Hannah's Birthday and the Weekend

Last Friday, for Hannah P's birthday, a bunch of us celebrated with Parfaits on Shijo. This place was really fancy and had about a gazillion parfait choices. It was also really expensive and the parfaits ranged from about $7 to $150.

This picture is super awkward since I'm so close to the camera.. but there's a really big group of us.

Saturday, all of the Kates (there are 4 of them!!) met at Shi-jo. I went to lunch with Kate, Katie and Katilyn at a place where you can heat your food right infront of you. It was pretty fun :D

Saturday night, Okaasan toook me to a mall that's only a three minute bike ride from my house here. It's a pretty big place and has a grocery store and tons of clothes shops and everything, basically. Okaasan did some grocery shopping and then afterwards she took me to a moon-viewing matsuri that was taking place near the crotch of the river. She had never been to it before and so when we got there we realized that it was really more kid-oriented, but it was still pretty entertaining. The MCs read children's books about the moon and it was pretty depressing because I couldn't understand what they were saying. Okaasan said that it didn't matter because the stories were boring anyways. The best part of the night was that we got free dango to eat. The moon was also really pretty. We couldn't see it at first and then right when we were about to leave we spotted a glow behind the mountains. As we watched, the moon slowly rose up above the mountains.. we could see it move. It was HUGE and totally round, a full moon :D

The next day, Sunday, I went back to the mall to see if I could find any cool clothes but only ended up buying a cheap engrish shirt. In the afternoon, I got some snacks and met my friends at the crotch of the Kamo River. We chilled for a few hours and then talked.

Today was Monday and we went back to classes. They're not so bad but in film class I learned that I have to read a whole 300 page book by next Monday. Also, it seems like I have tons of homework. My birthday is next Tuesday, and I'm turning 20, which is really important in Japan, but I'm gonna hold off the celebrations because of people's workload and the fact that we're going on a three day field trip next week. We'll go to Hiroshima, among other places. I'm super excited for it.

For my birthday, I'm planning to get one of those $100 parfaits (which are SUPER gigantic) and then eat it with ten friends who will each chip in ten bucks. Then, we'll probably go do karaoke or something.

I'm also in the middle of planning my trip to Korea. Today I went and got my Reentry Visa, which will let me reenter Japan after my trip. All I have to do now is make sure my friends get THEIR visas and then we'll buy tickets, a room at a hostel, and start to plan our ADVENTURES.