Fooding and Karaokeing

This weekend has thus far been quite a bit of fun. The past few days have been nuts.

I no longer have a roommate- turns out she just couldn't take to the language barrier. Part of me is like "that would have been so good for us!" And then a part of me is thinking that it is rather stupid to come here with no English and minimal Japanese experience- how would you get around? No wonder it's hard and the poor girl wanted to go home :/ There really aren't any other languages here being used outside of English and Japanese. And certainly not much English by far. She was cute and sweet, but honestly it was a facepalm all around. Yamasa accommodation folk had expected her to be able to speak English as well, so....

Friday I was a zombie all day but that didn't stop me from going out to eat and karaoke with friends! Friday was also the day we had semi culture class. The teacher was ok, but I didn't particularly care for her, as she didn't really help those of us (the two of us) who struggled with the language. Some teachers just brush you off instead of taking you by the hand and running with you. She was one of those that just brushed you off. I guess it's difficult when you have three different levels in one class together to accommodate all levels. Nevertheless, it was frustrating so I don't feel bad at all for switching out for private lessons for most Fridays. This week we did origami, which was fun but omg trying to give instructions in Japanese while zombie-fied (ie my brain was a bit fried and exhausted) was terrible. And of course my partner and I had a hard one- the box.

We made the box ourselves (squashed thing at the bottom) and then we were taught by others to make a bird and whale.

After went home for a little while, relaxed (found no roommate), and then went out to get food. The group of us had Okonomiyaki, which is basically batter, cabbage, and a bunch of other stuff. Very much like pancakes. Toppings add to the taste- like some folk order shrimp, I ordered beef, etc. The common toppings are special sauce for the dish, fish flakes, mayo. Basically you plop the batter onto the grill at your table and cook each side for 6 minutes. Deliciousness was to be had.

Us just starting out, plopping our cakes down and shaping them into a round yum yum.

Done cooking and putting our toppings on- now just working on getting pieces of the deliciousness onto our plates.

Afterward, though the sky was "spitting" at us, we went to karaoke. Single room for the party, free refills at the drink bar, and unlimited hours (well, until 4am) only cost 1,700 a person. Beats lincoln square's karaoke by far in price. Also melon soda over and over again :D I need to remember to take a picture of it but it is a very GREEN soda. Realized mixing that and orange made it taste extremely yummy.

Oop that at the left is melon soda actually :D These folk here are from Minnesota, Spain, and Ireland :D


The youngins of our group :D They're still in school (awwwwwwwwww)

Karaoke machine/TV
They have a good collection of songs- had some fun attempting Japanese songs (most of the kanji has hiragana above it but sometimes it is difficult to read as fast as the song goes).

That's it for now. I need to start studying (it's already 4pm...) and I am still feeling tired/exhausted. Thinking just to take it easy.

Bonus- silly purikura photos from first day at school done at Aeon mall.
I had fun with the cat stamps they had, but it took some getting used to as to how the machine worked- kinda screwed up on a few and never added anything :( Well, now I know!




These are pretty simple compared to the other two I've done thus far.

Also- I'm thinking of going to the Home Town Dolpa Osaka- what is technically a doll convention by the main company that produces dolls- Volks. I have my Volks Yo-SD girl, Linn, so it's not like I would go empty handed. Plus I did this last time I was in Japan, I kinda want to do it again!