Sadou, and Kiyosu jo with Ayuko!!

~*~ Right now the wifi at home is broken, and it only works on my phone... Therefore, pictures for this post will be uploaded when I go to school tomorrow, so please be patient!! Sorry! ~*~


Saturday, April 26

It was kind of freaking me out that Yuko still hadn't said anything about the bike or scolded me... So I ended up bringing it up at breakfast.

And btw guess what we had for breakfast?? Not cereal!! We had salad and toast! Whoaaaa. 

Hisashiburi, toast!

 

Yuko asked me what time I was leaving for the sadou party and then made other small talk. Why wasn't she bringing up the bike? So I told her about how I'd brought the bike home yesterday and what a great bike it was and how well it worked and stuff.

And she said she knew, Kanno had told her. And then she said "nande oshiete" or something like that, so I thought she was saying "what did she tell you?" Because "nani" or "nan" is "what", so I hesitated, thinking of how to say what Kanno had told me, but then Yuko said, kind of angrily, in English:

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Oh, that's what it meant...

 

So I told her about how I'd thought they'd wanted me to take care of it on my own, so that's what I'd done and hadn't wanted to involve them (since they'd made it clear they weren't helping me). And she just kept telling me I should have told them, that's what they'd wanted, and on and on. And then she was like "that was my favorite bike", which I knew was a load of bs because her first suggestion after I got run over was for me to dump that bike and buy them a new bike. 

So Chris was right. I was going to get scolded. It's weird she held all her anger in until I brought it up, though. I wonder if I never had...

So I apologized and she stopped scolding me after that. Miyabi had just been sitting there awkwardly the whole time, I felt bad. Even though she couldn't understand the English parts, she could still tell what was going on.

 

Yuko came into my room as I was getting ready and said now I had to go pay to have the other bike, "her favorite", thrown away. I was like, "don't you want to keep it? I mean, it works fine"

And she said she did, but she thought it was dangerous to ride.

I told her I've been riding it every day! I mean, I even speed biked on it one day when I was late and it worked perfectly.

So she said she'd talk to her husband and then she said I was going to have to "make up Japanese words" to tell him what I'd done with the bike, because "that would make him happy".

Okaaayyy. 

So great, something else to look forward to when I get home today. I said I'd probably be home around 5 and then I headed out.

 

It was cool going to Nanzan on a Saturday. It made it feel more like a college campus. Usually, it feels like a high school because everyone has the same class times and same breaks, but now there were older people, probably alumni, strolling around and a young couple with a kid playing in the green area. It was nice.

The sadou party was in the tatami room, where I have my sadou class. I was worried because I'd gotten there about 20 minutes late, but I walked in and there were these girls dressed in suits at a table at the entrance. They were really nice and spoke in broken English when I didn't understand what they said. It turned out that because I didn't have a ticket, I had to buy one. Then they showed me in to half of the the tatami room. The doors to the second half were closed and the entryway, which is normally all open, had a traditional Japanese screen divider thing closing off half of it.

So I sat in there in seiza position, waiting. There were two older ladies in there too, admiring a wall scroll. Then they opened the second half of the room and I saw a whole bunch of people (some men too!) sitting around in tea ceremony position. Then they got up and filed out. That's when I realized it was set up so we could arrive at any time we wanted from 10 to 3 and then you went in to do the tea ceremony in groups. They let the two ladies and me go in next. I was the only foreigner there, so I was happy my group was small in case I messed up! Also, everyone in the last group had been dressed up, as were the ladies in my group, so I was happy I wore a skirt and nice shirt today!

There was a girl in a suit already sitting in the first position, I guess to show us what to do. Then two other girls came in, wearing kimonos. They must all be part of the sadou club. One girl in a kimono was the first host, who talked to us and brought in the sweets, and the other girl in the kimono was the second host, who made the tea.

 

The girl in the kimono talked to us a lot, very little of which I understood, and the we had to bow. Then she brought in the okashi. They were beautiful!! They looked just like iris flowers. Obviously I couldn't take a picture because this was a legitimate tea ceremony, but I found this image online that looks exactly the same, although they didn't have the green leafy parts.

The first girl said the stuff we'd learned in class. I was happy she was in front of me just to give me a refresher as to what that was. So then I said it perfectly. And yeah, the old ladies had no idea what they were doing, haha. I'd been sure they knew tea ceremony like the backs of their hands, but they really didn't! They just kind of mumbled something close to what the girl had said and then ate their sweets lol.

The iris okashi had anko inside! Mmmmm! It was really good, but I was still getting over my sickness I guess because I wasn't too hungry, so it was a little hard to finish.

 

Then we got tea! My feet were burning at this point! I'd assumed sitting in seiza for a long time would hurt my knees most, but my feet were prickling so much, they felt like they were on fire! All my body weight on top of them for the past 20 minutes had not been okay. So I sort of sneakily pushed them to the side while I drank my tea, but I'm pretty sure everyone noticed. Ah well, playing the gaijin card.

But hey, I knew how to say all the stuff! The girl in front is only supposed to say two things, to the person to the left and to the host, because she doesn't have anyone on her right. But everyone else, if they aren't the last person, is supposed to say three things, to the left, the right, and the host.

So I said "mo ippuku ikaga desu ka," to the first girl, because she was to my right, but she didn't respond!! Whaaat? Do they not teach that in tea ceremony club? So then I just continued, saying the stuff to the lady to my left and to the host and then drank my tea. 

The lady next to me sort of said it. And the last lady, who was older, just didn't say anything haha.

 

After we'd all finished tea and they cleared our cups, we watched while the girl in the kimono finished cleaning up. She was moving so slowly I wanted to scream! My legs hurrrtttt. T-T 

But she finally finished and after they thanked us and she told us to be careful as we left, we all bowed and we were free to leave. They opened up the sliding doors between rooms and I saw the waiting room area was full. Wow! I really got there at the right time. I could only imagine how much pain my legs would be in if I had a full room and had to wait for all those people to finish receiving their tea and then drinking it!

Kondo sensei was part of the next group! She saw me and was like, "oh! Keito!" And asked me if it was "oishikatta" (delicious) lol. I told her it was.

 

Then the girl in the kimono who had been our main host, the one who talked to us, walked us out. We thanked her and then the old ladies said I was really "jouzu." Awww!! I thanked them and then explained to them and the girl that I was taking a tea ceremony class right now, actually in this very room. They thought that was awesome.

So yeah, it wasn't a party like I thought, but it was still cool! It was fun getting the opportunity to do an actual tea ceremony after I've been practicing for one for so long!

 

Because it was barely 11, and now I had a ton of free time, I headed to J building to write my blog until 1:20 when I left to meet Ayuko at Oasis 21.

 

Ayuko was waiting for me at Starbucks. We caught up while she finished up her lunch. She had done sadou this morning as well! She's taking sadou lessons and learning to make okashi! I'm super jealous! But she told me she has to sit in seiza for 2-3 hours!!! Ahhh, I could never do that, haha.

 

I got on the Oasis 21 wifi to look up a place in Sakae to do purikura, because that was something we wanted to do together before I head back to America! We ended up finding the same place where I went with Rafa, Esteban, and Dylan way back in February, where if you're in your school uniform and it's after dark, you're not allowed in. And I ended up choosing the same machine, haha!

 

It was so much fun, as always!! Purikura is one of the things I will miss the most! Ayuko said you get way longer to decorate now than when she was in middle school and high school. There were even improvements since I'd come last in February! There was a new machine now (the one Minju, Emma, and I had used at Sushiro actually), and on this machine, there was a new "sepia" setting. Gosh, purikura is constantly getting better and better.

 

Although, there's still some bugs. Like if you wear green.

I learned that today...

Never wear green when you do purikura!!!

 

Because it's a green screen. Duh!! I should have realized haha. Yeah...

