Week 35 & 36 in Japan: anime trains, class presentation, water festival

       First of all I want to talk about anime trains in Japan. You can sometimes see trains with cool designs of anime characters which is awesome. I saw one on my way to Yurihonjo for my English class. I haven't heard about the anime but it was interesting to see. I think it's cool that in Japan things that easily and usually so simple have something surprising like an anime drawn on it. Just a very small percentage of trains are blessed with something like this but I think it is fun. Something way more common is anime stuff on buses. A decent portion of the buses in Akita city have big paintings from the anime "One Piece" on them. Even the interior of the buses are decorated.
       Next I want to mention that I had a presentation in my multicultural communication class on May 29th. I was in a group with two Koreans Chansu, and Eri, and also a Japanese named Saki. It was a little bit like a science fair where people can move around freely and look at different presentations at their own pace and look at different presentations. The class is all in Japanese so it has been quite a challenge. Each week we usually make groups about a given topic and later that week we have to submit a report on it. This time was a little different because we had to make a poster as a group and do it. The presentation was about whether or not we agreed with using tax money for cell phone reception by building cell phone towers even in remote locations. The topic was kinda lame but it was overall pretty fun. I'll post a little video that somebody in the group made at the end of the blog.
      Lastly there was a water festival in Akita City on June 1st. The festival was all about water and how it is cleaned and different types of water. I took a taste test of four different types of water. One was un-softened tap water, one was softened tap water, one was bottled water, one was some new technology of cleaning water that uses less energy than the others... I think but I can't remember exactly. I got two of them mixed up when I did it but it was fun. I didn't stay at the festival long because I was there by myself and I just happened to be in the area so I checked it out. I just think it is cool how often events go on in the city. Also as usual with this type of thing there were tons of things to do especially if you were a kid around 5 years old.
      You've finished the wordy party of the blog and now you can see the pictures.
      Thanks a lot (^-^)/

 On the 30th I biked to the sea with my friend Shukutei from China. She wanted me to show her the route there so I glady obliged. I'm sort of an explorer so I know the city better than most students (even a lot of Japanese) so people somtimes come to me for this sorta thing.
 From left to right, Saki, Eri, Chansu, and lastly me. This was taken when we were making the poster and eating snacks.

Eri made this short video. I got a little air time at the end :) (Also I see the quality is really bad after I uploaded it to Youtube) meh oh well.

 Water festival