Back in Business! Adventures of Spring Break

Hello!

Man, it's been a while since I last posted. It's been nearly one month since the largest earthquake in 800 years of Japan's history, and although there are still tens of thousands of people in without homes in the northeast, Japan seems to be on its way to recovering. The nuclear problem, although still a problem, is no longer a central topic in the news, both here and abroad, and people are beginning to settle back into their daily routines. For us exchange students, school started on schedule last Wednesday, and man were Keila and I excited to get back to a regular routine! We had far too much time to mope and worry, and now that things are back to normal, we can stop being anxious all the time. We also had a new friend join us from America, one brave soul named Andrew who decided to come in the wake of disaster. We are happy to have a new companion, and I think this new semester is going to be a lot of fun! I'll update you with my class choices once their finalized, probably after next week.

So I decided I'd add a new post here about all the fun things that happened, both before and after the earthquake. Among various food parties, and a few outings, I also went to visit the western area of Japan for a while, but that deserves a post of its own. :) So anyway, here we go!

Saying Goodbye to Good Friends
I realized somehow that I never posted about saying goodbye to the other exchange students who were with us last semester. How terrible of me. D: Well, basically we had a huge giant party, lol. We went to an izakaya, a Japanese bar, with probably about 20 people, some of which I had never met before, lol. And then afterwards, we went to karaoke! It was a lot of crazy, crazy fun. lol.

But before that, the CIELD office, who is in charge of us and who help us out a lot during our stay, held an official goodbye party on the 23rd of January for the students leaving. We took the opportunity to take lots of group pictures, haha.

Just us

With the TAs from Japanese class

With the lovely ladies of the CIELD office

Aannd of course the MONSTER party on the 25th. I think we drove the waiters and waitresses at the izakaya crazy. lol.



Karaoke!


Yeah there aren't any good pictures of everyone, lol. There were way more people here. xD

So yeah...the next day, Ka Lai and Heather left us. ): Billy and Damien stayed a little longer, so Billy and I went with our friends Saori and Seiji to Yokohama for Chinese New Year on February 4th! It was a little less epic than we'd hoped though, lol. But still fun! We ate Chinese food and looked around at the shops.

Yokohama by day & by night


Our lunch! :F


The entrance to Yokohama's China Town


A guy on a bicycle in a funny hat xD


New Year's Decorations

Lion dancing! Pretty bad picture, but it was hard to get close and take decent ones. xD

Green tea flavored bubble tea! (aka tapioca milk in Japanese)

A Chinese temple open only on Chinese New Year



Shots of China Town


Fun and shopping! Billy bought this giant panda pillow because he loves pandas. xD

And shortly after that, we had a final nabe party the day before the boys left us. *sniff sniff* (FYI, a nabe in Japanese is a pot, so a "nabe party" is basically a hotpot party!)

Various shenanigans occurred at this party, but it was a fun night. We'll miss you guys!!

Then the guys left and it was kinda sad for us for a while, but Keila and I had fun until she went off to Fukuoka, way on the west end of Japan on the island of Kyushu, and I was left for a boring week for myself, except for the first day, which was Valentine's day. I held a Sukiyaki party then! Sukiyaki is basically has the same ingredients as nabe (various meats, carrots, bok choy [Chinese cabbage], various mushrooms, noodles, tofu, etc). Unfortunately I suck at taking pictures so I don't have any, and my Japanese friends haven't posted them on Facebook, so I am without record of the event. D;

Anyway, shortly after Keila came back from Fukuoka, her mom came to visit! Oh what a fun time that was. We did a few things, like biking riding around Mishima, eating Okonomiyaki (Japanese style pancake, they say, except it's really nothing at all like a pancake except it's flat), and going to Tokyo. We visited Asakusa shrine again, and I got to see the new Tokyo Tower, Sky Tree (which is still being built), as well as the famous Tokyo Dome, which is a HUGE stadium.

We also visited our friend Yuriko at her home in Fuji, which is about 30 minutes west by train from Mishima. Keila's mom got to try on a kimono and we explored a teensy bit of Fuji, though not much because we didn't have much time. We'll go back again. :) Anyway we got to meet Yuriko's parents, who were really sweet. Like a typical Japanese family, they gave us lots of sweets and things to take home. ^_^

Mt. Fuji would not come out from behind this cloud, even though we had such a great view down the road.

Yuriko's house! It's fairly new. Also us posing with Yuriko's family. :)

Fuji city view from a famous park in Fuji.

Sooo after Keila's mom left, there was a little less than a week and then we had the earthquake. :( And then having fun got a little harder, because it was hard to get in contact with people and go anywhere, because the train schedules have been all messed up. But we managed to get in contact with our friend Shoki, who accompanied us to the local park in Mishima, called Rakujuuen.

Rakujuuen used to be really famous in Mishima for having a great lake filled with spring water, as well as having a historical landmark in the form of an old house. But unfortunately, due to the consumption of groundwater by factories built in the last few decades, the water is nearly completely gone, making the park a little less beautiful. It also has a small zoo, a kiddy play park, and a few other neat things to enjoy. You can also tour the traditional tea-room style house, but you can't take pictures, so you'll have to just come visit it to see the inside. :)

In the spring, that pagoda-like building is covered with flowers on the roof.

This is a mini-grave built to honor the spirits of animals that died in the zoo.

That swan looks pretty but it tried to eat Shoki's pants. >_>



That rocky area is supposed to be totally covered with water. ): But that is Rakujuukan, the traditional building designated as a cultural asset in Mishima. It has huge windows all along that wall opening out over the would-be pond--in the past it must have been an absolutely gorgeous view.

On the way to find lunch after Rakujuuen, we found this little river walkway, where apparently in summer you can see lots of fireflies. You bet I'll be coming back here. :)

And the next day we went to Shoki's apartment and we made bread! It was so delicious. He also made us pizza. :)

The other day we went to Numazu, a city bigger than Mishima one train stop the west, and we took on this parfait challenge with Yuriko and Ahram. We completed it, not problem. :) We also went bowling! :D

It has been established that I am a terrible bowler. My high score for the day: 64. -_-;

Other adventures that don't have pictures including playing Wii at Ahram's house, going to Sun to Moon to play Mario Kart at the arcade, and other miscellaneous activities. Overall, spring break was really boring for lack of people around (it's sort of like staying on campus at an American university during summer vacation--NO ONE is still there, they've all gone home) and because of a certain earthquake that happened, but overall we were able to make some fun memories. :)

Soo that's it for this post because MAN is it long enough, but next post is Kyoto and Osaka! :D Check back soon! :)