STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 42

JUNE 15

Akane and I headed to the apartment dealers this morning. I didn’t expect too much when we arrived because the place looked like a smaller dealer, unlike the big names in the business: Minimini, Suumo, etc. Thankfully, I was wrong.

It was only our first meeting, but they were able to pull out five locations within twenty minutes of the station that were under 400 a month. Not only that, but none of the locations minded whether or not I was a foreigner. I think that part of that reason was because I went to the dealer in person and they could see for themselves what sort of level my Japanese was at. At least, when he spoke on the phone with the owners, that fact came up each time. Each of the places he showed me fits my preferences, so it’s hard to pick on above the other. I do have a favorite that I’ve seen during my Internet searches as well. Next week, we’ll be back to check out the places in person.

With business taken care of, Akane and I biked over to Aeon Mall. We were basically killing time until twilight, when we were going to meet with Jon and a couple of Akane’s friends to go see the fireflies. The way she talked about them, it made me think that they were a rare sight to see; little floating magical orbs. Going to see the fireflies seemed to be one of the past-times at this time of year, so I anticipated the event.

We drove up into the mountains on the curviest road I have ever been on in my life. It was only two-lanes, so we had to be careful around each corner. Deep out in the country, only surrounded by fields and then towering trees. I was enjoying the scenery along the winding ride when suddenly we were told to stop outside of a tunnel and park along the side of the road. There was only other car in the area, so we thought it was a bit fishy. But, we all got out of the car and walked through the tunnel to the other side. Then it quickly became apparent as to why we had to park so suddenly. Both sides of the road were already lined with cars of other people who had come to see the fireflies. The area was particularly popular because of the clean water in the river which ran next to the mountain’s forests.

These fireflies that were the call of everyone’s attention are the same ‘lightning bugs’ that fill our backyards every summer in Toledo. Jon and I had to laugh because this was a normal sight for us. Though, I suppose, if they only gather in these secluded areas, then it would be a rare sight for the average Japanese citizen.

There was a small trail leading down from the road, past an elementary school, down to the riverside and then back up to the road. It did not take long to walk the entire trail, so soon we were heading back to the car. We ended up in the middle of the pack, meaning that a whole new group of go-seers had arrived after us, and some still arriving. As for us, we had only snacked on some mochi while we were there so we went off to find food. At that time of night, the only place open was Denny’s. I had pancakes for dinner.

JUNE 16

…Manga…

JUNE 17

After dance practice I headed to the City Pal apartments to join the Cho-Ko party. This month both Cho, one of the exchange students, and Natsuko, the Japanese student who is assisting with our culture class, have birthdays, so they created a party together. Many of the members still left at the party were the new Chinese exchange students, so afterward when we went to karaoke many of the songs were in Chinese. We stayed until morning, so once again I let two of the girls stay in my room overnight.

JUNE 18

…Training…and it’s raining…

(View from the JR train from Nagoya to Gamagori as it rains.)

(My first attempt to explain the hard and soft ‘th’ sounds.)

JUNE 19

…Manga…Dance…

JUNE 20

Game night, we meet once again!

We started out playing Blocks, but as the members at our table grew, Rafael suggested that we play Phase 10. The makers of UNO know how to make great card games. As the name suggests, there are 10 Phases of the game, but some of us only reached the third Phase before time ran out. I’m looking forward to playing it again next month. Though, sadly it will be our last Game Night together… June is going by too quickly!!

Once again, I went to dance in Naka District with the guys. I happened to see a few more familiar faces, including that of Pepsiman. The Pepsiman I knew was always wearing short shorts, and he danced very feverishly. Today, he wasn’t dancing, and seemed a lot calmer than usual. I greeted him and we ended up talking; it turns out that he hasn’t practiced dance recently, he was frustrated with it. In some ways I understood him because I was having troubles with dance recently as well. In his case, he had been so competitively recently that dance wasn’t fun anymore, he needed to rethink it. I, on the other hand, need to up my ante and challenge myself more.

