now I will pay any high entrance fee to german Zoos with joy !! The cages were unbearable small... two huge icebar shared literally a few drops of water,and so on...

 

Himeji Castle is still under construction: 

Yesterday Dai, his Mother and me went to the real inaka (country side) to get some rice. Dais mother explained, that shes knows the area well and feels safe to buy rice there. She can be sure the rice she gets is definitely from that very area, while in supermarkets or from other sellers she couldnt be sure. I guess it's more of a tradition for her than anything else... besides it gives her a reason to visit her family and her old home. Her mother and some relatives still live in her old home of childhood. It's quite big old traditional house... but I guess when she lived there with about 8 siblings, it was probably overcrowded.

When I sat down in the living room, everyone left... I guess I was scary to them?! The woman continued making Ichigo Daifuku (which were extremely tasty)and we were offered coffee. We left there quite quickly and took 70 kg rice with us.  (Half of that goes to Dais grandparents)
At this point the rice is still brown, called "genmai". In order to get it white it needs to be milled. Which can be done at self-service machines for a few yen. We did that too:

Ok I gotta hurry now because we will go fishing :) I've never been fishing before, so i am kind of excited to try it out !!