Lantern festival

Due to the large chinese community here the inauguration of the chinese new year is a big event here and to brighten up the city, they have colourful lanterns (especially red ones) just everywhere and especially in Chinatown, chúkakai 中華街 . It lasts from the 29th February through the 12th March with every evening different events. Everyone eats white chinese dumplings and is in a good mood. I have only been during the day but in the evening it should be pretty spectacular.
The only unsettling thing I witnessed was an array of pigheads that were laid out on golden dishes in a litlle shrine (as a present to the gods I imagine). See below........
On the conversation side there is an opportunity that presented itself. Through a Japanese student here at the University, called Mai (studied in Utrecht for a year) I was introduced to an employee here at the planning department called Eguchi Akitaka 江口明孝, 31 years old, who wants to learn more and better english. At first he wanted to pay me (a first for me..!!) but I struck a deal so that we have one hour of English conversation and then one hour of Japanese. We'll meet every friday at 6.00 pm so that should be good.

Once again we have trouble with the exams here. They just put down an arbitrary date (monday the 13th) with 3 exams on the same day (duh..) knowing very well that most people will go on travels somewhere already before since our holiday starts on saturday the 11th February.
They threaten us that the Immigration office will throw us out of the country if we do not participate...???? Like they have the time, let alone the people to do all that. Really stupid. We'll see. It's definitely going to be interesting once again.
Don't you just love this country......!!!