Bikes make me happy.

Hello friends, I thought after the bulk-email I sent out recently i'd better make a post to show you that fun times are still being had here by us in Japan. It's not all doom and gloom.
Today Marika and I had an awesome day. She found out that one of her classes had cancelled which meant that we had untill 4pm to hang out together. Well, we jumped on our newly acquired bikes and we did ride.
Ok, hold up because I know what yr thinking...and frankly i'm insulted! WE didn't steal them, notice the capitalisation there. We merely recovered them from their state of disuse and abandon. Marika claimed hers from under a train bridge and mine had been dumped conviniently next to M's place of work. With a little TLC and some WD40 (Japanese equivilent of course!) they are now doing us proud, pictures soon I promise.
Now where was I? Ok, that's right.
So this morning we got up reasonably early and rode to Dennys for breakfast. It certainly is amazing what a few months in a foreign country can do to you, I mean back home we wouldn't DREAM of eating at a shit-hole chain 'restaurant' like this. Sadly the Japanese have different ideas re: breakfast to us gaijin-folk. Anyway, we dined on much french toast and coffee and had a merry old time, mainly going through one of our travel books and making plans for Munich and Prague. After breakfast we rode the length of a new bike path that we had discovered, a quiet and green strip away from the main roads. Thankfully all the kids were at school so we had the whole thing pretty much to ourselves. We rode around for ages, just acting foolishly and enjoying the freedom. I commented to Marika at one stage that this was the sort of thing i'd remember about Japan, which is a very good thing.
Oh, and somewhere in there I accidentally bought another pair of shoes. Ooops.
Afterwards we came home and lunched on fresh corn, msio and rice (of course!). Tomorrow night we will be returning to the monkey house that is our previous place of work for another farewell party. There has been a bit of a mass exodus this month, pretty soon there wont be any gaijin staff at all. May not be such a great thing for a British themed hotel, oh well. It's not my place to worry about such things!
We're off to climb Fuji-san in 8 days then it's down to Bangkok. I'm getting REALLY excited about this bike trip around Cambodia, I am starting to realise that not having my bike to ride has really affected me this past six months.
Enough about me, hope everyone back home is well. I'd like to say congratulations to my little brother Gabe for getting a teaching position over here in Japan, however i'd like to once again question his timing, in that when I arrived...he left. Now, I'm leaving and he's arriving. Hmm?
Smell you later yo.