Japanese Girl Friends

For anyone who knows me, you probably know or have noticed that I tend to hang out with guys more so than girls. I’m not exactly sure why this is. I like girly things, and I like girl time, but I guess I also am interested in lots of guy stuff and my somewhat rough personality is better suited for hanging with men.

There are times when I really crave or enjoy girl time though. I have a good amount of foreign girl friends, but I feel like I lack Japanese girl friends. I have acquaintances and girl friends who I see infrequently or in phases, but I don’t really have a very close, consistent, Japanese, girl friend who I see on a weekly or monthly basis like I do guy ones. Yuki has told me that even my Japanese sounds kind of manly from only hanging out with and learning Japanese from guys.

So, the main point of this post is to introduce you to my new Japanese girl friend, Ha-chan. I can’t really say as of now what kind of friends we will become, whether it’s close friends, acquaintances, etc., but I hung out with her recently, and it was really nice. I just want to write about my experience hanging with a Japanese girl.

I met Ha-chan at Jaws. We exchanged LINE ID’s and made a girl date! We decided to meet up for pancakes. Over dinner we talked, and it was really nice! It was fun talking to a girl because we could talk about cute guys and stuff. ;) I guess I already do that too with my guy friends, but it probably annoys them lol. After pancakes, we went to Tower Records, browsed, and bonded over dance music. After all, we did meet at a dance club. I had such a nice time, and Ha-chan is such a sweetheart! I’m looking forward to hanging out with her again!

Ha-chan. :)

A JET Weekend – Hisashiburi!

A couple weekends ago, all the JETs in Osaka-fu had a conference on Thursday and Friday. We met in Abiko and had various workshops and whatnot. That’s not what I’m going to talk about though. The point is that since we were all in one place at one time, it was convenient for all of us to get together after the conference on Friday. It was actually an arranged event at Tin’s Hall. They opened early for us, and every drink we bought, 200 yen went to aiding the Philippines. Also, there was a stand-up comedy act at the event as well. It was a fun time! I became friends with one of the comedians that night. Waka is his nickname. He was really funny, so we decided to hang out the following day. Overall, it was just a really nice to catch up with everyone. I hadn’t seen many of my JET friends in quite some time!

Catching up with Tanner. Love this kid.

The next day was the JET Christmas party at Club Class. Before going to the club, Diego, Waka, Shawn, and I went to Doma Doma izakaya for drinks and snacks. We did a three hour nomihoudai. Needless to say, after that we were all feeling quite good. It was really fun getting to know Waka. He’s just as funny off the stage as he is on.

Sake bombs.

Good times!

Waka squishing his face in the door.

When we got to Club Class, it was nothing like I expected. First, I expected it to be only JET’s and friends of JET’s, but when I walked in, there were a ton of Japanese people I didn’t know, mostly guys. As I was walking in, Aimee told me that there were a ton of hot guys... it took literally about 10 seconds after I walked in for about 3 or 4 gorgeous guys to walk up to me and start talking me up. You know, the usual, “Where are you from? Do you speak Japanese? Are you a student?” After the questions, they all started offering to buy me drinks. I was like, “WHAT IS GOING ON?? THIS IS AWESOME!” Haha! I did not pay for a single drink the entire night. I’m used to getting attention from males at bars and clubs because I’m the typical blue-eyed, light-haired, pale girl, but usually it’s only one guy at a time, and usually they are like older salary men or just average dudes. Sometimes I get one hot guy interested in me, but never more than one! It took me a bit to figure out what was going on, but I noticed a sign that said “pick-up” event on it. Later I asked Reiko, the event coordinator, about why it was such a nanpa-y atmosphere (nanpa means like guys hitting on girls and trying to pick them up), and she explained that when she asked the owner of the club if she could use his space for a JET party, he agreed but advertised it as a pickup event to his regular customers. So in other words, a bunch of guys (and girls) knew that a bunch of foreigners would be gathering and possibly interested in more than talking. :P

Beautiful men.

