The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is phone this person who's number I've had for ages, to finally organise violin lessons. I've missed them terribly.

Travelling through Japan I've been wanting to play violin so much! And the nasty thing is, that I've been seeing violins everywhere. People walking around with violins, violins on posters advertising god knows what, violin concerts scheduled in nearby concert halls... I even went to a Yamaha Music Store in Hiroshima and found loads of violins on display. I tried one of their electrical 'silent' violins but I didn't get a separate room (eventhough they were there) to try it out in so I was in the middle of a busy store trying to play properly. That doesn't work very well. But the 'silent' function wasn't that good anyway, so I wouldn't have wanted to buy it (no good for practising in the middle of the night).

B.B. and me between mirrors in Hiroshima:

A dear and me in Miyajima:

The view from our friend's apartment in Tokyo: