Sorry, it's been forever!

Okay, okay, I am sorry, I have not posted in forever. I swear, I am getting internet soon! It just doesn't feel right to go to my lab, and spend the entire time there writing emails and blogging while everyone else works. But then, when I get up to go see what people are doing, they have a tendency to stop doing any work, and instead start teaching me drinking words in japanese, or how to make rubber band guns, or we play baseball instead...

See, this is the rubber band gun...

















And this is the origami...

On the 18th we had something called an imonikai, which translates to 'potato boiling party'. It amounts to going to the riverside, building fires and making soup with potatoes in it...

It is apparently a tradition in the prefecture that I am in (Miyagi) and the neighboring prefecture (Yamagata). There is a rivalry between the two over where the tradition started, and whether the Yamagata style soup (soy sauce based) or the Miyagi style (miso based) is the better way.

I liked the Miyagi style better, although apparently the Yamagata style wasn't made properly, and had to be doctored a bit, as seen below...

Adding more dashi to the Yamagata style...

So that was from about 12:00 to 2:30 - from there I returned to the dorm - by bike! One of the guys in my lab, Okada san, gave me his old bike, so I spent about an hour or so de-rusting it when I got back to the dorm, then got a shower, and met my lab in downtown Sendai to celebrate the promotion of one of the professors in the lab to a senior research position (I think).

This celebration involved a two hour nomihodai, which translates to 'all you can drink'. And yes, that is alcoholic drinks - nomihodai appear to be very popular in Japan. Or least very popular among some of the guys in the JYPE exchange program...



What is really funny, is that some of the guys in the lab turned completely red after they started drinking...

After the nomihodai was over, I got to go to karaoke with a bunch of the younger guys in my lab.

I think they could sing in English much better than I could sing in Japanese...

But it was definitely fun to go after everyone had been drinking, because then nobody really cared how they sounded...

Or how bad I sounded...

By the way, it was really hard to get up for my Japanese class at 7:30 the next morning...
(not because of drinking, just being up late - I still don't drink that much!)

But I did recently go to a club for the first time! And get this - I actually danced! But I didn't have my camera with me so there is no proof - ha! That was on this past Saturday, at a club called Bar Isn't It?. A lot of foreigners go there, so they had a Halloween party! I got in for free since I wore a costume (I was a pirate again this year, although it just wasn't the same, since I didn't have my hat or sword...although I don't think they would have appreciated the sword...). I got to sleep about 4 in the morning, then got up at 10 for the international festival that started at 11 - there were tons of different types of food, and some of the performers were pretty good - I also got to try doing tea ceremony!

Luckily the weather was great as well - it has actually been incredibly warm here so far, at least during the day.

However, since they don't have daylight savings time here, it gets dark about 4:30 or 5:00, and it gets dark really fast! Then it is pretty cold - which is really bad, because you don't want to have to carry a jacket when you are climbing a mountain in 65 to 70 degree weather with the sun shining down on you, but you really want it when you are riding your bike back down the mountain in 45 to 50 degree weather at night!

Here I am doing tea ceremony at the festival - I think it was a very much simplified version of the tea ceremony, since it only took a couple of minutes!

The tea was pretty good - it was bitter, but they served sweets before so it tasted really good!

It really made me want some green tea ice cream though! Apparently green tea ice cream is made from the same powder that they use to make the tea in tea ceremony!






In this picture, from left to right, is:
Akira (he is Nana's conversation partner, who I met at the second imonikai that I went to)
Me
Hiroko (she works in the international exchange office - her kimono is amazing!)
Eric - also in the JYPE program, from the US
Nicholas - another JYPE guy, from France

Now since we had gone to the club the night before, and it was a Halloween party, everyone had worn costumes so that they could get in for free - and one of the guys who wore one of the more interesting outfits got locked out of his room, and could not change out of his costume until later the next day.

Actually he probably could have borrowed clothes from some of the other guys, but I think they purposely did not offer because this was just so much funnier...

I think I especially enjoyed this, since he is one of the guys who delights in making fun of me...

This is David, there is another guy Chris - they like to constantly invite me to have threesomes and so forth because they think my reaction is funny...

And Chris found out that I live on the first floor, so he always comes and knocks on my window, most commonly when he is drunk...

And this was all brought to a climax on Saturday night. I planned to call my parents at 9pm here, 8am there - but I left my computer at the lab, so I couldn't take it to the internet cafe to call. My friend Lee let me use his computer, since he already has internet set up in the dorm. So there I am sitting at the computer in Lee's room, talking to my mom, my dad, and my younger sister, when there is a knock on the door, and Chris and David walk into the room only in towels, carrying beers (something called a beer shower has become popular in the international house drinking circles - I don't know the details, and don't think I really need to). They then proceed to place the beers under their towels, and start poking me with them - and yes, this skype conversation was using a webcam, so my parents could see this. During the chaos as I was trying to get them to stop, they realized that I was actually talking to my parents, not friends like they thought. They left then. And Chris sent his regards to my mom.

And they have repeatedly said that this is going to continue for the rest of the year.

It's going to be a long year.