While I was at the club/bar, I talked with some of my JET friends, but mostly just let the hotties keep buying me tequila shots. I was having a blast! It was such a self-esteem booster! Andrew was DJ-ing at the event. We danced a bit, and I decided which guy I liked the best. From then, I only danced and talked with him for the most part. After hanging there a little bit longer, we decided to relocate to Jaws. A pretty big group came along. I walked hand in hand with the hot guy. When we got there, we danced for a while, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t end up kissing the hot guy quite a bit. Unfortunately, he works in Tokyo, so nothing can really of our one night relationship. L In any case, I had a great night! I felt so popular and cool! I was the perfect level of buzzed the whole night and felt fine the next day. Saturday nights in Japan are something I will hold dear to me for the rest of my life. <3

My Birthday ~ 24!

The Saturday after my birthday was the big party! It was actually a double party for Rachel and I since her birthday was in a few days. Let me just say that it was probably the best birthday party I’ve ever had in my life! I didn’t do any of the planning which was a new thing for me. According to Yuki, Japanese people usually just let their friends take care of planning their birthday parties. So, I just sat back and let it happen! There were fourteen people at our party.

We met at Kyushu izakaya at 7pm. Shinya gave the kanpai (cheers) speech which was something along the lines of 「皆さん、お疲れ様！飲みましょう！」Translation: “Thank you everyone for your hard work! Let’s drink!” We ate and drank a lot. The guys brought out two cakes. One Rachel bought for me (she didn’t know that we were also going to celebrate her birthday as well xD) and one Yuki made from scratch. I was so impressed!! Both tasted delicious! As I blew out the candles, I made a wish that I wouldn’t die from alcohol poisoning that night…my wish came true lol! Also, I received tons of presents! It was wonderful!! :D As far as I can remember, there were a lot of antics that went on at the party, mostly perverted. For example, I spilled my wine trying to stand up while holding multiple drinks, we laughed at this fried seaweed stuff that looked like pubic hair (we claimed that it was Akira’s lol), Ken of course took off his shirt and I pinched his nipples, Andrew hit on the waitress, and whipped cream or something got flung on my pants and we obviously made dirty jokes about it. This time (unlike Yuki’s party), no one puked, fell on their face, or had their pants pulled down at the izakaya. It was very clean fun!

The start of a good night.

Happy birthday me.

Things were getting silly.

The world is pretty much perfect at this moment.

Not unusual.

You have to admit, that seaweed really does
look like pubes...

The next stop was Balabushka. Before we went though, some people left to catch their trains and whatnot. It was funny because Andrew left without officially saying goodbye to me, but then we ran into him while we were walking Aimee to the train station, so Ken and I attacked him, and I got my official goodbye. Norris left, after I pinched his cheek. Ken-chan decided to give me his gift after we left the izakaya. They were super awesome glasses! I opened them, put them on, and then he took my face in his hands and tenderly kissed my forehead…BAHAHA...awkward! I wonder if he remembers?? We also asked a random guy to take a picture of us on Dotonbori. I’m so glad we did!

We found you Andrew!!

I love this group shot!

Half of the group was already at Balabushka. We joined them. I of course did a birthday tequila shot with Joe and Yuki. After getting a lap dance from Ken and talking with people, we all sat down and played this game that Rachel made. Apparently it’s a British game. I think it was called pass the parcel or something like that. It was super cool! Basically there are layers of wrapping paper with a box in the center. In each layer, there are gifts and like challenges you must do. You pass the package around until the music stops, and whoever is holding it gets the gifts in that layer but must do the challenge. I think you can refuse, but you have to drink if you do. I ended up with the package twice. The first time I had to drink a cocktail made up of everyone’s drinks. It was gross! Like fruity, strong beer (I hate beer). Luckily when I wasn’t looking, Ken took it and drank most of it. Also, I had to change an article of clothing with someone, so Yuki and I switched shirts. He wanted to keep mine because he liked it so much D-:< haha! Last, I had to pass a cookie to someone of the same sex only using my mouth...Rachel’s always a good sport when it comes to things like that. Unsurprisingly, Yuki decided he willingly wanted to try the same thing with Shinya...Shinya was not so willing, but gave in in the end.