 

Damn, my green skirt looks so cute now, huh?

 

 

My favorite!! I decorated it :D

 

 

 

Yay, I love purikura!! 

 

Next, we went back to the station to take the subway to Nagoya and the JR to Kiyosu, since it was getting late and Kiyosu jo closed at 4:30.

 

At Kiyosu, I showed Ayuko the way I'd walked to get to Kiyosu jo last time. On the way, we talked a lot about Tech and our mutual friends, which was nice because I've been starting to really miss home and my friends lately! So it's nice hanging out with Ayuko who reminds me of home. ^^

 

Pretty daisies we saw on the way

This was Ayuko's first time in Kiyosu!! Whoa! We went up the overpass to cross the busy street before the castle, and marveled great view you can get of the castle up there. 

 

 

It wasn't as pretty as when it was surrounded by all the pink sakura, but it's still gorgeous!

 

We entered in and Ayuko bought me a ticket. She's so sweet!! We took off out shoes and put on these slippers that kept falling off my feet! First we looked at an exhibit that told about the history of the castle. We learned it was rebuilt in 1989, which is why it looked so new inside! Ayuko translated all the important stuff for me. I'm so jealous of the fact that she's bilingual!

Then we went upstairs where there were more exhibits, like replicas of the samurai armor! There was a floor above that playing a movie. That floor had a bunch of fun quiz questions you could answer with fun facts about Kiyosu and what Obu Nobunaga introduced to Japan. I learned he introduced buttons and konpeito (the cute little candies I like!) Ayuko told me about this historical comedy movie she likes, part of which is filmed at Kiyosu jo! There was a little section about that movie, too.

 

And then the best part for last, the balcony!! There were huge golden dragon fish things that Nagoya is known for up there and you could touch them! There was a also a drum you could hit and it showed you how to stand and hit it like they did back then. And then we walked around the balcony.

 

 

The view was amazing!! I could see Nagoya station in the distance. We also saw the Asahi factory, which looks like a bunch of beer cans. I told Ayuko about how on the way yesterday with Father, we had driven past the Kirin beer factory and it reeked of beer! Ayuko told me that the people of Kiyosu jo really pushed to have the castle rebuilt because they wanted to keep up the traditional parts of their city.

 

See the Asahi factory? That smudge is something on my camera...

Ayuko playing the drum

Me playing the drum

Entrance and the rock garden (those pebbles were hard to walk in!)

Cool carp streamers over the river

 

When we got back to the main floor, they had already closed up the castle, so we grabbed our shoes and headed out another exit.

Ayuko and I took a picture on the bridge and then I wanted to go look at the carp streamers. A yuki told me they're called "koinobori." They were so pretty!! We took a bunch of pictures of them!

 

All over the ground were brown crunchy things that Ayuko told me were dead sakura petals. I've been seeing those all over, it all makes sense now! Wow, they look so ugly when they're dead! 

 

This is such a gorgeous picture!

Sakura flower with dead sakura petals

Koinobori over Kiyosu jo!

Oote Bridge

Ayuko and me in the face holes! I'm the woman, haha

Then we headed back to the station. We passed by so many factories and kept commenting on how ugly they look in such a nice city! Although one smelled really good, like Spearmint. Maybe a gum factory? We also passed a shrine near the castle that was a shrine for help with studies. Just like the one we saw in Inuyama!

 

At the station, we took a JR home. I got off at Ichinomiya while Ayuko continued on to Gifu. I invited her to my closing ceremony, so hopefully we will see each other again there!

 

No one was home when I got home. So I went to my room to do my Hanga. I'd gotten it out of my locker after the sadou thing today, so I could finish it up this weekend. Miya and Yuko came home then, so Miya came to my room to play.

She thought my Hanga was awesome!! I taught her how you do Hanga and how it's used to make pictures. I showed her my Rilakkuma print as well as my ink covered Rilakkuma block. Then she sat there and held all the wood shavings I made as I finished carving my block. Even when I messed up, she kept saying "sugoi!" It was cute!!

