I'm staying in Kariya, a town near Nagoya (fourth largest city in Japan) for two weeks. Many of you probably know that I'm learning Japanese so I plan on dramatically improving my speaking skills. I'm also going to try out all the possible sorts of washoku (traditional japanese food) and visit Shinto temples. I can't wait.

Therefore I won't be commenting on blogs (I know you'll miss my comments...) or posting in unions for two weeks. Sorry people. I might give a detailed account when I come back, or not...

I normally don't blog about levelling up but this time I just had to. I've finally reached level 21, after a few months on 20. To anyone that's still on that dreaded level, I share your pain. Just hang on and eventually it will be over. (I'm taking this way too seriously...)

Anyways I got a new profile banner, courtesy of Eucalypta. Now you may be thinking that I'm a Bleach, Final Fantasy and Linkin Park (well done to those who may have recognized them), and you would be... wrong. I'm not a particular fan of any of these, but the banner was so good that I had to put it up. Thanks again Eucalypta for making it!

Finally when most of you will be reading this I will have sent a union invite to all my friends. I normally don't do this because I know just how irrate people can get when they recieve multiple ones each day, however I lack any better way to make the union known. It's called the "All things Anime, Games, Music and stuff", and I would highly recommend you join. We now have only few members, yet the activity (due mostly to dedicated officers) is huge, and it would be nice to see you all there! Do make sure you take a look at the anime recommendation thread, one of the wacky threads that I've posted, or just the crazy off-topic thread.

Here is teh linky:

http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/unions/home.php?union_id=ATAGMS

Now I'm sure you're all expecting me to rave about some Gorillaz related thing or to talk about music that's so loud it busts your eardrums. If you were expecting the former you're wrong, if you were expecting the latter, you're right but in for a surprise. I am indeed going to dedicate this blog post to loud music but not to hard rock or metal. Instead I'm talking about classical music. "How can classical music be louder than rock and metal?" I hear you exclaim. Well it can, if it's played on the organ.

Today I've just spend a few hours listening to one of my friends play music by Bach and other composers on the organ. I was right besides him and one thing I can say is: it's loud, very loud. Before I met this friend I wasn't really into classical music, and definitely not organ and choir music. But he did a good job in getting me into it. Indeed there's nothing better than listening to a real organ play. CD's just don't do them justice, no matter how good your sound system is. That doesn't mean that I don't listen to other kinds of music anymore, but I've been adding some variety to what I listen lately.

The great thing about playing the organ in an empty chapel is that sometimes a random person will come in. Since the organist cannot be seen from down below the poor fellow has no idea that there's somebody in there. My friend and I had so much fun scaring these passer-bys by suddenly playing a really loud piece just as they were getting close to the organ. Yes, we're evil...

My school waterpolo team (in which I'm in) had one of the biggest matches of the year today. We were told that our opponents are one of the roughest teams out there. Those rumors were right. Being pit man (the equivalent of striker if that helps, ie I'm right up in the center) I was probably the most molested person. I've got two bruises on my back, a swollen lip, and a cramp in my right leg. To be fair I look like I've been boxing rather than anything else. But hey, who said that waterpolo wasn't a rough sport? We beat the opposition 10-2. Good score, we could have scored even more but we're quite happy.

Thank you for reading (and commenting if you do so), here, have some of these:

@ rosesforever89 - Payback for all the ones you gave me...

EDIT: New avatar, thanks to rosesforever89 for it!

First of all if any of you reading this haven't commented in my last blog post, I would appreciate it greatly if you were to scroll down a bit and post a comment. Have a bit of the food too. I'm sorry to do this but I'm so close to my record that I'm not giving up now! Thanks to all those who've already posted!

As suggested by rosesforever89 here is the description of a week of my life (I tried to keep it short as I don't want you all to fall asleep):

Monday: Back to school after a week's holiday. Quite unhappy but no work due in apart from an essay on something related to Japan (my subject was "Bushido", wrote about 3000 words so it was OK).

Tuesday: Lessons, work, monotony, blah blah. Rowing training in the afternoon (I row for my school team), bad weather so I ended up being soaked.

Wednesday: Lessons, work, monotony, blah blah, rowing. (My life is fascinating).

Thursday: Rowing regatta in an eight (as the name suggests that means we were in a boat with eight rowers and a cox: guy who doesn the steering). We didn't do so well but it was still fun. Loads of catching up on work afterwards...

Friday: Lessons, work... Going out bowling with friends. I managed to score three consecutive strikes, which I was amazed at considering that I'm useless at bowling. I suppose I got lucky... Drank a bit too much...

Saturday: Hangover. Rowing regatta again! In an eight again, we did better this time. When I got back home I crashed on my bed and slept until the next morning.

Sunday: Massive catching up on work to do, I'm way past many deadlines. Played some waterpolo (I'm also part of the school waterpolo team) but failed to score. That's annoying me as I usually manage at least 1 or 2 goals...

And that's it.

Did anything cool happen to you guys (and girls)?

About two years ago I made a blog post to see how many people actually visit my profile page and read my blogs (check "Hi everyone"). I was asking anyone who read that post to leave a comment saying they were there. To my suprise I managed to get 20 comments (not including the ones I made myself)! Which was incredible. However now it seems that all those people have left GS.

So I was wondering how many people read my blog nowerdays. If you're reading this, please leave a comment saying so! You will be greatly contributing to the achievement of beating my previous record, and thus your post will be greatly appreciated. Also state your favourite food so that I can keep updating this post with pics of what you guys like to eat (or drink) and make a massive meal!

Meal starts here:

for myself

for rosesforever89

for bojocon40

for scnut

for cnav

??? for quadraleap

for Forte310

??? for gameshark5

for MaDNuGgu

for IppaiMetaru

for sabru8

for hiccup

??? for Nude_Dude

for smith92

for Funkyhamster