Before.

After.

My first lap-dance.

About to try the cocktail of doom made up
of everyone's drinks.

Yep...eww.

Shirt swap.

Ken being forced to dance...I think?

 Some of the challenges were pretty bad. For example, Akira had to tell us an embarrassing moment…unfortunately I can’t say what it was, but it was crazy! Maybe the worst one was when Shinya had to be blindfolded and touch someone in order to guess who they were. Of course we volunteered Ken-chan who proceeded to open his shirt, pull down his pants, and stick his you-know-what right out in front of Shinya who grabbed it. POOR SHINYA!!!

I have other pictures of this occurrence, but
they aren't exactly appropriate.

I got pictures with the lovely Balabushka staff (except for Tokuyo p_q) who were very patient with our rambunctiousness. Hiro cleaned up one of our broken glasses, Kohei nicely told us that Kenchan had to keep his clothes on and he kept our gifts behind the counter when we moved to the dance club, and Yoshitoshi encouraged us to draw on Joe’s face while he was taking a nap. I love that place!

Thanks for cleaning up our broken glass, Hiro!

Thanks for cleaning up after us in general, Kohei.

Thanks for suggesting we draw on Joe's face, Yoshitoshi.

Love you Joe.

Soro soro around 1 am we went to my favorite dance club, Jaws. I think that was about the point I stopped drinking perhaps. Akira had the DJ call mine and Rachel’s names to say happy birthday and invite us up on stage. I felt so cool! Since I was with so many of my friends, I danced with them instead of strangers. Yuki and I mostly danced together the whole night, and it was so fun!! :D One strange/bad moment was when I was leaving the restroom, and like always, there were guys waiting around the restroom for girls to come out like creeps. One guy saw me and my American flag sunglasses (he was kinda silly looking…he had on like a track suit and looked like yakuza), and he said, “Oh, you are from America,” grabbed my face and planted a big smooch on my lips…eww. Whatever though…could be worse.

Jaws.

I’m not sure how much Akira drank throughout the night, but at the club, he started to look super out of it. I asked if he was ok, but then he went to the back to use the restroom and take a break. I decided to just let him do his thing, but at the end of the night, he was missing! We never found him. He responded to my messages later the next day. He doesn’t remember where he went, but he got home around 11 am…OMG! He said he remembered being really cold. Sigh…that’s typical Akira for you!

Lastly, we had to make a stop at Balabushka after the club because our gifts were still there. Some people went home before, but I ended up riding the train back with Victoria. I was so proud of myself for not sleeping through my stop. I stopped at the Family Mart near my apartment as usually to get some water and snacks and say hi to Matsuoka, the cute boy that always works mid-nights on the weekends. Poor guy probably things I’m some kind of beast because he only ever sees me at my worst. In any case, I got home, showered, and slept. I had no hangover the next day! I definitely will never forget this birthday! 24 is going to be a good year, I can feel it!

A Day Trip to Nagoya

Last weekend, I went on a very short trip to Nagoya. I was my first time to ever go there. I had only ever seen it from the shinkansen and car window. The reason for going was to see a musical, also a first for me. Akira and co. knew a girl who was starring in the musical. She is actually a Nagoya JET. So on Sunday morning, we (Akira, Yuki, and I) met at Tsuruhashi station and took the Kintesu line to Nagoya. We all are hard for cash right now, so that’s why we didn’t drive or take the shinkansen (Let me just take this moment to point out how ridiculously expensive it is to drive on highways in Japan!! If you use a highway to travel to a different prefecture, we are talking like a 5000 yen toll each way or more...plus gas and parking!). Usually it would only take around an hour or an hour and a half to get there, but by regular trains, it took almost four hour each way. However, it was only around 2,000 yen each way! Nice!

