Let's start with Christmas Eve daytime. Most unlike America, I went to class on Christmas. I guess it should be expected in a country with a miniscule Christian population (holla, Nagasaki), but it was still weird. Most of the other Western people in that class didnt show up; only the guy from Nevada and the Finnish girl showed up. That class was Family Life in Japan, and isnt that interesting. I dont quite remember what the topic of the lecture was, but I really enjoyed the teacher. She was so airheady! She jumped from tangent to tangent, in a mix of Japanese and hesitant English. I want to know what she's teaching next semester, because I wouldnt mind taking a class with her.
After class, I scarfed down lunch, because I was invited to celebrate one of the Chinese girls' birthday. Since the Chinese and the Koreans stick to themselves, I was very flattered to be invited to go to karaoke with them. Unfortunately, due to my procrastination and disorganization, I didnt get her a birthday present (and now that I think about it, neither did I gift the Russian...more things to do). I was the only person there who didnt speak Chinese, so I was left out of the conversation quite often. Thankfully though, I usually got a summarization of the conversations in either Japanese or English. I really want to go karaoke with these girls again though; one of them has one of the most beautiful voices I've sung karaoke with! They call her the "Queen of Karaoke" because of it. Her rendition of this song made the whole thing worth it! (Well, at least, I think this is the song she sang...)
愛我
After that, I came back to my room to freshen up for the Christmas Party one of the Japanese kids had set up. Unlike most Christmas parties I've heard of, which take place at someone's house, this one was at a local 居酒屋. While I wasnt too keen on drinking up on Christmas, I did want to spend it with friends, so I went. And I did have a lot of fun! We had なべ, which is basically where we cook our own food in this soup thingy. Oh it was so good! And the other stuff we had was really delicious too. There was いか and soybeans, だし巻き卵 and so much more. I really ate up.
After that, I called it a night. The next day, I was invited to one of last year's HUSA students to have French Toast and more fun at his apartment. To be honest, I'm not keen on French Toast, and I wasnt familiar with the movie they said they wanted to watch, but in the spirit of the holidays, I roused myself from my warm bed, and met up with them.
Like I said above, I'm not too fond of French Toast, but I still enjoyed myself. Our sempai didnt use too much egg on them, and I used lots of whip cream and syrup on them, so it was actually really yummy. Of course, I had no idea how the whip cream thingy worked. I ended up squirting some of it out onto the table and someone's glasses. Memo to self: Whip cream comes out when you push DOWN on the button, not across. After brunch, we more or less just hung out, "being dudes", as sempai would say. We played a game of The Game of Things, which is kinda like Apples to Apples. After dinner, when one of our Japanese friends fell asleep on the floor, we decided to say goodbye and head back to the dorms.
All in all, not a terribly bad Christmas. I'll admit, I was afraid that this would be the most unhappy, miserable Christmas I've ever had. I was going to miss seeing my family, eating my favorite foods, HEAT, and the birth of my nephew. But you know what? It was actually a lot of fun. I spent it with some very cool people, who did some very cool things (thanks Mimu and Jeff!!). And I ate tons of おいしい food. So you know what? I think I'll count this as a successful Christmas.
OH! It's not the exact one that I wanted, but I succeeded in getting a Rilakkuma with a mushroom! Chee~!
OMG you played the Game of Things?!
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