There was something self-assuring about hearing that he, as well as other dancers, have had their hard times as well. It seems to be an obvious fact, but to hear it from their own mouths really hits home. It’s hard now, but soon, very soon I’ll be free to dance and improve again. If I think about it, when I started drawing, I made a good jump my first year, and then it was a consistent slow but steady progress. I didn’t notice it because I was just enjoying myself; I wasn’t comparing my skills to others as much. Then I made a few more jumps, and here I am. If I put my mind to it, I can create anything. I think, once this project of mine is completed, I can do that again.

JUNE 21

We had a make-up class today, in place for the survey class we missed at the beginning of the semester. What really happened is we watched Mark and Aurianne’s final presentation for the class. They are in the new B class, so we usually don’t get to see each other’s presentations. However, for these final presentations, the teacher wants us all to present together, so from next week on our class times will overlap.

After class I went to training and then karaoke again with Rachael and a few others. How can I say no when our time together seems so short?

STUDY ABROAD:WEEK 40

JUNE 1

Oh no! It’s already June and I’m still not done with my manga! My birthday is next month. I have no choice, but to put more time and effort into it. Sorry in advance.

The good news is that today I managed to complete the final touches on chapters 8-12. The final two chapters, 13 and 14, are also ready to be cleaned up since I scanned in all 80 pages yesterday. I’ve done so much this past month already, but there is still more to do.  Soon I will be entering the home stretch.

JUNE 2

I had to take a break from working on ‘you know what’ in order to homework for this week. There’s going to be quite a few days that I’ll probably just isolate myself and work on finishing up these last two chapters, so please bear with me. I won’t bother you with the dreary details too much.

On the other hand, I salvaged a lily that fell off my ikebana when we moved it to the second floor. The closed bud has now opened up!

JUNE 3 - JUNE 5

Three days of going to class, and then coming home to work on manga. I did go to dance practice on Tuesday and Thursday, that’s the only thing keeping me sane. I also had training on Wednesday. Honestly, I keep forgetting how long a simple task like cleaning up line art can take. Then again, there is about eighty pages…

JUNE 6

The morning and afternoon went as expected. However, this evening I made plans to meet with Kazu. She invited me to an all-girl’s dance practice in Fushimi. I’ve seen pictures of the groups online before, but this would have been my first time going.

I met Kazu and two other girls (all break dancers) at Fushimi Station and from there we walked to the studio. The small studio was actually right above a hair salon, and down the street from where Long’s apartment used to be. I thought it would be a bigger room, but once everyone showed up it quickly became very small. About thirty people showed up over the next few hours, dancing genres of all kinds: hip hop, jazz, wack, lock, and, of course, break.

Fushimi’s famous Eri also made an appearance, though I suppose she is famous throughout Japan’s break dance world by now. I watched her perform at Dance@LIVE in Tokyo. She’s someone that I can look forward to, as a future challenge, WAY in the future. I mean, I may never challenge her, but it’s good to have someone’s level to reach for. I didn’t have a chance to speak with her directly, and though I was primarily there to practice break dance I also floated around to the hip hop genre for a while. I saw familiar faces, but I didn’t know anyone outside Kazu and the two girls I arrived with. So I made a few more acquaintances.

We danced in the studio until 11pm and then everyone started on their own ways home. I walked with Kazu back to Nagoya Station. There we parted and I continued home on my own in the light cool rain. Tomorrow it’s back to the grind.

JUNE 7 - JUNE 8

The saga continues. Line art is clean, proceeding to add contrast with black ink.

We ate at one of the restaurants where a Taiwanese exchange student is working part-time. It’s famous for its udon dishes, so a couple of us tried the shrimp tempura miso udon.

STUDY ABROAD:WEEK 30

MARCH 23

I went shopping again today. There’s no more time to look around, so I bought a one-piece from GU, some foundation and make-up things at the hyaku-en shop, and finally a belt and bag from the underground shopping mall. Couldn’t find any good shoes, so hopefully what I have is good enough. Tomorrow night is the Send-Off party, and before that is the actual Graduation Ceremony. Mixed feelings~

MARCH 24

The day starts early so I can find my way to the Graduation Hall by 10am. The venue isn’t on campus, probably because there is no large auditorium at the Nagoya campus. The event hall they chose was one stop away from Kanayama, and a couple blocks walk away from the station. I figured out I was going the right way when I was surrounded on all sides by young men in suits, and young women in kimono and hakama. I felt like a salmon swimming upstream, even though we were all headed to the same place.