 

Then we played this game on top of my Hanga knife box called "osumou" where we each had a little folded piece of origami that we stood up on the box. Then we both hit the box over and over and whoever's paper fell first, lost. It was fun!

 

While we were doing this, Ken got home and it was time for dinner, so we went into the kitchen.

And guess what was at our places when we arrived??

MISOKATSU!!!!! I was so excited! I really wish Yuko had said she was making it and then I could have watched her. 

But it looked just like it does at school, so I was really excited and touched they had made it since I'd mentioned a while back that it was my favorite food. And they had miso sauce too!! So I dug in.

 

The miso sauce was great! It tasted just like the one at school. The katsu, not so much... Actually, it was really bad. Like the misokatsu at Yabaton, it was filled with huge chunks of fat I couldn't eat. I had to surreptitiously spit them out into my napkin when I was wiping my face. I noticed Miya doing the same thing.

Yuko and Ken just ate the fat I guess?

But yeah, it made me want to gag because there was less meat than fat, so it wasn't edible.

 

After that disaster, I went back to my room. I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, but I had to wait for everyone to shower. So I worked on homework.

Then Yuko came in and asked me to come talk with Ken now. Miya was on the couch in the living room watching tv and Ken was sitting at the kitchen table. So I went in to sit at the table with him.

Then Yuko said she'd come and be the translator, so she closed the door between the living room and kitchen and sat with Ken on his side. So it was the two of them facing the one of me. Talk about intimidating.

So I told Ken in Japanese how I'd gotten the bike from Chris, gotten a friend to help me being it here, and now it was outside for them to go look at. And I told him it was a really nice bike. And I said I'd brought the old bike inside, so it was right outside the door, like Yuko had asked. 

He was still sitting there staring at me, so I turned to Yuko and asked it I was supposed to say anything else and she told me to apologize. 

So I did.

Then Ken launched into this explanation about how I should have told them, blah blah blah, everything Yuko already said, but at least he was nice and acknowledged the fact that I wasn't hurt and now they had a new bike so everything was good.

Neither of them thanked me for going and getting them a new $140 bike.

 

So I was about to get up and leave when Yuko said "that bike was given to me by my father" (oh gosh, I knew it was old! That means I've been riding around a probs around 20 year old bike!) and they were like "but we've decided it's too dangerous to ride, so we don't want to keep it. Now you have to go to the konbini and buy an 800 yen sticker to throw it out as well as pay to have the new bike registered"

Just, just, just, I can't...

I'm so happy it's only three more weeks with these people and then I never have to see them again!!!

 

So yeah, I'm going to stop complaining about them now because I don't want to fill my blog with crap about how much I hate them and they're ruining my experience. No, this supposed to be a fun, positive blog and I'd like to keep it that way! ^^ ne?

 

Gifu with Ayuko!! (long post)

Sunday, January 26:

WARNING: This is a SUPER long post! It's also very image heavy. So enjoy ^^

When I woke up this morning, Yuko was at work, so Ken made me breakfast.

He made stuff I didn't like, so I guess Yuko hadn't told him I don't eat sausages or eggs... :/

But I ate them anyway.

I had been in my phone while we were waiting for the toast to cook (we hadn't started eating yet) and Ken was finishing up the sausages because I was looking up which trains to take today. Then when the toast was done and he came over to the table I had placed my phone next to me and turned it off. He told me not to use my phone to get on the internet while we're eating. I mean, I know that. I don't even do that in America, it's so rude. And I wasn't planning on doing that here either. Idk, I guess he was just making sure I knew that it something...

Then I got dressed and left for the station. I left at 9, when Yuko had told me last night to leave at 8:45, so I was really, really worried I'd be late. But I pedaled super hard on my bike and made it to the station in 10 minutes! Then I got the super rapid train and it only took 8 minutes to get to Gifu, when Yuko had told me it would take 10-15 min!

