Week 30 in Japan: First taste of Hanami at Sakura Festival, Earthquake info Seminar

      This week the weekdays were pretty standard. Going to class and all that fun stuff. My part time job at the university started this last week so that was fun to get into again. It looks like there is more interest than ever before as far as students coming in to practice English conversation. I'd like to think I'm partially to thank for that haha. On Thursday after class I did a little interview for my friend Richenmin from China. She needed to interview somebody about the weddings in their country. So I answered the best I could various questions about weddings in the USA. I was surprised with how similar a lot of the wedding customs are between the US and China. Like for example the average age is about 21 she said and I think it's about the same in the US. However Japan and South Korea have much higher average ages. The most interesting thing I found about wedding culture in China was that the weddings are basically always in the morning. Anyways after that we went and ate Okinomiyaki which is a delicious food most famous in Osaka Japan. It's already fun talking with Chenmin but I'm trying hangout with her more lately to help her prepare for an important English test she'll take in May called the TOEIC which stands for "Test Of English for International Communication".
       Friday we had Judo class where we began learning the basics of Judo like the stances, falling, and two basic takedowns. I'm enjoying the class more than I thought I would and I'm really looking forward to the next class already. Friday night there was a little party with some international friends as you may have seen some of the pictures on Facebook. Saturday I went to Senshyu Park with my friend Ayeon who is from Korea to see the Sakura trees and also the general festivities going on. There were singers, dancers, lots of good food, games, etc. There was a lot of people in the park to look at the Sakura trees and the trees are actually still far from being fully bloomed. Most of the trees are still not blooming at all but in the next two weeks it will get very pink and very beautiful around Akita Japan. The next couple weeks' blogs should have some good pictures of that. Regardless of the trees not being totally in bloom yet the park was fun and it was a good day.
      On Sunday I was invited to go to a little seminar talking about earthquakes in general and in particular the earthquake that hit Japan in March of 2011. There were around 25 people there and we split into groups and discussed various matters on the earthquake. Each group did a little presentation on what they discussed at the end. I have very little experience with earthquakes but I think I was able to give a different perspective on the matters because of that.
      I have some pictures and a video from seeing the cherry blossom trees but when I went the trees were not blooming fully yet. Next week I'll have some pictures that should include a lot of pink trees. Japan is sooo pretty right now! I love the spring. Anyways thanks for reading~!

 Had some good steak at this shop.

 Some flowers were blossoming!

 This guy is making Hiroshima Yaki.. like a pro.

 There was a giant stump. I had my friend Ayeon stand by it for scale.

 Check out a little video I took at the park on Saturday.

 Two Japanese and a Romanian in my group.

 Just me telling what's up with earthqakes and stuff.