I arrived at 10am, but the actually ceremony didn’t start for an hour. During that time I was able to greet many of the other seniors that I haven’t seen for months. Of course, I found the BPM members also. Our greetings were brief unfortunately, as everyone seemed to either have family or close friends with them. I simply floated amongst the groups until we were able to enter the auditorium. Then it was the same drag as with all Graduation ceremonies: band introduction, some speeches by teachers and heads of the school, more band music, and finally having representatives from each major receive their diplomas. The individuals didn’t receive their diplomas until afterward, when they were separated into rooms by major.

(Female graduates dressed in kimono as we watched the school band perform.)

As I watched the events go on, I realized that in a way, today was also my graduation ceremony, too. Officially, I wouldn’t graduate from university until the end of the spring semester, which was May back in the States. I wouldn’t be going home for that event, so today was my day, too. The process is the same anyway. Congratulate your friends, hope you can see them again, and then reminisce before returning to real life. For me, real life meant I had to leave the event hall around 2pm so I could go home and get ready for the Send-Off party tonight.

The party was held at a restaurant on the basement floor of a building near the station. If anything, you could say it was a real classy bar. We had the whole place rented out. It was 5000 yen to get in, but part of that money also went to paying for the senior gifts. The graduates weren’t set to come until a little later, so I talked with some of the students from the Toyohashi campus. The food wasn’t brought out until the seniors arrived, so even though it was buffet style, we weren’t able to finish the food.

Each of the seniors in turn gave a small memorial speech, a thank you for the past four years they spent in and out of BPM. Hearing that even some of the amazing members that I respected for their dance pursuit had conflicts over the years, and even considered giving up dancing gave me more inspiration than anything to continue to dance. To somehow make them proud; even if I couldn’t meet them again, I wanted to show that I was grateful somehow. But, despite, even my best intentions, I have to accept the fact that our time together has been too short. We may always be distanced because of that fact. It’s not a culture thing, simply a matter of time.

MARCH 25

Last night after the Send-Off Party ended at the classy bar, we continued the night down in Toyohashi. It was another night of endless drinking for them, and another helpless time for me as I watched over them. I don’t mind if they drink, but over-drinking is a serious problem amongst these university students. I’m tired of watching my friends get sick from drinking. If they weren’t also watching after each other, I think I would condemn the act more harshly. There’s always someone to have their backs, at least for that I am grateful.

I caught the first train back to Nagoya again, which meant I didn’t get home until about 9am or so. Today was Tuesday, so the only plans I made was to go to dance practice. Surprisingly, several people showed up, even though they had been partying late last night.

MARCH 26

Today, I just needed a break from everything. No training this week, which means I’m not leaving my room today. It’s just time for some good ole R n’ R.

MARCH 27

More dance practice today~ I’m starting to worry about how this choreography is going to turn out for the showcase. We’ve made little to no progress on the choreography since last week, and the showcase date is on April 15th. Not only that, but we still have a whole second song that hasn’t been decided yet. I trust they’ll figure it out, but I really wish it was set so we can practice properly.

MARCH 28

Tomorrow there is a BBOY EXPO up in Seto. A couple of the graduated break dancers wanted to get some last minute practice in, but they had already turned in their student IDs so they couldn’t rent out the studio. I wanted to practice some more as well, so I rented the studio for them. There were only four of us, but we had fun time practicing. They even helped me out with new handstand freezes.

Friday is also Open Mic Night at Heart n’ Soul Cafe.

 Rachael has wanted to go for some time, but we couldn’t go in January because I had training, or in February because she was in Korea at the time. We ran into a lot of people who we haven’t seen since the Christmas Cake party back in December. The performances were also amazing, everyone was really talented. I think Rachael should try to perform there once before she leaves because she’s such a good singer! She seems like she wants to sing there, too. Now I just have to figure out how to convince her to do it.

