Seriously Natto is just out of date spider eggs

Today I started off the day with some light video gaming pwoohoo, and then headed into uni a bit early to exercise before meeting my professor. After a short swim I ducked into the gym (which is totally free as a student of the university) to check out the place/equipment. I have to mention that there was one dude....who wasn't really the skinniest person on earth, wearing Spandex. Japanese really take their training seriously, take note of that. The gym is reasonably well equipped I'll be making good use of it, the two things is does lack are a proper punching bag and a 45 degree leg press. Those two pieces of equipment I love using.

I met up with two other aussie students and went to meet our professor. Being a sydney ex-pat he was heaps helpful because he was sympathetic to the fact that Tokyo is heaps different from Sydney. We spent most of the time discussing our workload, subjects and general things to know when in Tokyo. The subject I decided to do aside from my Japanese classes is Sculpture. I've tried my luck with the brush and pencil, but never really thoroughly tried sculpting. I guess the main thing that drew me to that subject was the only piece of artwork I ever took interest into was 'The Thinker' by Auguste Rodin. I saw it when I was in Paris as a child and it's probably the most significant thing I remember, besides the hazelnut spread and banana crepes stalls that were on every corner. Class starts in late May so I'll let youse (yes I did just use youse) know :)

After a time we bade our professor farewell to find our arts teacher. Can I just say that Tokyo Tech has some really top notch people teaching here. Anyway she was heaps sweet and she said we more than welcome to join her class, we did need to submit a piece of writing about why we wished to do the subject and what piece of artwork had the greatest effect on us. I will of course choose 'The Thinker' but I have plenty of time before class begins.

We split up because I thought about eating at the cafeteria but it was closed so I rejoined my classmates back in Shibuya. He took me to a place called Sukiya, which is kinda like Japanese Fast Food. If any of you have been to Yoshinoya in Sydney, it's that kinda deal. Although Yoshinoya isn't competitive here so it kinda bombed. Anyway being in Japan I figured I'd have to try Natto at least once, so I ordered it with a set meal of rice and some chicken soup. Natto is basically fermented soybeans, the texture is a little chewy, quite mushy and sticky. The smell is well it's fermented so it smells to me like what mould would smell like and the appearance....the brown soybeans are stuck together in a packet, because of the fermentation process there are small threads connecting the beans together. The threads kinda look like spider web and eating it for the first time was quite messy. I gave up about a quarter way in, I really couldn't take it. That will be probably be the first and last time, unless someone can convince me that there exists a way to eat them in which they actually taste good. Lucky I had the chicken soup and rice to clear away the taste in my mouth..