I got there before Ayuko so I went down the bathroom. When I came back up, she still wasn't there so I waited by the ticket area and she showed up about a minute later. She told me she'd just walked through looking for me. I guess it must have been when I was in the bathroom. Whoops!

It was so great to see her again and weird that it was in Japan! She thought it was weird that I was with her in her hometown haha. She asked how everyone from the Japanese Conversation Group the two of us were part of were doing and I briefly caught her up with everyone's lives since she left.

I gave her Texas chocolate and then the two of us went out to get bikes. The bikes were only 100 yen to rent and I got a pink one!

Then we rode all around Gifu, heading towards Gifu castle. We rode past a bunch of shops, including Don Quixote. I told Ayuko about riding the Ferris wheel at Sakae the other day and she told me that's where her first date was!! Ahh so cute!

There was this huge mass of people at one of the many temples in Gifu and Ayuko told me they were gathering to listen to speeches by candidates for mayor because Gifu is in the midst of electing a new mayor.

Soon we could see the castle! 

(See it, all cute and tiny up on that hill?)

We parked our bikes near Gifu park and then walked through the park. It was really beautiful, with lots of trees and waterfalls.

We got one of the workers there to take a picture of us.

Then we headed up to take the ropeway up the mountain to the castle. 

Ayuko's friend designed this poster!

The souveneir shop in the building with the ropeway

It was so cool! It was a glass box thing that went up a rope along the side of the mountain. We saw this red building and got a great view of Gifu and Iciinomiya.

At the top you could definitely feel the temperature difference. It was a lot cooler! There were a bunch of cute little shrines.

We walked up a long, steep set if stone steps and then through a forest that I said looked like the hiking trails in Blacksburg. Ayuko told me that when she was in Blacksburg, she felt at home a lot because it reminded her of the Gifu mountains. :)

When we got to the castle, we took pictures in front of it. 

These middle schoolish aged boys in baseball gear started laughing among themselves and looking at us. When we passed them, they were like "hello!" so I said "hi!" It was cute. :)

Looks a lot like Nagoya-jo!

Lady doing exercises on the mountaintop. Ayuko said she was like a ninja haha.

Then we went into the castle! We walked around the bottom floor a bit. It had similar things to Nagoya-jo (pictures of Oda Nobunaga and samurai (darth vader) gear). Then we went upstairs to the wrap-around balcony. It was so high up and such a great view of Gifu, Ichinomiya, and the surrounding area.

It was super blowy though so we left after we'd gotten our fill.

My hairrr

Such a great picture!

Such a horrible picture! Thanks Ayuko lol

On the ceiling of the castle

Clock with the chinese zodiac in the place of numbers. The only one I could read was ushi (cow) at the 12, but Ayuko read the rest of them to me!

 Then we went back outside and back through the foresty part. We stopped at a shrine to pray and get lucky charms!

Ayuko helped me read the kanji I didn't know. It says "we love our mountain and wild birds," so basically you should protect them.

The holes that the castle samurai shot intruders through

At the shrine. It says all the things our lucky charms are good for (exams, good grades, preventing house fires, etc)

We also found a viewing spot lower down than the castle where we took some more pictures. I used my phone's panorama feature. :)

(Pretty sweet, huh?)

And this one has Ayuko in it!

Me taking the panoramic. Ayuko took a bunch of pictures of me taking pictures (creeper...haha)

I thought these signs about the squirrels were really funny. Ayuko liked how there were so many squirrels at Tech, but here people paid to see squirrels haha.

Then we rode the ropeway back down the mountain. On the way down, we saw a rainbow in the mountains!! Ayuko said I was lucky that I got to see one!

(See it??)

Back at that bottom, we headed to this really old traditional town where people actually live! It was really cool to see and walk through.