MARCH 29

I woke up a little later than I should have, but I tried to start my adventure to the BBOY EXPO on the right foot. It was my first trip to the city of Seto, so I was careful to memorize the train changes as best I could. Unfortunately, my mind had been too focused on the transfer I needed to take at Ozone, that when I was changing changes at Hisaya-Odori I accidentally exited the station. As soon as I passed through the ticket gate, I felt like I was in the wrong place. Why my brain didn’t comprehend my location faster is a mystery to me. I ended up having to buy another ticket, for about the same amount as the first one, just to catch the Meijo Line train to Ozone. Once boarded that train however, it was smooth sailing.

Usually I try to arrive at an event right before it starts, but when I arrived at the EXPO it was already well into the 1st string. Knowing more people outside of BPM made the overall experience a lot more fun. I was able to cheer on more teams, take videos for people, and exchange casual words with familiar faces. My new friends often asked me, ‘Are you dancing today?’ But I had to say ‘No.’ They are very encouraging; I’m the only thing holding me back.

This time I stayed until the end of the EXPO. Since I went to the event alone I didn’t have to come and go on anyone else’s time. But, at the same time, when it was all over, I was heading home alone as well. I would have liked to hang out with someone, but everyone seemed to have their own plans.

 (The level at this event was incredibly high as well.)

STUDY ABROAD:WEEK 29

MARCH 16

It didn’t seem as though anyone was going to the park to practice today so I went shopping. I was scoping out all the stores in Sakae looking for an appropriate dress of some kind for the Senior’s Send-Off Party. I brought nice clothes when I came to Japan, but those were ‘presentation-worthy’ nice clothes, not formal wear. GU has a lot of dresses to choose from, and their LL size fits me fine. However, the styles are just too cute for me. That and many of the dresses are really short, which is not good for me at all. GAP also had some promising styles, but I ended up buying a pair of jeans instead. The prices were reasonable, to say the least, so if I can’t find anything else, I’ll probably come back next week and choose something.

MARCH 17

More shopping around today; this time I looked a little closer to home at the Meieki Department store above the station. I knew they had plus size shops in there somewhere, but it took me quite some time to figure out how to reach the floor with the advertised large sizes. I did find it eventually, but I was quickly disinterested when I saw the price tags. Everything in those stores was hundreds of dollars, not fifty dollars or so, but hundreds. That was way out of my budget. The shop keepers tried to talk me into things, but I excused myself as gently as I could.

After leaving the department store I headed down to the underground shopping mall. Maybe I would find shoes at least; I had seen shops with large sizes for women, so it was only a matter of price and style. As my luck would have it, there was no glass slipper to satisfy both my budget and my tastes. Four hours of searching only to end up empty-handed once again. Now, I feel like I need to take a break from ‘shopping’ for a while.

MARCH 18

The strain in my back has considerably lessened!! That means I slept well last night. As for today, it was back to dance practice, only this time I was doing some hip hop. With the new semester approaching, it’s time to prepare to invite the new freshmen into our club. The best way to advertise our club is with a showcase of course. I have wanted to do a showcase again for a while now, so when the girls asked me to join their hip hop group I jumped on it. I forgot how aerobic hip hop can be, especially when you are practicing the same routine over and over non-stop. It was a great reminder to myself how fun hip hop is. Break dancing is fun, too, but on a different level. If only I could combine them in real life like I do in my head.

MARCH 19

It doesn’t look like things are going to slow down for a while, so I took a break while I could. Started doing some spring cleaning, but generally I just lazed around until it was time to go to training.

MARCH 20

Practice was so much fun today! We didn’t make much progress with the hip hop choreography yet, since our two leaders are still thinking it out, but we did have practice in the multi-purpose room again. After moving from the small studio (where we were working on the hip hop choreography) back to the practice room, I was shocked at the sudden increase of break dancers.

