Week 10 in Japan: New foods and parties.

        This was another fun week in Japan. On Thursday I spontaneously decided to have a Thanksgiving party in my room. I saw a friend on my way to class and invited and said "Happy Thanksgiving" and I then decided it would be fun to have some people over and celebrate a holiday that almost nobody I've talked to here has even heard of. I only had a few hours before the party so I only invited a few people and of course even less were actually able to come. It ended up being a friend named Ouki, Richenmin, Hakusetsuhi, and Ryouen who came. All four of my friends who came are actually from China and can all cook better than me but I did my best. I made Yakisoba which in this case was noodles (soba noodles), vegetables, and pork all fried together (yaki means fried). We also had snacks and other stuff too. I like making plans with people on the spot, it kinda throws people off.

        The weekend was pretty busy for me (in a good way). On Friday I went to karaoke which was a really great time. As I mentioned in a previous blog at this particular karaoke place you get free drinks other than alcoholic ones. I tried a drink that I now have been told is fairly common/popular in Japan. It was essentially corn soup, but you drink it like you would a coffee. I was really surprised by this. To me it is strange to have an option between things like variuos sodas like coke and fantia, and various warm or cold teas and coffees, and then you have an option of choosing corn soup. I can't say it was bad because it tasted fine (as far as corn soup goes) but when I'm in the mood for a beverage to drink I wouldn't choose it again... because it is soup. I now see that this drink is in vending machines fairly often too. On Saturday I went to a chain pawn shop called Hard-off. It is a pawn shop but it had more of a thrift store feeling to it because they are not trying to rob you at least as far as the prices go for buying and I can tell they don't research and try to get every penny (or yen) out of everything they put out which for me makes it way more fun to look around. I ended up meeting my friend Fancy there who was in a previous blog so I stayed for longer than planned because we looked at stuff together. In the end I bought a Super Nintendo and 3 games for it. The Super Nintendo was about 3 dollars. 315 yen. Can't really say much other than my mind was blown. Also the games I bought were Dragon Quest 5 & 6 and also Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Time. The games were cheap too. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was about 1 dollar. Saturday night I went to a "house party". My friend Kaori's parents who I had met and had dinner with once already invited us to come and have a party there with them. The people there was me and other friends of Kaori's and then her parents and a few of there friends. One guy who came owns a ramen/sushi restraunt. He made some really great sushi and we watched him make it too. He was a pro. There was a lot of other great food too including Kiritanpo. It was funny when they first brought out the dish with kiritampo they asked us what we thought it was and I guessed it right. The stars aligned for me at that time and I think I made a good first impression to a few people at that time. I actually had never had Kiritanpo before but I knew about it because I like food a lot haha. Kiritanpo is actually a dish that Akita Prefecture is known for. If you look into Japanese food you will notice that each Prefecture and also individual cities are known for certain foods. For example I've heard that yakiniku is best in Aomori Prefecture, Okonomiyaki is from Osaka, Yokote is known for their unique Yakisoba etc etc etc. Kiritanpo description "Freshly cooked rice is pounded until somewhat mashed, then formed into cylinders around Japanese cedar skewers, and toasted over an open hearth." -Wikipedia. It was really great! The party was really fun! In particular I liked talking to the adults. Sometimes I feel like I'm sapping all their knowledge and wisdom. We also played Uno later that night when the parents' friends had left so it wasn't so many people. I think still 8 people though. Anyways we only played one game cause it took a while but I actually won. I won pretty fast and then the rest finished over about 20 more mins. I'm only putting the uno thing in the blog cause I won. :) . We stayed over night at the house too. It is a kind of traiditional house so we slept on futons on a tatami mat floor. Actually very comfortable. The next day we went to AEON, went to the park and also ate Okonomiyaki. I actually met some friends by chance on Saturday on my way back from buying the Super Nintendo. At that time I was hungry and they were litterally just 30 seconds away from a shop they were going to. So at that time I had Okinomiyaki for the first time and the next day I had it for the second time ever. It is one of my favorite Japanese foods so far! I'm not going to go into the details of the food but it is prettty amazing.

       Well I'm done writing for this week. I almost never proofread or correct what I write here and I hope there are not too many mistakes in general when you are reading. I'm saying that now because I'm still not going to generally re read or correct my blogs before posting them but tonight I'm really tired and I know there are probably a number of mistakes. Oh well. Now for the best part; pictures.

 I don't know if I said this earlier in the blog but I just want to mention that I ate an insane amount of food. It was so good. Anyways heres the guy making sushi. At the moment I think he is actually making a seaweed wrap with natto inside. I wish his face was in the picture. But for most of the pictures you can assume I didn't take them.

 I wish we would have taken a picture with everybody together but this is still pretty good and displays the young people of the party. On the far left is Kaori's older brother who is handicapped. Then there is Kaoris older sister Sachiko, Timuleen from Mongolia, Sasha from Russia, Kaori, Me, and Kano.

 Here is a picture of me, Kano, and Kaori's dad. He's a cool guy.

 Later on that night we played SNES (not mine, they had one at their house that they had just found they still had). Timuleen from Mongolia was kind of just posing for the picture (trolling). Me and Sachiko were actually the ones dominating Super Mario World. We really were not very good but better than everybody else (or at least the will to keep trying) so everyone was saying we were game "Otakus" or game nerds. Apparently even in Japan nobody likes those people. At first I tried to resist the title of Otaku but then I decided to wear it like a badge. Ended up getting to know better because of our gamer status so that was really fun. Played til 4am (but didn't start til late).

 Here is the only picture I have fromt he park. My phone died basically immediately after this. It was a really pretty park. The people in the picture are my friends. duh

 Okonomiyaki on Sunday night. Really delicious. Google is your friend on this one. Protip: Google is always your friend.

Bonus Picture 

 I found a car on Wednesday night with anime characters all over it. I laughed and then said I needed a picture with it. I've been in Japan for a little while now so my poses are getting better. There is actually a specific word for this type of car. I said that would be awesome/hilarious to have/dive. Friends think I be crazy.