This is the shipyard where boats go out in the summer for comorant fishing. I've never liked the idea of comorant fishing (where cormorants' necks are tied so they can't swallow and they're let loose to catch fish and when they try to swallow them, the fisherman make them barf the fish back up. Then, the only prize the cormorant gets is one of the bunch of fish it caught). Ayuko said the fish are cooked right on the boat too!

Ayuko told me how the materials from this river are used to make paper used in fans and lanterns, so Gifu is famous for paper. In ancient times the paper was brought on foot from Gifu all the way to Edo!

Also, she was named after the fish in the river, Ayu. Ayu is really sweet and was wrapped in sushi rolls to keep it fresh for the long journey to Edo.

We stopped in the shop pictured above with all the paper lanterns and we got to sample Japanese sweets used in omiyage (souveneirs). It was really good!

Then we headed into the old village.

(A famous paper shop with examples of things it sells)

(Lantern with painting of cormorant fishing)

This fountain had a bamboo pipe on its side that water was trickling out of. Apparently if you put your ear over the big vertical bamboo pipe, you could hear the water drops amplified.

But Ayuko and I couldn't hear anything lol.

(I think this was a restaurant)

This sign showed how all the houses were moved into this village in a really traditional way (using wooden rollers) and done by kids and volunteers!

Ayuko's friend and his family are really trying to improve the city, by making it beautiful while still holding on to it's historical roots.

We walked a bit farther until we got to a little coffee shop place where Ayuko's friend worked. Her friend wasn't there, though, but I really liked going in and looking because there were a TON of really beautiful hina no hi (Girl's Day) doll sets all around.

(The entrance)

(The front room. So many dolls!!)

The ladies there were really nice and told us we could go inside and upstairs to look around. So we took our shoes off and went in.

There was a super steep, slippery staircase like the one in Spirited Away (I was super excited about that!)

Ayuko on the stairs...

...and me on the stairs!

The upstairs area (like an attic) was full of doll displays!! It reminded me so much of my favorite Pokemon episode when I was little, haha. The one where it's Girl's Day and Misty's sisters get all those Pokemon hinamatsuri dolls and she's jealous.

(Even the table was pretty with pictures of women!)

Cute little corner area. In the flower arranging class I took at Tech, I learned Japanese homes have these raised areas to display the ikebana designs.

(Cool lamp)

Then it was back down the steep staircase.

(Scary!)

As we were leaving I saw they also had a pretty cormorant painting lantern.

When we reached the last few buildings of the old village, we saw a couple getting married at a shrine! They were both really really cute and all dressed up in kimonos! We told them "omedatou gozaimasu" as we passed. (It means congratulations).

More awesome drain covers! Gifu's feature cormorants. And some say osui, which means dirty water lol.

(Cute!!)

We went back to the park to get our bikes.

On the way back to the station, we stopped to see the Daibutsu (idk the spelling...), which is the giant Buddha! 

(The shrine where the Daibutsu was.)

(Giant Buddha lives in here)

And there he was!!

Ayuko told me he's made of metal and on the inside, bamboo. This is the largest Buddha made using bamboo!

Ayuko told me that no one knows what all these paintings mean lol. But they were still cool to look at!

(This is a painting of jukasho (the Buddhist hell) )

Then we stopped to see another one of Ayuko's friends. She's so popular! He was working with his family at the shop they own, which was a shop that sells items that celebrate Buddha. They had these cute snowman paper lanterns that I was in love with!

He and his family were really nice! They talked to me and of course I thoroughly embarrassed myself! Ready to hear how?

They asked me how the Daibutsu was and I said "oishikatta." They started laughing and were like, "oishikatta?"

Then I realized, oh fuck I just said that the Giant Buddha was delicious.

I meant "omoshirokatta"!!! That it was interesting! I'm cracking up now but then, I felt retarded.

Then we biked through a roofed in mall like in Osu.

Before we got to the station, we stopped quickly at a wagashi shop Ayuko knows to look at all the cute wagashi (it's the flower shaped sweets served on hinamatsuri and at tea ceremonies). Ayuko wanted to buy me some, but I wouldn't let her! 

