So, seeing as I am waiting for my files to recover, I may as well write about Friday if I can stay awake. *Yawns*. Dave, myself, my mum and some of her friends went to BETTs, the educational technology fair. This is technically aimed at teachers, but Dave and I went under ‘Swale Software Consultants’, my dad’s one-man company to get in (seeing as no under-18s are admitted…). Most of the stuff was of little interest so me because it was all aimed at primary, secondary school education and learning, but the exhibits and freebies were what I went for anyway ^_^;. I picked up a load of pens, information packs, stress-balls, frisbees, bubbles, an Adobe ruler set etc etc. Just rather useless stuff that you know you won’t use, but is so appealing while you are walking around :P. Saying that, my mum picked up a laptop bag, a T-shirt, loads of mouse mats and other stuff.
*Anyway*. That was the less-interesting part of the day. Dave and I decided to visit Collindale, near edge of London I think, to look around Oriental City, or more specifically, Asahiya Shoten – The largest Japanese bookstore in Europe which I had read was closing down mid-January. Sure enough, there were posters displaying the closure notice, 18th January, which is really disappointing considering it was our first and only visit. We decided to make the most of it and buy as much Japanese manga as possible (as you do… :P), ending up with about 13 volumes each. There was also an adorable little second-hand Japanese bookstore nearby I had read about called Adanami Shobo, which is supposed to only be open on Saturdays and Sundays, but, by a stroke of fortune, it was open on Fridays during January as well ^_^. So we got some really cheap manga from there as well. I’m taking £1.00/book! – compared to the £10.00 in central London for the English equivalent. It’s nice to know they are still going to be around next time we go to Oriental City, but I don’t know how often (if ever) they get new stock in. Oh! And the lovely Japanese lady running the store had a really cute chihuahua dog called Ho-chan *^_^* hehe. I think I spent about £40.00 over the whole day on travel, food and manga.
Anyway, we grabbed dinner at Oriental City as well, a mixed Japanese lunch with tonkatsu, tempura, proper Japanese style rice, miso soup among other things, which was oiishi! We will have to bring the Japanese class there one day in the future, as they even have a Karaoke restaurant! :P
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Well, my first restoration has completed, so I’m going to bed now. I’ll complete it on Monday I think, after my Mechanics exam which I have a lot of work to do for o.O