Week 29 in Japan: Spring Semester, Football Game

       Classes started for me here in Japan so that's definitely the biggest news for me over the last week. I'm taking more classes and more challenging classes this sememster. As for the Japanese language classes I'm taking I've moved up to the intermediate level. It's interesting because at this point everything I'm learning about Japanese like new grammar etc. is being taught in Japanese so it makes it kinda difficult but it's working pretty well so far. It makes me feel good about how far I've come in speaking if at this point I don't need English to learn the language. Maybe the most fun class I'm taking this semester is a Judo class that I actually have this afternoon. Judo is a 'modern' martial art that was created in 1882. I don't know much about Judo yet but I know it involves a lot of take downs and not so much kicking and punching like Karate or TaeKwonDo. I joked with my friends about how I spent a short time learning boxing, wrestling, and some time practicing Taekwondo quite some time ago. After learning judo I joked that 'they'll have to register me as a lethal weapon'. I don't think anybody understood that it was a quote from the movie Lethal Weapon but they still laughed. Another funny thing was that on the first day of Judo class we were learning a little bit of basic history and information on Judo. It also had a listing of the techniques, me and my Russian and Romanian friends Sasha (guy) and Sebi (also a guy) were joking about the 'Sacrafice Technique' because it sounded so hardcore. Definitely going to be a fun class learning a little Japanese martial arts.
       Friday night there was a little welcome party for some students from Africa so they had some good food and lots of drinks. Me, Sebi, Sasha, and a few others were already planning to hangout that night so it was fun when we saw that another group planned to have one to so it turned into a bigger party. It has been really fun meeting lots of new international students over the last week or so. What is also fun is meeting my old friends' underclassmen. So I've met some Koreans and some people from Taiwan who are friends with some people I know who already went back to their country. That felt really hard to explain mainly because in English the word 'Kouhai' doesn't have a very good translation. If you knew the word I could have explained it easier I think.
       Saturday there was a short football practice at noon and then preparation for the game afterwards. I went with 3 others Genki, Koki, and Yoshimi to go buy food for the meal after the game. There was a feast of Curry, Yakisoba, and Yakitori. It was interesting because rather than buying rice everyone was just asked to bring a bag that could feed easily two people. So everyone brought a little bag of rice on Sunday. We met at 730am on Sunday to get things prepared for the game. The game started at 1030 and only went for about an hour including half time. Spring isn't exactly football season so I think that had something to do with why the game was only two 20 minute quarters. Very very few people came to watch the football game too. In Japan there just really isn't much interesting in football. Anways it was cool however to see the halftime show which was a Yosakoi dance. I actually had one friend who was on the dance team too. Yosakoi is a traditional Japanese dance but mixed with modern elements too. Honestly probably my favorite type of organized dance. As for the game I just played special teams so during the kick offs. I think there were a total of four kick offs. I hope to play more in the next game but I can understand why I didn't play much. Eveybody else who was played had been on the team almost a full year longer than me and seniority is a big deal in Japan. Plus the game was short so lots of people wanted to play. Anyways we won the game 19-0 (it's an odd score because we missed two field goals). I was lucky that I had 4 friends who came to watch the game and see me. Richenmin, Ka, Hwayeon, and Ayeon came. Also Hwayeon and Ayeon who recently arrived in Japan are from South Korea. They were able to stay after the game to eat and chat with the team.
      Anyways thanks for reading. I'll try and have the next blog on time but I got really busy with classes so I gotta start managing my time well again. Bye!

 I don't have any pictures from the game (maybe i'll get some eventually). This was after the game with most everybody from the team.

 Picture from Friday night. Keeping it real with my friend Ayeon from South Korea. She's friends with Yunseok who you might know I got to be fairly close friends with while she was in Akita.

 Buying lots of food.

 Painted the helmets Saturday to look nice on game day.

Week 28 in Japan: Fixing my bike, hanging with friends, football recruitment

      This last week on Monday I had to go and get my bike fixed because the back tire went flat. The first shop I stopped at said they could fix it for ¥3600 in 1 weeks time. I guess lots of people are getting their bikes foxed now that spring weather is here. Anyways I went down the street to check out a much smaller bike shop where a hunched over old man with great hair had a shop. He said he could fix my bike in 1 hour and he did it for cheaper too. I actually went and did this with my friend Ryouen who is much better at Japanese than me. Even Ryouen didn't understand some of what the guy was saying because he was using the Akita dialect. You could feel fluent in one area of Japan and have a hard time understanding anything in another region. Especially when talking to older people. The really crazy part is that this is true even though Japan is a fairly small country.
      Thursday was a busy day from the morning I had a short football practice then we all went to the university in our football gear and did had a table and handed out flyers promoting the football team. It was a day for all the clubs of the university to kinda get the word out about themselves. It was such a strange feeling to try to get people to join the club when in America only the best players can hope to play college football. Really the opposite here at least for the football team. Anyways I did that for a while but had to leave early because I had my English job at the university to go to. We had a meeting for about 3 hours getting things ready for the semester to start and therefore the part time job starting again too. Things like this with my job are fairly common and are also not paid. I don't really mind not getting paid much at all though because I enjoy it, I like the organization and the people who run it. Finally later that night I met my friend Tomomi and we ate Udon. As far as Japanese girls names Tomomi is definitely one of my favorites haha. Finally later that night some Japanese friends Yuki, Yoshida, Kano, Teppei, and Odaka messaged me they were having a little "Takopa" which basically translates to Octopus party. We made Takoyaki which is a very delicious Japanese food filled with octopus, and it's fun to make too!
      Saturday night I went to a club/bar because a friend of mine named Megumi was DJ that night and it was a special spring event. I didn't really want to go because I don't like to drink much (especially at bars because It's expensive) and I don't like to dance that much (especially around people I don't know) but I did anyways and ended up being glad I did too. I mainly chatted with my only other friend there Wakiko.
      All in all it was a good week. I have a football game on Saturday that I'm super excited about and hope to get to tell you that we get the win. It's an event that I think is held every spring and it's called the Namahage Bowl. We lost it last year but I wasn't there last year ;D. Anyways classes start this week so I'm getting even busier now! Thanks for reading!