At the station, we returned our bikes. I really wanted to stay in Gifu longer but both Ayuko and I had things to do. Ayuko was meeting a friend for pizza and I was going to the Cathedral!

So we both got on the JR then I got off at Nagoya because that way would be faster for me and Ayuko continued on to Kanayama.

At Nagoya Station, I switched to the Higashiyama subway line (my first time on it!) and rode to Chikusa. 

(Girl's Engrish bag. It says: "I wish for add spark to your life. Still all the time." Lawlz)

There I got off and walked to the cathedral. 

(Cute street decorations)

It was sooo pretty!!!

Mass was fun because I got to sing a lot of Japanese songs and they were mostly in hiragana and kanji that I knew so I could follow along! And then the kanji I didn't know, I listened to what everyone else sang, so I learned some new kanji!

There were like 20 altar servers and like 10 priests and then the bishop. It was wild!

Also, in the middle there was a little ceremony thing for the girls and guys who turned 20 in the last year and they got gifts. Two girls were in kimonos.

(All dem 20 year olds, minus me. And the bishop of the area giving them gifts.)

Afterwards was a party for the 20 year olds that everyone was welcome to. But I understood enough Japanese to hear that it cost $10 so I was like, no. I mean, the food looked good (there were mikan!) but I didn't want to have to stay and listen to all the speeches and whatnot.

So I left. It was super windy out now. It had started getting blowy in Gifu on the way back to the station and Ayuko fell off her bike at one point because the wind wa so strong! 

Anyway, on the way back to the station, I saw a grocery store so of course I had to stop!

(Cute sign I saw while walking)

(The grocery store!! I liked the overhang thing because it said "the quality of life" lol)

(Man, I got a deal at Lawson's Grand Opening that day)

And then it happened. I found THE MOST AMAZING FOOD IN ALL OF JAPAN!!! You guys know how melon pan is my favorite bread? Well melon pan just got seriously one-upped!

Because I found......

..........

.......... CHOCOLATE CHIP MELON PAN!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

And ya know how the melon pan at Lawson's is 105 yen and I thought that was a steal?

THIS WAS ONLY 88 YEN!!!!

I was kind of freaking out. There were only 2 left, so I snatched it up.

(So beautifuuulllll)

They also had all these really cute breads!

(Awww look at da wittle snowmen!)

(Scary monster bread)

Then I went searching for a drink. All the sodas and juices were room temperature. :( 

The only cooled thing was the alcohol. But I'm took young to... waaaiittt no I'm not!! 

Hahaha! So I bought this fucking amazing peach beer. Only in Japan guys...

And I went to the self check out to pay. I was expecting it to do what the ones in America to do and tell me to give my ID to an attendant, but it never did! I mean what if I was a little middle schooler? Whatevs. I got my 4% alcohol momo osake. ;) BTW it was only 105 yen.

(Woo! First legal alcohol purchase (and I'm not even 21 yet haha!!))

So then I sat in this little corner eating area in the grocery store and ate my pan and drank my osake.

(Foodgasm right there)

(In case you didn't realize when you bought it, the top of the can says "osake desu" aka "it's alcohol" and has it in Braille too lol)

Then because the bread was so effing good, I went in and bought the last one to have at school tomorrow.

(Cute self check out)

So when I finished my pan I went out and drank the rest of my drink as I walked back to the station because you can so that in Japan.

Then I got back on the Higashiyama line and rode back to Nagoya station. 

(Cute mosaic in Chikusa station)

I found out different stations play different subway music. I really like the music at Chikusa and Nagoya station.

(Illuminations at Nagoya station)

I had an hour to kill there, so I walked around the underground mall in the station called the Unimall. I saw signs pointing to The Nagoya International Center, where the New Year's event I was going to was being held, but the flyer I had only had directions from the next station, Kokusai Center.

