It's Been One Week (Or More)!

Okay. Time to recall what I've been doing this past week...
Last Friday and Saturday:
Went to a house party one of my friends on my study abroad program was throwing. It was actually pretty fun and I got to meet some of the new people studying abroad for half a year! On the down side I only got like 2 hours sleep before I ended up waking up to help reserve a spot for hanami. It was my first real hanami, and I was super excited to go. I can't remember if I have explained what hanami is yet, but hanami is basically the best thing ever. Hanami consists of sitting on a blue tarp under the sakura trees from morning to night, eating, drinking, and talking. Basically just a day to be lazy. Usually the weather is nice, however, but when we did it it was freezing. Seriously. Thankfully my host family let me borrow a blanket or else we would have died (and I was already dying from lack of sleep). Even though it was cold though, it was fun to just hang out with my friends from Niji, especially the ones who I traveled with! We were there from 9:30-5:30pm somehow, and after that a couple of us went to another friend's birthday dinner then I went home and slept.




Sunday and Monday:
Went on a trip with my host family, and my host mom's siter and parents. We went to a place called Tateyama in an area called Chiba. There we went to a strawberry farm and got to eat some strawberries! We also stayed one night in a nice hotel by the ocean! I didn't get much sleep though sadly...The next day we went to a "German Village" which was a really large park with rides for kids, German themed buildings, and flowers. I got to try archery there which was pretty cool (and hard)!

Tuesday:
 I can't remember what I did during the day (jog?) but at night I went to a nomikai for the club I am in. April is when the first years enter college so there has been/there are going to be a lot of events for the freshman to try to get them to join our club. There were about 100 first years there which was pretty crazy. And it was nice to see some of my friends I haven't seen in a while.

Wednesday:
The weather was horrible Wednesday (rain and wind) but I braced the forces of nature to have lunch with my friend Dre. We ended up catching up a bit and went to Waseda to see the clubs in recruitment mode (though it wasn't really crowded sine the weather was bad earlier in the day). We also had a competition to see who would get the most fliers (clubs pass them out like crazy but since we are foreigners we don't always get them). That night I also went bowling with some of my friends on my program.

Thursday:
Had my English conversation job for the first time in a while. I mainly help her look at jazz song lyrics and explain to her the meanings or context, etc. (which can be really hard sometimes since jazz songs can have a lot of hard to explain expressions). After that I went to Waseda again to help Niji recruit new members. I walked around and passed out fliers, explained to people what the club was about, and ended up joining a huge group of people jumping up and down with their club signs to the sound of this Latin Music club's band which was a lot of fun. That night I also went drinking with a friend for four hours...and then when I was walking home I ended up going to this bar in my neighborhood that was having a special event with a DJ and a fortune teller. I got to meet a lot of random Japanese people, some girls from Finland, and got my love fortune told. LOLOL. Seriously it's nights like that which make me love Tokyo.

Friday:
Yesterday I ended up showing two of my Japanese friends around the Harajuku and Omotesando area, close to where I live. It was a lot of fun! we ate pancakes, did purikura, went to a nice cafe, and hung out in Yoyogi park. I was also pretty tired since I stayed out late the night before. But I mustered up my strength and ended up going to another nomikai for the new freshman. This time I got to talk to some of the new members a bit more. I was surprised since a majority of the ones sitting at my table had lived abroad for some years and could speak English really well! I exchanged facebooks with some of them too! One my Japanese friends though ended up drinking a bit too much though, so me and two other of my Japanese friends ended up walking her home, but on the way one of them offered to let us stay at her house instead (since the last train would be gone soon) so we all went there. Her house was incredible. It was huge. There was an elevator in the house (for her grandparents). And she was really nice. I had only hung out with her a bit recently (the other two I have hung out with a lot more) but she let us borrow pajamas and we all stayed up late talking. It was a lot of fun!

So basically this week has been marked by a lack of sleep and by being incredibly busy. Still have to figure out exactly what Waseda (and Earlham) classes I want and prepare for Waseda classes since they start next week, have to apply for jobs next year, and have been trying to figure out what my host family is doing since they plan on moving but plans keep changing. Yep.
Hope everyone is doing well!~

I really love this picture!~