Week 16 in Japan: End of winter break, my birthday, Butch Cassidy

School started again so I've been busy lately catching up with school work and so once again the blog is a little late, sorry. Anyways Monday the 6th I was with my friends Teppei, Yunseok, Palgeum, Karen, Ryouen, Sebi, and Temuleun. People from Japan, Korea, Taiwain, China, Romania, and Mongolia. It's interesting hanging out with people from all over the world. In the U.S. most my friends are from Minnesota definitely not different countries. It's great having the opportunity to have friends from across the world. We went to Round 1 a building with all kinds of sports and games that I have talked about in a previous blog. We went from 11pm - 6am plus we went in a group so it wasn't too expensive. It's interesting in Japan you will find that with some places are cheaper if you go in the middle of the night. So if you go super late at night/early morning you get cheaper prices plus there are very few people there so we never waited in line to use things even once. Rollerblading and the batting cage were my two favorite things to do. When we got done we had to walk back because there was no 6am bus in that area. It wasn't very far so that was alright, I love walks early in the morning but I'm usually just not up at that time. It was funny on the way back I found a knit white hat on the sidewalk and later a nice scarf. It was funny because I wasn't wearing a scarf or hat so after I found the scarf I was joking that I had previously simply found my jacket etc. for free too. The hat I found is for girls but none of the girls wanted it. The scarf is actually really nice so I wear that sometimes. The next day me, Ryouen, and Conina met up with somebody I occasionally teach English to at 1pm. Only got around 5 hours of sleep but it was alright. It was fun to visit Kazuko and her husband. Kazuko studied in St. Cloud, Minnesota maybe around 40 years ago for a year as an exchange student. Her and her husband like to visit with international students on occasion and they are very great hosts. Kazukos husband makes really great pizza. From Wednesday class started again. Thursday after class I had dinner with my friend Yunseok at a place called Oden. I've been there a couple times now and Yunseok has been there many times so it definitely has a special feel to it. The restaurant opens at 6pm and for a place like that I don't think thats too uncommon. Had some Oden which was nice because it was kind of a blizzard that night. Also had some curry soba.

       My birthday was on Saturday the 11th and I had plans to meet with friends at 6pm to have dinner. It wasn't a party related to my birthday, it just happened to be my birthday too and I was definitely arlight with that. I didn't want any extra attention. I ended up getting a message that the party would be at 7pm instead. My friends ended up ringing my room phone to get in the building. When I answered my Japanese friend Teppei said 'package' so I let him in. I was expecting a birthday gift from my parents that day so I didn't expect anything other than that. Turns out that Teppei, Yunseok, and Palguem came to surprise me. It was the first time I'd gotten a surprise party and I was completely surprised. They changed the dinner time to 7pm cause they didn't want me to leave my place before they got there. They all gave me gifts and they bought a cake too. Luckily my room wasn't in too bad of shape so I didn't have to be too embarresed. I got a scarf from Palguem, headphones from Yunseok, and chopsticks and a daffy duck cup from Teppei. We were not at my room for long before we left for the international dormitory where Teppei made a tuna spaghetti dish for dinner. Ended up hanging out there basically throught the next day until around 6:30. Three Chinese guys joined us to hangout too. Yo, Wang, Saicou, and later on Sunday Toka was there too. We played various games and talked. On Sunday we had a big lunch together. The eating is slow so we kind of ate over maybe an hour and a half. It was two big bowls of soup over a burner. You take some into your own bowl eat it, then get some more. Over and over again. You keep adding meat as time goes so it never runs out. I think we had 7kg of meat and we ate almost all of it between the eight of us. I remember we watched some of a marathon on tv. It was a womans relay race (though some were as young as 14) and it was between all the different prefectures in Japan which is 47 total. Akita didn't do too well. I think they placed around 38th. First place was Kyoto.
      Thats all I have for this week. This week I'm going to a Japanese hot spring "Onsen" hotel and also snowoarding so I should have a cool blog for you to read next week. Thanks for reading!

 Heres a picture I took at the sports/games building called Round 1 of almost everybody. This was an area where you could shoot foam balls at each other and other foam ball related activities. The circle below me shot out a bunch of foam balls so I wanted to get a cool picture of it happening. Unfortunately only the test picture before it exploded with little balls (this one) turned out ok.

 After the pizza at Kazukos house we got desert too. It was two different cakes. One I remember had a little bit of a molasses taste but way better than what you picture after hearing that. Also some delicious jam stuff was put on the ice cream. Strawberries were great to eat as they are so expensive here I never usually eat them (although my favorite fruit). We really just chatted for a couple hours and ate.

 Here is a poster I saw at the Oden Restaurant. The owner likes old American movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and casablanca for example. The owner's kid also works at Ghibli studio which is like a Japanese branch of Disney as far as I know. Super smart. I saw his name on the back of one of my little brother and mine's favorite animations called "Ponyo".

 Here is a picture of my friend from South Korea Yunseok. She drew up ideas of an Android Phone app she wants to make. Not sure if it will ever come to fruition but it was fun regardless.