At the weekend it was Colin`s birthday. He invited some teachers to go to an Izakaya in Yokohama. Then we went to karaoke. For his birthday I got him a manga in Japanese called Times of Botchan. It`s about an author that he is very fond of. He was very happy with the present. Yesterday HQ wanted him to travel all the way in to Tokyo to hand in a piece of paper which isn`t very important. He refused because it was his day off. It was a stormy day, we walked down the hill to the shop in the rain. I gave Colin a kiwi fruit because he had never had one before.