[Weekend wrapup] Actually just Friday

I'm tempted to say that this has been one of my best weekends here, but I have a suspicion that they have all been amazing. But this one is certainly noteworthy.

Friday

The morning started with my Japanese teacher taking Michael, Katrina, and I to 映画村 (Studio Village in English, I think). It's a place built to look like an old Japanese town, and they have people dressed as samurais and geishas who you can take pictures with. We watched a ninja show, then a filming of some promotional clip with the current Power Ranger squad, and then a 玉すだれ show. It's like one of those reed mats that you use to roll up sushi, only the reeds were tied together in a way that they could slide in one direction but not the other. You can use this to your advantage and make funny shapes out of it (wysteria, fishing rods, bridges, Tokyo Tower) , and there was a woman who was doing these tricks along to a traditional Japanese song. Things got much more interesting when she started asking for volunteers, and my teacher egged me on enough that I raised my hand. I was dressed in a ridiculous outfit (Katrina has the pictures), and I was provided with my very own extendable reed mat. We then danced together, and I think I did pretty darn well. I got a little gift for my efforts, and it turned out to be a handkerchief with flowers on it. Nice. We also went in a haunted house there, which was plenty scary for me.

Lunch afterwards was Italian food, where we ate ridiculous amounts. We parted ways with our teacher and Katrina and I went off to the arcade, where I won two more loaves of bread (Katrina has pictures). We took those shopping with us, and the people working in the stores were very nice to us (probably because of the bread). Kat bought some stuff, and then I took her home so we could present one of the loaves to her host sister. I then had to run off and do some shopping of our own, because I had planned a large fireworks event for that night. I nearly bought out all of the fireworks this store had, and spent roughtly $100 (10.000￥). I then lugged 4 bags of explosives across the city on a bus and made it to our meeting place just a little bit late. We had an incredible turnout (30+ people maybe?) and we all had a great time. We were in a park so we couldn't do loud ones, but we decided to save those for another day, and go someplace far away and have a barbeque + fireworks extravaganza. So yes. Fireworks were a great success. We grabbed a late dinner afterwards at the cafeteria, and then the plan was to go to a bar. Somewhere along the way that changed, and we ended up going to the riverbank to sit and chill. That river is apparently the place to be, because there was something like a hundred people all milling around there, either meeting up with more people or chilling with a few drinks. The convenience store on the corner must get ridiculous amounts of business, and we did our part by buying alcohol there and having a little party on the river. We stayed until the last trains were about to leave (something like 11pm), and went home.

That was really all Friday? What a day.


More to come later. I'm sleepy.