At first, I didn’t know anyone outside of the BPM members. Some of the faces I was able to recognize from past events, including SOUL BREAK. I found myself a little corner of the room to keep practicing until we moved the practice outside. During a brief break, all the guest dancers gathered in the Mini Stop. I happened to come across them when I bought a cup Ramen, and with one acquaintance at the table, I inserted myself into the group. There was little communication between us until I decided to put my broccoli in my ramen to cook. That started our conversation, and by the end of the night I had seven new break dancing acquaintances, even one BGIRL who I tried to introduce myself to before (but clearly failed to do).

MARCH 21

So…funny story. During training today I was left to run the kid’s class. The teacher gave me a line out print of a flag and instructed me to show the children how to color it. I clearly did not read the instructions. During the coloring, I chose three bright colors that the kids recognized very well: blue, red and yellow. I thought things went well until the teacher came back and gave me a really confused look. She asked me, ‘Why did you color the German flag like this?’ Suddenly, everything made sense, and the words appeared on the page for the directions on which order to color the flag. That’s what I get for assuming this was just another free activity; reading instructions has always been a weakness of mine.

With that slip up against Germany under my belt, I proceeded to go to a party at Chi and Tobias’ new apartment. Their internships were taking place in Nagoya, so they simply moved to a different apartment, closer to the station and International Center. Several of the upperclassmen and international students had gathered, so we had a fun night playing different card games.

MARCH 22

The party-goers slowly went home on their own accord, until it was just me a couple people remaining. Those people soon fell asleep, and then the Germans turned on the soccer match. That meant the party was over, so I headed home at 5:30am and slept until the afternoon. Then it was back for another day of training.

STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 19

JANUARY 5

FINALLY! Slept in this morning so I’m fully rested~~

I promised myself that today I was going to be progressive! First off was some overdue exercise. I went for a run, down the usual street, out past Piago, SUSHI-RO and then back towards the station. I ran out to the cheap little grocer, thinking that I would just grab a few things for 500 yen. In the end, I was able to get apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, and spinach all for only 450yen.

At that time, I suddenly realized it was past noon. My host sister was stopping by to see me today, and since I had gone running I left my phone on the charger. I hurried home just in time to receive her message as she was arriving in Nagoya. There wasn’t any time to even put the groceries away. I took the subway, since it would only take me two minutes to reach the station, rather than a twelve minute walk.

We met and ate a quick lunch back in my room as we discussed things about my possible job situation. As always there’s advertising to be needed, and visa paperwork to be filed. It looks like a lot of work, but it sounds interesting. I have yet to see the school or be told how many classes are actually going on currently, but that will have to wait for a bit.

Tomorrow it’s back to school…

JANUARY 6

As usual, I stopped by school a little before class so that I could work on my homework. I tried the fried chicken from Mini Stop, but it’s not that great. Not sure it’s even a good source of protein to be honest.

In our 3rd period class Margeaux informed me that she had lost Mark’s bike key after he lent her his bike on the weekend. That was mostly bad news, but fortunately, since the bikes were the school’s property, the school had the spare key. As the three of us went up to the International Center to retrieve the spare key I found out that Thursday’s bike check was only for the students who were leaving in March. I was safe! Mark, on the other hand, needed to replace the lock on his bike so that he could have a new set of keys. We all headed to Sakae to pick up his bike, where Margeaux had left it.

Then, part two of the mission began. A few days ago Margeaux had dropped her laptop and broke her screen. Our mission was to find a place in Osu that can check her laptop to see if it works, and hopefully fix it. The most important thing was finding out if the laptop could be used with a separate screen, or if it was gone forever.

The first place we went to in Osu couldn’t help us since the laptop was not purchased at their store. The place right next door to it was more helpful. The clerk there spoke really quickly as he asked questions about the laptop. Margeaux kept looking to me for help speaking back to him. Thankfully, my parents have fiddled around with computers enough times for me to understand what he was saying by context. Once we convinced him to hook the monitor up to a screen, we saw that the hard drive itself was fine.

With that knowledge in mind, our mission came to a close for the day. The laptop couldn’t hook up to our TV monitor’s without a converter strip, so we planned to come back later. Margeaux and I headed back to campus for a little bit before we ran into kenshiyo, then the five of us ate udon for dinner at the place near the station in the Lejac building. The servers are really nice there, and I don’t think it’s just part of their customer service. Also, the udon and tenpura is delicious, and cheap. It’s my favorite udon place.