 This is just a picture of Takoyaki I got from google because I didn't take one myself. My phone was actually out of commision for a while. Anyways Takoyaki is definitely in my top 5 favorite Japanese foods! Also don't worry about the ocotopus being nasty. It's really not a super abstract taste, just delicous.. I think most people would like it a lot.

 Watching video of our practice after practice and my friend Touno quick drew up who I was supposed to block after we saw me mess up on the video. Touno is a super helpful guy. Really nothing worse than not blocking the right guy and being the cause of a play going bad.

Week 27 in Japan: Chinese cooking, Going Away Party, and Sushi

Had a cool past week in Japan. On Monday the 24th of March I had dinner with 4 Chinese international students Hakusetuhi, Kankyoku, Won, and Chouukin. Also there was another guy from America there named Thomas. Thomas' mom is a teacher in Japan so he's here visiting her for a little while. We made lots of different Chinese food together. We met at 3 to buy groceries for cooking and didn't end up eating until after 7 so it was a lot of cooking. The main thing we made was chinese dumplings which were super good and fun to make too. I wish I had a picture of the food! Maybe I'll get one from somebody who was there eventually and post it in the future. On Tuesday I went to a going away party/birthday party for some friends. One friend Rahul from India went to Tokyo for a research job he got with the company Hitachi. Another guy named David was going back to Canada after teaching in Japan for about a year. Lastly it was my friend Mikan's birthday. On Wednesday the weather was really nice so I went out to take a walk. Just a short ways from the apartment I ran into my friend Shukutei who is from China. We hadn't talked for a while and she said she was going to a big electronics store to look at buying a computer. She then invited me to come along mainly just for fun but she also wanted my advice because she thinks I know a lot about computers. A handful of people think I'm a computer wiz because I fixed a friends computer once a while back. Anyways it was the first time for me to go for a bike ride since winter so that was great. Lots of people bike all through winter and snow but I gave mine a rest. Then came Thursday. First I had football practice from 9am - 1:30 which kinda tired me out but still much was to come. I went to a sushi shop with Rahul, Mikan, Irina who is a student from Romania, and Max who teaches English and is from London. Then we went and watched Rahul play in a pool tournament and played pool ourselves too. A friend named Silard also from Romania joined us at this point. We finished the night by going to a bar called Blues Power House. The bar was super small but really cool. The owner is a really interesting funny older guy who loves music like Bob Dylan and anything blues. He also takes music requests and if it's music from before 2000 he probably has it and maybe even non vinyl. The bar is only big enough for about 8 or 9 people total to sit down and no room for standing either. Anyways it was a fun night to say goodbye to Rahul one last time. Friday I did some shopping for some spring/summer clothes. Then Saturday and Sunday I had football practice. Also Saturday night I got together with my friends Alexander and Sebastien who are from Russia and Romania. They both had been gone for basically the entire spring break so it was fun for us three to finally hangout again.
       That was week 27 everybody! It was a fun week but nothing sooo interesting to blog about :/. Also I'm going to stop going to events and just asking people to send me pictures later because I found they usually don't. Also my phone is temporarily out of comission so maybe not many pictures next week either, I don't know! Anyways thanks for reading.

 Here is a picture of Rahul and I. There are better pictures of us but this is probably the best I have.

 Heres a picture of a few of the football guys in the weight room after practice.

 Usually the only time I take a picture of food is if people take out their phones to take picutres so I feel I might as well. This was a nice spread of sushi. Also that's Max on the left and Mikan on the right.

 Here is the Blues Power House Bar. The bartender climbs over the counter if he has to get out.

 Also I checked out Sega World on Friday.