Love is in the hair...

This week my duties as teacher to dear little Takashi-san have extended to life coach and love counsellor (how sweet, naive and misguided he is). He has an enormous crush on a JET language assistant from Oxford (the university, I can`t remember the middling town she used to live in) and has asked me how to go about wooing her. I have insisted I am not the best person to ask, but as an English girl who can translate `xxx` in text messages, he sees me as fully qualified. Fortunately, being a horrible gossip and having taken to the Japanese hobby of match-making with real gusto, I am more than happy to assist and have already hinted to Lara that she has a fan. I have not yet let Takashi-san know about my horrible indiscretion, but I am sure the truth will out.

In return, Takashi-san has offered to help me out with the wonderful hairdresser. I think this may be a lost cause before it has started, but we shall see. He is incredible. He seems to have modelled himself on the one that`s not Jet Li or old in Hero. I never have thought long hair could be so desirable.

I am also contemplating putting together some rules on dating over here. Every teacher I know wants me to so they can then throw themselves into the game, fully clued-up, it would also mean I could potentially submit something to a paper, but I am not sure I can be arsed...

I`m feeling very lazy this week. I skipped Japanese today, which feels like such a treat. Last night, Sean, Karen, Takashi-san and I all went to the last night at the China Tea House; a small and fabulous bar shamefully close to my flat that I had never visited before. We were welcomed with enormous platters of `Chinese` food (most seemed either Japanese or Western - unless crinkle-cut chips originated in the Orient). The table was constantly being topped up with more and more, but we weren`t sure if it was free or not. We took a few tentative first bites, then dived in. After worrying about the food bill, which was cancelled, Sean and I ended up staying way past midnight and clocking up a hefty bar bill. I had to borrow from the Bank of O`leary, a fine establishment I am slowly getting further and further into the red with.