Third week in Japan: Lets get dinner and hangout.

The third week in Japan and the second week of classes; this has been a fun and busy week! Tuesday I went to an English conversation circle that I help out at as a part time job/internship. I just got hired on and that was my first time really doing anything. I officially start next week on the 14th and I will be an English tutor for any students who need help. All of the staff seem really nice and I look forward to working there. The conversation circle that went on was interesting. It seems to me that most Japanese people can speak a very small amount of English but the people at the conversation circle were all interested in getting better at it for certain reasons. Planning on traveling to English speaking countries in the future was a common reason people mentioned. Wednesday night I got to have dinner with a couple friends. My friend Ling wanted to show me what chinese food was like and it was great. Of course it was not like the food at American Chinese restraunts. It was a three dish meal and I think the soup was the most interesting. I don't really know what was in it though. It was a failry simple yet delicious soup; chicken and something that resembled a potato and a few pieces of a plant that is in there only for flavor and not for eating. Although I didn't find that out til I had eaten a few.. they were strong tasting and not too bad. They told me people never really eat them but they are actually healthy for you. I could not get the details on the food because of the language barrier and also I just would not know the foods even if they told me. After dinner we chatted and I made an origami bird for the first time out of a notepad haha. I have it here so I'll post a picture. Thursday was another great dinner party and this one was much bigger. Two professors from the university, and a handful of students all had dinner. I tried so many new foods; squid, raw fish that I can't remember the name of, figs with this italian cream cheese stuff. I think trying/eating all kinds of food is like my favorite thing. There were two vegetarians students eating with us (probably the only two vegetarians in the Akita Prefecture) and they could not eat soo many things, also a hindu I think and she could not have certain foods.. I happily ate it all, even tofu! Also I tried Yeni Raki, its Turkey's national alcoholic beverage. Its about 40-45% alc but you add some cold water usually. I think I was the only one who liked it.... surprised me but really unique (I haven't tried much but it seemed like it was) really taste if you like aniseed flavor. Ahh this week was so busy but i'll keep going. Friday there was a "Borderless" club party. Lots of international students but still mostly Japanese. We drank and ate and tried to learn eachother's names. It was good to meet more people. Saturday I bought Pokemon X/Y :) I'm playing it in Japanese so it helps me learn the language, and its awesome. Sunday I met a group of people who I'm going to be teaching English to. We chatted and had tea and some snacks. Really an awesome and busy week. I'm going to maybe post twice a week when I have so much stuff. Also i'm going to try and take more pictures for the blog :) anyways thats it for now. Right now I gotta study some Kanji!

watch for scale ^-^