So two weeks ago, I had found out that my throat problems where caused by polyps growing on my vocal chords. I then had an appointment to see the doctor again two weeks later. And that was yesterday.

I ended up being a little late to my rendez-vous, but Shizuko and I eventually made it to the hospital. After the doctor took pictures of my throat, it was clear that my condition wasn't getting any better. In fact, it got considerably worse. The polyps had grown out.

I took another appointment with the doctor for in one month. At that time, if it has not gotten better,  I will have to start consider having the surgery here in Japan. According to the doctors, it is a quite frequent operation; many singers receive it during their career. I have never had a surgery in my life, and so this is quite frightening. If they ever make one mistake, my voice might not come back to what is was before.

I will keep you all informed of the results next month.

Japan is widely known for its traditional culture, but also for its weird culture. There are many odd things embedded within the culture that a lot of people actually enjoy. For example, in the convenience store, there are porn magazines for sale. I still can't quite wrap my head around that. There's also a lot of odd anime, manga, and TV shows magazines.

Now, since a while, there had been talk of going to what they call "Chinko Matsuri". "Chinko" means penis and "matsuri" means festival. So in other words, there actually is a Penis Festival here in Japan. Now, I have no interest in this kind of thing, but many of the students were going and asked me to come along. In the end, I decided to go see this side of the Japanese culture. This was April 5^th, the weekend before school started.

I learned that this actually happens to be the most popular festival among the foreigners in Japan. Once we arrived at the station, which was near Yokohama, the streets were already filled with people, mostly foreigners. Even the train had been filled to the walls. It was raining, so we ended up buying umbrellas there. We then headed to the starting location of the festival, and waited in the midst of hundreds of umbrellas and cameras for about 20 minutes. Then it started. They carried out three huge penises while shouting words of encouragement. We all just laughed so hard!



After that, Valentina and I wanted to find ourselves some candy, and so we got in line. After about 15 minutes of waiting, I came out of the shop with a bag of sexual part shaped candies. Just watching people eat these was really hysterical.

It was getting quite cold, so we headed back to Yokohama, where we had planned to eat at a Chinese buffet! This was my third time here in the Chinatown of Yokohama, but my first time in an all-you-can-eat restaurant. Jokes, laughter, and smiles accompanied us while we ordered and ate many different dishes!




We headed back about one hour and a half later, still laughing about the day's adventure.