Bowling, Drinking, Eating, YAY

October 25, 2010

 

Today me, Josephine, Alexandra, Jeongun, Margot, Ken, and Mael hung out with my good buddy Yusuke.

Yusuke was actually the first Handai friend Josephine and I made since we got here. He was the one who we randomly invited karaoke cause we thought he was also an exchange student XD

At first I was planning on inviting the usual guys to go bowling with us, but they all turned out to be busy. I called Yusuke, and he encouraged me to invite random people. orz so in a desperate act to find people I called Ken, who (at that point in time) was a guy I had been flirting with recently. Soo I invited him. Then we picked up Margot and Mael as we were leaving the international office, called Jeongon and Alexandra as we were walking to the station, and by now we had a pretty big group. :)

Through rock paper scissors are teams were divided as:

Team A: Josephine, Alexandra, Margot, and Ken

Team B: Yusuke, Mael, Jeongon, and Me

 Everyone was pretty bad at bowling, but we all got better by the third game :)

 Ken was really good at coaching his team mates. :D

 (most of) the girls!

 the boys!

 Mysteriously enough, all the bowling racks said "American" on them...

 Kabam!

 Yusuke took us to this bomb okonomiyaki/ume-shu restaurant.

 Eco-friendly, but more importantly... THAT WHALE IS FLYING.

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 Random Halloween pastries were being sold in some bakery. =)

 This was taken at a party that my Bioethics professor threw. Izakaya, Beer, Food, and... KARAOKE.

 Made a lot of friends. I'm so happy that I went to this party/that this party was even planned! It really got the international students mingling with other Japanese students.

And my wonderful Bioethics professor. He sang the last number and danced quite a bit. . . To the extent that my Kohai from UW was openly wanting him. It didn't exactly help that there's a rumor that he dated an OUSSEP girl from last year. orz

10/23-10/24 Hiroshima and Miyajima

It's hard to update my blog after so many events, but what can I do? Being in front of the computer for so long is bad anyway, right? :)


Couple weeks ago my exchange program took the gang to Hiroshima by bus. It was extremely crowded, but we somehow managed to fit all 56 students plus 3 teachers on this bus.

One of the many pictures taken on this trip of people sleeping on the bus.

In total it took about four or five hours to drive to Hiroshima. After that we arrived at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (広島平和記念量感) where suddenly my bioethics professor, Setoyama, appeared on the bus. Apparently the bus slowed down for like.. ten seconds so he could jump on and be our Hiroshima guide since he grew up in the area.

I didn't take very many pictures in the museum cause it somehow felt disrespectful, but there were a lot of people (especially from my program) taking pictures. But here's some from the Peace Park:

That evening we went to a youth hostel that was up on this gigantic hill and looked like it was in the middle of no where. I experienced my first public shower room with my flat mate Josephine and Alexandra. It was kind of weird at first and there were a bunch of middle school students in the shower before us. When we walked in I was half expecting it to be this way, but for Josephine and Alexandra it was utter shock. At some point I said, "screw it" and went into the shower by myself while the other two girls waited outside. After some time they sucked it up and joined me though. =) The plan after that was to join the boys in buying some booze, but they left without us to join the teachers and go explore the downtown area... So after having run down the hill in hopes of catching everyone, we had to make that same journey back up. Josephine and I shook it off and just bought some beers back at the youth hostel. It was the first time we drank together and she was amazed at how fast I get drunk. Ehee. Our group gradually got bigger and bigger as the Korean students were slowly coming back from the convenience store. We played a few drinking games and everyone was already pretty drunk by the time the other half of the class came back. We ended up being super noisy that night. Back in my room that I was sharing with like.. 8 other girls I think I was the last one to jump into bed, but was the first to wake up that morning. XD


 The next day we all went to Miyajima, bright and early!

 There were a lot of deer, not nearly as much as Nara though is what I heard.

 You must cleanse yourself before going into a shrine.

 I got another おみくじ (fortune telling). Got the same result as last time. General luck. =)

 This is actually at a temple near by Itsukushima Shrine. If you walk up the steps while brushing your hand past all these sutras, you get good luck of some sort.

Found this at the souvenir shop in Miyajima... My work back in Seattle is following me...

