I'm in Japan: 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.