Sweets Paradise and shopping in Sakae!!

I was kind of sick today. Runny nose and all that.

At breakfast, I talked to Yuko about all my plans this weekend (because I have a lot)! I told her about how I'm going to Higashiyama Doubutsuen to see the sakura, but she told me the sakura probably won't have bloomed yet. :/ she's probably right since they're only just appearing at Nanzan. Ah well.

I saw a hot pink car while I was biking to the station this morning! It was the same pink as the car at the Toyota factory!!

On the way to school today, Esteban and I read our manga. I finally finished the book of 7 love stories last night. So I moved on to the other one I bought that time. I had to stop reading it on the subway to school because the main character was being a total bitch and pissing me off, lol.

Nanzan looked gorgeous today with the blooming sakura. And it was a beautiful warm, sunny day!

At school, I talked to my friends and charged my DS. I told everyone about my manga and they thought it was hilarious and agreed the girl was a terrible person. Then I went to class. I started feeling super tired and I had a headache so it was hard for me to concentrate today. When I told Kondo sensei I was going to see the sakura tomorrow, she said they'll probably only be about 30% bloomed. Whatevs.

After class I went downstairs and let Emma borrow my charger to charge her DS. She and Heather didn't have any more classes, but they were going to wait for me to finish project work. As I was going up to class, Natalia told me she wasn't going to go with us to Sweets Paradise anymore. When I asked how come, she told me she didn't want to wait. Okay then...

In project work, sensei asked me all about my haruyasumi and we spent the first 10 minutes of class talking about it lol. I told her I'm going to see the sakura tomorrow. She told me that the sakura will be at their fullest next Tuesday and next weekend they'll start to fall.

I asked if they'd be dead by Saturday but I used the verb "shinu" when I asked. Sensei taught me that shinu is only for people or animals. For plants, it's "s" (to fall).

Then we started on my next project. This is the one I've been excited for where I get to interview Japanese students! And she liked my topic idea, which is asking Japanese people about their impression of America and what about America they like and how much they know about America.

I bet their first impressions will be obese people and hamburgers haha. I've been surprised about how much foreigners know about America. My Canadian friends can name almost all the presidents! I don't know anything about any other countries, haha. In the beginning of this semester, we had to match katakana. The words were countries and their capitols. Kondo sensei had asked me to answer one of them and I'd had no freaking clue. How the heck are we supposed to know the capitols of other countries?!?

Anyway, when class was finally over, it was Sweets Paradise time!! Whoo!

Emma, Heather, and I left for Yabacho (the station before Sakae). I was all excited because that station is on my line now! But when we got there, I ended up still having to pay! I asked the dude at the station to tell me what route was on my card and he told me it was still the bottom half of the Meijo line! Wtf?? I'd asked the lady who redid my card to make sure it had the upper half on it and she'd said it did. She lied. I was super pissed off.

So I did the best thing you can do when you're pissed off. Worry about it later and in the meantime, eat cake!

Sweets Paradise, baby!

(That rice and spaghetti with seaweed were SO good!)

(Round one. The cream puff thing is filled with matcha!)

(Round 2. The gray thing is sesame cake)

(Round 3)

Damn was I full when we were done. I'm pretty sure I had food quintuplets.

Then we went shopping! We headed to Book Off first. And I got a bunch of clothes.

When I came out of the dressing room with that ruffle shirt on, Emma and Heather freaked out over how cute I looked. Heather said I looked like a Japanese person, haha. So they convinced me to buy it even though it was 500 yen, which is expensive for Book Off. The skirt was 200 yen.

And then I found the gold mine of Engrish T-shirts. I cracked up when I saw it and then when I showed it to Emma and Heather and they cracked up, none of us could stop laughing!!

So I tried it on. It was such a cute style shirt that I decided I'd buy it for 200 yen. It had loose stitches in the sleeve, but you know what? I can probably sew that back up and this shirt will remind me of Japan every time I wear it and people ask me wtf it says hahaha.

(Note the two dot ellipsis)

After clothes shopping (where I was the only one who bought anything), we headed over to the books section, which is the reason I wanted to come in the first place. We spent a long time looking there.

I got three new manga!

And Emma got two and Heather got three as well. Then we went down to Daiso because I wanted skin colored tights without holes and without cats for the days I didn't feel like having cats on my legs lol.

I bought some as well as this adorbs tape measure, cuz I'm probs gonna need a tape measure later in life and I won't be able to find a bear one then.

After that, I showed everyone the cheap clothing store Mami had showed me behind Book Off. We browsed in there for a bit and then we were all ready to head out because it was 5:30 already!

(Sunshine Sakae at sunset)

On the way back to the station, we saw this weird America mascot and the guy with it was wearing a cowboy hat. Sigh...

We all parted ways at the station and I took the Higashiyama line to Nagoya to try to fix my train card. 

The line at the JR ticket area was huge! As I waited in line, I planned out what I was going to say in Japanese. Then, when I got up to the counter, I said my long explanation slowly and carefully, and the lady understood everything I was trying to say!

She told me to wait and went to find out if she could change my card to the upper half. It took her forever!

While I was waiting, I texted Yuko that I would be late and she replied that it was okay, they'd only just gotten home. 

Then the lady came back to tell me she couldn't give me the top half of the line, but she could give me the Higashiyama line which includes Sakae and Motoyama (where I have to go tomorrow). I said I'd take that! It was the same price and then she gave me 200 yen to pay me back for when I had to pay earlier. Awesome!

The whole process took an hour, so it was just about 7 when I finally got out of there and took the train home. Then I got home at 7:30. On the way home, I saw people having a barbeque in the park next to the river! And by the light of their lamp I could see sakura trees that have bloomed already! Yay! Maybe I'll be in luck tomorrow!

When I got home, Yuko and Miya had just sat down to eat. We had karage, salad, rice, and miso soup. I wasn't hungry after sweets paradise, but it was a really good dinner that filled me up!

Yuko talked to me a lot during dinner. We had a long conversation about how Yuko had had a hard time at work today because the moms of these two boys she teaches had started fighting with each other and yelling and screaming!

I think maybe I'm starting to get better at speaking Japanese because I asked Yuko a lot of questions that she understood and answered! :)

There was this festival on tv that takes place in Italy where people smash oranges. I told Yuko how my mom studied abroad in Italy and can speak Italian and Yuko thought this was awesome and told me about the Italians she's hosted before.

After dinner, I played with Miyabi a bit and then went to lie down because I had a killer headache and my nose was still stuffed/running, but I wanted to feel good for tomorrow!