Time Warp to:

October 22, 2010

Went to the Jidai Matsuri in Kyoto. It wasn't as big as everyone thought it would be, but still pretty cool. People were dressed up in different dress from the periods of Japan, most notably was the Heian period.

We were kind of on a time crunch cause my buddies and I had class in the morning.. So right after class we got on the next train to Kyoto. XD But later that evening there was a welcome party of exchange students. So I guess it's kind of good that the festival wasn't super busy/entertaining.

Kotatsu and Concerts~

Monday was a holiday so the housing administration escorted students living in the apartments to a few stores that are known for selling cheap furniture. c: Josephine and I bought a little kotatsu~ <3

 This is Andrej, he's a Swedish man in a Gundam.. that specializes in massage.

 The admini surprised us by treating us to lunch after our shopping spree! D:

Later in the day, Josephine and I made plans with John to go see his guitar teacher's band that happened to be touring in Japan that weekend. So, here are some pictures of Umeda!

 HEP 5 Ferris Wheel

 Booze and Boogie, that's all you need. =)

 Wat.

The band we were there for was called Jaded Heart, but the head lining band, Doro was also really good

 The venue.

 John's guitar teacher, Peter.

 At the end of the show all the bands that played got up on stage and did a big number for the crowd... plus a sex doll.

On the way back to the station we saw THAT.

Oct. 7 - Oct. 8

Thursday Oct. 7:

Not much really happened. Explored the Co-op shop again and discovered that our mascot is an awesome ALLIGATOR.

That night Josephine and I went to eat at the same izakaya that we went to with Yusuke.

These are supposed the be spring rolls. Very similar, but with salmon sashimi and cream cheese, so totally different taste.

Friday Oct. 8:

We FINALLY went karaoke as a giant group and it was SUCCESSFUL! :)

The only problem was that Josephine forgot to pick up her bike from the school office, so she was the only one without a bike. Since I weigh the lightest, Josephine rode Martijn's bike and Martijn rode my bike so that I could sit on the back and cling for dear life. Yoon senpai also came with us! Oh happy day.

The place was really big and pretty, but strangely enough connected to a ballet school. Everything was halloween themed~ c:

At the end of the night we were really hungry and biked to a yoshinoya just down the road. By this time it was pooouring rain. Since there was no point in me riding on the back of the bike in the rain I called a cab for Josephine and rode with Yoon senpai back to the school and from there rode by myself. Soaking wet doesn't even describe the condition I was in when I got back. XD But it was fun. I didn't get sick either. Course then the next day I had to wake up bright and early to go to Kyoto with my host family OTL

Oct. 4 - Oct. 6

Monday Oct. 4:

First real day of class! Every Monday the program has a meeting of some sort to go over program rules/upcoming events. That day I went to an intro to Japanese literature class and human rights education. Not sure what I think of the human rights one yet, but I think I might have to take it for the sake of getting credits. A couple of the girls recognized me and it turned out that they live in the same building but on the second floor. :o One was named Margot (from France) and the other Jeongeun (from Korea).

We stayed on campus for a while after class with the guys and I decided to invite the guys over for dinner. A few days before I had gone with the guys to go apartment viewing with one of the admini people. John (from Sweden) really doesn't like the dorms cause it's ridiculously dirty, I guess. The guys also wanted to see what our apartments looked like. We made stir fry with tomato sauce (surprisingly delicious) and put it on top of rice. I also introduced A Very Potter Musical to everyone. Martijn was totally into it. XD

Tuesday Oct. 5:

First Japanese class. Oh goodness, looks like it's going to be difficult. Was also the first time going to Toyonaka campus via the shuttle bus. Also went to get, I guess, hired for an English-speaking type thing. The guy in charge is kind of weird... But anywho, here are some pictures of the campus:

There was a little stray kitty on campus near my Japanese class. =( He looked so skinny, but he was really nice. He approached me to get some pets. I named him Mufasa.

Josephine, Martijn, and I decided to make yakisoba that night and watch more Harry Potter musical. We also took purikura!

Wednesday Oct. 6:

In one of our classes we met a Japanese girl who can speak Swedish, a good day for Josephine. We all decided to follow her to Minoh campus just to check it out and see if it was worth taking the bus there for one of our classes the next day. Turns out it is. The campus is a lot smaller, but it's in the mountains so the air is refreshing.