Impulse purchase. Everyone is guilty about it. Consumerism has taken over our life that it’s hard to imagine life without it. Everywhere we turn, it has left its mark there. On the webpage, in the magazine and even the email, the only way to conquer it is to actually use it. That’s why Ben and I went to Thunder Road Cafe on Saturday for lunch, to use the voucher she bought months before. Paid €28 for a €60 value meal, do we feel bad about it? Not quite, the meal was delicious. We had the sweet chilli battered prawn, garlic bread with cheese, prawn fajita and vegetable burger. We were so stuffed, we decided not to get the dessert (I still have vouchers for froyo). Didn’t even use up the full €60 value for the meal.

Afterward, Ben headed to watch Godzilla in cineworld while I head towards Grand Canal Dock for Docklands Summer Festival. The weather was warm and sunny, it feels wasteful to spend the day indoor. Sitting next to the dock and hanging your feet at the edge while watching wakeboard surfers performs, it hard not to notice that summer has finally arrive in Ireland. The charity duck race didn’t quite live up to my imagination, but it’ll do.

I recall bumping into Benny Lewis, a globe-trotter who started up Fluent In 3 Months website, on Thursday. What a luck as I only went into Easons that day to browse for more travel books. His website encourages people, not only to learn foreign languages but also to open their life for new cultures and friendship from around the world. That is exactly what I’m passionate about and so I signed up for a language exchange program Italki. So far I’ve had 30-min Japanese trial lessons from 2 teachers; Tomoko sensei and Rinko sensei. Previously I had believed I’ve conquered the basic pronunciation of the Nihon go I can use to converse with Japanese locals. I was wrong. As soon as we started the Skype lesson, I went stumped. I couldn’t make my message across but they were so kind and helpful to assist me starting up again. If I had more time before leaving on Saturday, I would schedule another session with them and make it into a full hour. Wish me luck!