JANUARY 7

I have completed my last class registration for University. I’ll be receiving another full time load of extra credits for this final spring semester. I can’t believe I am almost done with school! Part of me feels like I have already graduated, and the other wants to keep studying and enjoying this new school life. It’s weird; I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Part of the “I’m done with school” feeling carried on into class today. During conversation class usually we go through a chapter in the textbook, shadowing conversations, and practicing role-play. Today, however, we just talked… that’s what I strove to do, just talk about our holidays and have an off-book sort of day. I was already done with my survey presentation, so first period went easy for me as well.

After lunch with kenshiyo, Joy and I ran into Gakki from BPM. We chatted for a while in the cafeteria before she had to go to class. Then it was back to the usual Tuesday schedule of going to dance practice. My body feels so slow when I try to break dance. I’m sure the holiday delicacies didn’t help either. No regrets, just keep trying to improve.

JANUARY 8

Today out of habit Joy and I stopped by the English classroom during second period. There were only a handful of students who hadn’t finished their oral exam, so we were essentially useless. The teacher invited us to join his class again next semester, but we didn’t know what our schedules were going to be like yet. Hopefully it’s not the last time that we see those students. I mean, I think we will run into them on campus, but will they acknowledge us as friends? Will we hang out, or will it simply be ‘hello’ in the hallway.

JANUARY 9

An interesting thing is going on at dance practice right now. There’s a nationwide contest going on to make a dance-video cover to AKB48’s Fortune Cookie. A couple weeks ago this was mentioned in the group chat, but I didn’t think they were serious. In any case, the contest was about expressing international love, so they asked that I, as the lone international student in the group, would dance with them. Knowing that AKB’s dances were cutesy, and I was anything but, I wanted to say no, but since they asked I complied. Today we proceeded to go over the choreography for it. Technically it’s not hard, but it’s a bit embarrassing to try and be cute. Not to mention impossible. I’d rather be breaking and achieving new bruises, which I did do today! Plenty of new bruises on my left shoulder from a new freeze move that Tomoya, one of the seniors, taught me today.

JANUARY 10

(Level 10 curry marked with a heart. Is it a ‘thanks’ to our patron-ship, or cruel farewell?

There’s nothing better than an at-your-own-pace Friday, with delicious Indian curry for lunch with Margeaux, the Germans and Junko. Then we all chilled in Rachael’s room until she went to work. Most of us took a nap. Then, we rode on the bus out to a Thai restaurant in Sakae for dinner, via Totoro’s recommendation. I only ordered the shrimp rolls, which was listed as an appetizer, but there were really good. I sampled the other’s Thai food as well, though I can remember the names of any of the dishes.

Also, I have a cough now. It won’t stop.

JANUARY 11

Long time no futsal!! I still don’t know the other guys’ names, but it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re used to each other now, so we even have short conversations during the breaks. As I thought, most of them are graduated and working adults— some even older than I suspected. I would like to continue playing with them if I can get a job in Aichi. Even if it’s in Toyohashi, an hour train ride isn’t that long.

STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 17

DECEMBER 22

While still in Toyohashi, I had a small interview, or briefing session, for a possible job opportunity. It’s a small cram school located near Toyohashi station, but here is the current situation:

1) The new location that they are moving to in March is a bit farther from the station.

2) The new building is actually a one-story house, in which I would be able to live. Classes would be from the evening, so during the day I would have the place to myself.

3) From February I can start working there a couple days a week to build experience until my study abroad is over, and then I can start to work full time.

4) Gathering students and promoting will be necessary.

At this point there are a lot of unknowns, and I have a few concerns, but I think I’ll try the place out for a bit and see how it goes.

DECEMBER 23

Rio and Yuki invited us to join them at the A Cafe for a Christmas gift exchange. It was kind of last minute, but we met them there for lunch. It was the same cafe we always had the English Cafe at; however, we had never tried to the food before. We ordered a large plate of fries for the table, and two dessert pizzas (apple cinnamon). The gift exchange itself was kind of interesting. I brought Nutella, which is more expensive here in Japan. My gift in return (all was drawn from a lottery) was a pen. It’s a good pen though, with red, black and blue ink. It’s also erasable, my favorite part.

