What a wonderful world

Things have been crazy around here, hence the lack of updates. I haven't even had time to update lately...but that is a good thing.

The rest of last week was spent staying up late and socializing. I made mashed potatoes which were delicious. I'm slowly learning to cook more interesting things (although I wouldn't say mashed potatoes are interesting, we don't eat them here.) I am still getting eaten alive by mosquitoes which is making my life slightly miserable.

Thursday night excitement arose due to the looming Typhoon no. 9. We were hoping for a day off from school on Friday. The wind was definitely blowing and there was a fair amount of rain, but alas, the my first typhoon was a let down.

Friday after classes, I hung around campus for a few hours waiting for a pizza party/social/mixer. It was great fun just relaxing on the couches and making new friends. Most of my friends from the dorm were there, along with So and some of his friends. We decided to go out after the pizza. My friend Sara and I , as well as So, and his friends Tomo and Zach, went to Shibuya for dinner. We ate at an awesome place where we had to sit on the floor. It was a tight squeeze, but totally worth it. I broadened my horizons by trying raw octopus and fried tofu. I would never eat either of them again, but at least I tried it. After dinner, we went to Karaoke for an hour (we wanted to catch the last train). Oh man, it was everything I was hoping for and more. We had our own room with free sodas and tambourines. I sang a few songs, of course, and danced a lot on the couches. So and Tomo sang a few songs in Japanese which was really cool. We had a few nice group sing-a-longs to Andrew WK "Party hard" and Goldfinger "99 Red Balloons." The night ended by us singing "A Whole New World" from Aladin.

After Karaoke, I came back to the dorm and found myself spending hours and hours gossiping and spending time with the great people who live here. The dorm here is really great, for the most part. It's so crazy because it's not just freshman or things like that. The age range of students living in the same building is from something like 18-36. There is definitely an obvious age difference between some of the kids. It's also awesome because there are so many international people living here. One of my best friends, Nadra, is Indian, but lives in Singapore. This one kid is Chinese but lives in England so he has an extreme British accent. There are people from Taiwan, China, Russia, Korea, Spain, Nigeria, as well as all over the US. It's fun to learn all about them, as well as try their food that they cook.

Speaking of International things, Saturday I went to a Brazilan festival in Harajuku. I went with a few people, but it mainly ended up being me, my friend Sarah, this guy Colby, and my Japanese friend Yurie. The festival was awesome. I was given a yellow ribbon bracelet thing that was tied 3 times, for three wishes. I have to wait for the ribbon to fall off naturally...I'm not allowed to cut it off. The food was really good...or at least the free samples that I tried. There were Brazilian bands, as well as Brazilian dancers, who were basically naked. There were Sumo wrestlers and lots of cute little kids.

After the festival, we walked around Yoyogi Park and saw lots of interesting things, such as people performing a play, people creating large paintings, meditation, dancing, yoga, and people learning how to become bartenders. We also went back to Menji Shrine where there happened to be a few traditional Japanese weddings going on. The brides were absolutely gorgeous in their kimonos. We then went to dinner in Harajuku. It was delicious, as usual. Following dinner, we went into this big "picture booth" type stores. The entire store was just photobooths that you can then draw all over and make stickers. It was so much fun and they make great keepsakes. I finally got to try the Harajuku crepes that are all over. Banana, caramel and whipped cream. AMAZING. I am planning on definitely having more of them.

Sunday was spent doing homework and relaxing. Monday after school, So came back to Ontakesan. We went grocery shopping and bought all of the ingredients for a wonderful spaghetti dinner. He cooked the dinner and I just tried to help out how I could. We hung out for a while, listened to music, and then watched a crazy Japanese movie, "The Suicide Club" with some other people from the dorm. It was a lot of fun. I am hoping that he comes over again sometime soon.

Tuesday my friend Kyle and I went to Shibuya after class. We found a great sushi place where the sushi is on a conveyor belt. I tried the cucumber rolls, the shrimp sushi, and egg sushi. It was delicious. We were then caught in the rain so we decided to go shopping. I got a cute necklace. Once the rain stopped, we went to another one of those photobooth places, where we did it twice. It was so much fun. Our pictures were great. Today after class, Nadra, Sara and I went to an Indian restaurant. I was nervous because I don't really like spicy food, but it was delicious. I am still full.

Things are really going great. I am truly in love with this place and the people that I have been getting to know. That's enough for now. I need to go attempt to study.