I had a feeling I could walk from Nagoya but I was afraid if getting lost, so I put another $10 on my train card and rode the Sakura Dori line (another first) to Kokusai Center. It was there I realized that was just at the other end of the unimall, so I could have walked it and I essentially just wasted $2. Fml. Well, now I knew!

I still had about 40 min, so I went outside to see the JR twin towers! They're the tallest towers at a station.

I also stopped in a SoftBank briefly to talk with them. Still trying to get a phone, guys.

Then I walked back to the International Center. I went up to the floor it's on, but I didn't see any signs for the party or anything. There was just an office and a room that Japanese people my age kept walking into with this sign out front:

Um yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not the New Year's Party, unless I unknowingly signed up for some dating event. Apparently it was tryouts for some new tv show lol.

Anyway, I decided to ask those two dudes pictured above for help. They were super nice and rode all the way back down the elevator with me and took me outside to a connecting hall where the party check in was.

(The awesome elevator. You could just touch the number and it lit up, aka they weren't buttons)

So when I checked in I got a name tag that said アメリカ (America). We all got nametags with our corresponding country. Also, it was 2000 yen for Japanese people, 1000 yen for foreigners, and only 800 yen for foreigners studying Japanese! So I got a huge discount! :)

Then we each got a cup that we wrote out name on. We mingled until the toast.

This old guy started taking to me and told me he was 43 and asked my age and then my email...

Creeeeperrrr. Thankfully Minju and Deanna showed up then, so I joined them and got to meet their Japanese friend they'd known from their university back home. She was really nice!

Then we all got either tea or water and we did a toast (kanpai!). 

Then they brought out finger food (tempura shrimp, chicken, fries, chips, chocolate chip bread, and little dumplings). In the middle of the plate with the finger food was a little section with corn.

Japanese people love corn. Apparently they eat sushi with corn too!

We also got these corn flavored snacks, and later there was pizza with corn as the only topping! Waaahhh, corn overload!!

(Corn flavored rice cake thing. There was a chocolate one too I wish I'd taken a picture of that was a regular rice cake covered in chocolate!)

Then we all played this game where we had to move beads and marbles into a bowl using chopsticks. The Japanese people were really good at it and the foreigners sucked lol.

I moved about 4 beads. The team that moved the most won bags of chips lol. And that wasn't my team, sadly.

Then we mingled some more. I talked to some more people, again all way older than I was. 

Then it was the mochitsuki demonstration. The guy hit the mochi with the kine like I'd seen yesterday and some people got to try too. This guy came over to talk to me during the demonstration. He was a Japanese student and was 21! He spoke English with a British accent and wanted me to teach him some English slang lol. He was all like "I know that when you take a picture of yourself, it's called a selfie!" He was cute! 

He told me he liked Justin Beiber and was going to watch Gossip Girl to improve his English and my gaydar started beeping. When he pulled out his phone, which was in a hot pink case, to get my number, that sealed the deal.

Then I ate some red bean mochi. I talked to this older guy (30s or 40s?) who was Japanese who later tried to add me on Line (my Line wasn't working though) because he wanted to invite me to a barbeque he and his friends were going to have haha.

Then I talked to these two Koreans with Minju, who was really excited to have met fellow Koreans. One of them was a super hot guy I'd noticed earlier. Of course he was Korean. Damn, Korean guys are fine...

And then the party was over! It was fun, but not really what I'd been expecting haha. It was more like a chance for Japanese guys to pick up foreign chicks lol. Deanna got a lot of guys' names to add on Facebook or Line as well, but she was super hesitant to because most of them were older and creepy.

We all walked to the station together and this time we walked through the unimall back to Nagoya station. From there, I took the JR back to Ichinomiya.

The bike ride home was a bitch. It was SO windy, I kept getting buffeted and had to work extra hard to pedal. I finally got home at 9:45 pm. Miyabi and Ken were already asleep, but Yuko had waited up for me. I took a nice hot shower and then went straight to bed.

I have a test tomorrow morning I didn't study at all for. Sheeeet...