DECEMBER 24

Survey class presentations: comparing Christmas and New Year’s celebrations between Japan and our home countries. Everyone was able to do their presentation in a group, except for Totoro and me. The Hawaiian students presented on New Year’s, and also some special traditions they have in Hawaii during that time. I mostly focused on Christmas, since we’ve always had a Christmas gathering at my grandma’s house ever since I was little.

In the same spirit, since today was our last day of school before winter break, I sort of arranged a Christmas potluck during lunch. As usual, more people showed up than I thought would, and one even dressed up as a reindeer. We feasted ourselves on all kinds of snacks and chatted through the whole lunch break. We didn’t even finish all the food in time for the next class, so we had to hurry and throw all the extra food in baggies. I’ve been sharing the leftover goodies with random people all day, so thankfully there’s none left for me to carry home.

DECEMBER 25

Merry Christmas! Let’s go on a road trip!

Mark, Long and I made plans to join Long’s friends on a trip out to Nagashima’s outlet mall. I was looking forward to it because I hoped I could find a lot of discounted clothes and shoes. Not so much. All the stores were top-brand names, so their idea of discounts seemed anything but. I did, however, buy an Adidas hat on sale, and also some gloves and a shirt from the Gap. I guess there were time sales also, but we missed most of them.

(Nagashima’s artistically designed outlet mall.)

It was about 6pm when we left the mall and I assumed we would then return to Nagoya. Again, not so; turns out that our driver and one of the girls were dating and he wanted to take her to see the famous illuminations in Mie Prefecture, Nabana no Sato. I had a hard time enjoying it the second time around, but I did my best for the couple. It was also 2000yen I didn’t plan on spending, so when we put in our money for the rental car and gas, I had to borrow my portion from Long.

At least I got to eat the beef rolls again~

DECEMBER 26

Tonight is the Christmas Party/Winter Break Party that I set up at an izakaya called Nezumi. In preparation for the party, and the 19 people that said they were coming, I stopped at the hyaku-en shop and bought 19 different odd items. Then, I wrapped them and stuck a number on them, which the party attendee would select at random.

We started to gather for the party just after 6pm. Once all the members had arrived I tried to say a short ‘thank you’ speech, but that was overridden, so I just passed out the numbers and let people receive their gifts. It was interesting to see some guys receive pink and purple patterned tissues, while other people received portable ash trays and they didn’t even smoke, or a light for their bicycle, when they don’t have one. As for the menu, at first, it was just an all-you-can-drink deal, but in order to get that deal there must be at least one food order per person. We could have all ordered a 300 yen stick of meat, but in the holiday spirit we ate all kinds of food. In the end, we even managed to keep the bill at less than 3000 yen per person!

When we left Nezumi it was nearly midnight, but I’m not sure if we had to leave because our group was so loud, or if we just decided it was time to go. In any case, we had to take the party to karaoke!

All in all, it was a successful end of the year party. Hopefully, that’s the last one that I have to initiate.

DECEMBER 27

No plans today except to take it easy until Jordan’s party. I headed down to Toyohashi around 4:30, but it felt as though it was already getting pretty dark. This was a special Christmas party because we were having tacos!! Jordan invited one of his coworkers, and her friend, and also another ALT. It was a small, but fun party. And, of course, it’s been so long since I’ve had tacos~~!! I can’t thank him enough for that. Had I known it would have been so much fun, I would have stayed all night to play games. However, tomorrow I plan on playing futsal, so it’s back to Nagoya for me.

DECEMBER 28

I’m still feeling a bit under the weather. It’s not a full blown cold, just fatigue and sinus drainage. I ended up deciding against going to play futsal, which I regret a little because that was the same time that it started to snow: the first snow in Nagoya. Then again, I don’t want it to get colder…

As a side note, I learned that I can roast a sweet potato on my little stove if I wrap it in foil!