Wasedasai Part 2

So although yesterday was amazing, I ended up feeling a bit down by the time I went home. I guess a part of me had expected to make closer Japanese friends by now, and after seeing all of these clubs and people who seem super close made me a bit lonely. Don't get me wrong, I have AMAZING, like beyond amazing friends here that I've made in my program. My time here wouldn't be the same without them, and I'm so glad to be close with them. And I do have a lot of Japanese friends here, but I don't feel like I'm close enough with most of them to hang out one on one or anything yet. But I'm not feeling down anymore so don't worry!

In some ways today was almost better than yesterday. I didn't get to Waseda until around 12, so I missed a lot of the morning dances. I was pretty exhausted after standing so much Saturday though, so today I was slow moving. And because I was feeling so slow earlier I did something incredibly stupid. While I was in the bathroom, I accidentally pressed the emergency call button since for some reason I thought it was the button to flush the toilet (sometimes there are buttons, but this toilet obviously had a handle). Thankfully no one was really in the bathroom when this happened, so I just casually walked out, but I definitely saw an attendant running down the stairs while I was heading out....whoops! Anyway, I moved past that pretty fast haha.

At around 2 I went to watch some more dances with some of my friends. One of my Japanese friends who studied abroad at Earlham for a year was appearing in a dance, so I was pretty excited. The style of dance she does is called yosakoi, " highly energetic, combining traditional Japanese dance movements with modern music" The dances were seriously amazing. So much energy and excitement; I might ask her about joining (even though they seem way to intense for me). After that I went to the Niji waffle booth to help sell waffles. We held signs advertising the waffles and would scream out at people asking them to buy our waffles. Although people usually ignore you, it was a lot of fun. One of my program friends was so good at being a salesman, it was hilarious. He kept pointing at me and saying "mite, gajin! nihongo hanasemasu yo! sugoi desho! waffle kattekudasai!" which is basically: "look, a foreigner! she can speak Japanese! amazing right! please buy a waffle!" Sometimes we would do certain cheers too to try and get people to buy. We ended up selling out, so I guess some of our advertising worked!

I also ended up participating in the Wasedasai parade with some other Niji no Kai members. At first I was a bit wary when one of the members asked if I wanted to be a part of it, but I'm so glad I said yes. Being in the parade was such a great experience. Our group was behind a car that was playing music and in front of a male cheer leading group called Shockers (who are seriously like celebrities at Waseda). As we walked around Waseda we danced, cheered, and energetically waved our glow sticks around. At the end of the parade we all gathered in the middle of Waseda campus where I ended up meeting my friend who I saw dance earlier. There we did some more cheering and all sang the Waseda school song together (which I don't know yet). It was so energetic and exciting, 盛り上がっていた！Seriously so much fun. I wanted to hang out longer and go to the ending party with everyone, but since I was exhausted and have homework (that I still need to do), I went home. This was my first and last Waseda Festival, which is somewhat sad, but I'm glad I had such a great time and was able to participate in the events as well.
When I got to my home station my host mom was waiting for me there so we got food and talked while we walked home. I really enjoy the little moments of just eating with or talking to my host family. We are planning to go to the Okayama and Hiroshima area in December, so I'm super excited for another trip! Now I have to upload pictures and study for a Japanese test tomorrow!~