Yuki and Akira stayed out all night the previous night, and I had taken the last train home. I was pretty tired, but Yuki and Akira (especially Akira) were exhausted! Akira slept most of the train ride. Yuki and I just talked. Yuki kept saying he had 変なテンション (“Hen na tenshon” = like when you get all weird and hyper from lack of sleep) on the way there, so that’s why he was so awake and talkative.

Akira is dead.

When we arrived at Nagoya station, we met up with our friend Umito who is living in Nagoya. He was the one who invited us. We headed to the musical. The musical was called “Dream Catcher.” It was a Native American tale. It was in English, but all the actors were from different backgrounds. Some were Japanese and others were American, British, Australian, etc. It was entertaining and gave me an overall good impression of live musicals. Here's a link to the webpage: http://kpbtheatre.com/en/shows/dreamcatcher/info

Afterwards, we headed to Sakae station (near Nagoya station) to get dinner. We went to this cool izakaya that had an old pub feel to it. The night before, my friend had told me about famous local dishes in Nagoya, so I decided to try one. I love eel, so I got something called hitsumabushi. It’s eel on top of rice that you eat in stages. First, you eat it as is. Then you eat it with some wasabi, onions, and Japanese pickles mixed in (I like this way the best). Lastly, you pour this tea broth stuff on it and eat it kind of like porridge. My friends told me to try it a fourth way to be funny by mixing in the wasabi, onions, pickles, AND the broth. We called it Osaka style haha! It was good! However, when they brought it out at first, there was no eel in it. We were so confused because it was too expensive to not have eel. We were trying to taste the rice to see if there was like ground up eel in it, but we didn’t think so. So we asked, and it turned out that they forgot to put the eel on it! The most important part! Haha! They fixed it for me, thankfully. 

Before the eel...wtf?

After the eel...that's more like it!

After dinner, we said our goodbyes to Umito and began the long journey home. We talked and slept on the way back. I think I got home around 10:30. I didn’t get to see that much of Nagoya, but from what I did see, it had a very open feel to it. The buildings were shorter that Osaka’s. The sky felt wider. The streets were wide, and the buildings were nicely lined up in a row. I guess overall, it’s just a pretty ordinary city with nothing too special about it. I should probably go back again sometime and explore more. I love my Osaka with its craziness, rough-friendly-interesting people, famous landmarks, and obsession with food. It’s nice to check out other places though. Stay tuned...next place on my list of places in visit in Japan is Hokkaido! Should be going next month. ;D

It's Nagoya!

Downtown.

Yuki sleeping standing up on the way home.
He said he was pretending, but I don't think so.

Thanksgiving

Last year my Thanksgiving was a sad story. I stayed home and attempted to make some Thanksgiving food. I remember sitting down to eat and feeling so alone.

This year, I was a little more proactive. Tin’s Hall is a bar that is well known among JET’s and other foreigners in Japan. Every year they serve a Thanksgiving meal that is basically as legit as it can be for Japan. I had heard about it last year, but I didn’t make it out. This year a few of my friends wanted to go, so we went together. We actually went on the Friday after Thanksgiving (they serve it both days) because we all had work on Thursday. The way I thought of it was that it was technically Thanksgiving in America on Friday in Japan!

We each ordered the Thanksgiving meal. There was turkey (I ate a little of the white meat, but gave the rest to my friends since I don’t each meat that much), mashed potatoes, stuffing, a roll, broccoli and cauliflower, and cranberry sauce. It tasted good, but it came at a price (1,700 yen). Pumpkin pie was 500 yen per piece. Luckily Ken wanted to share his with me haha!

Happy Thanksgiving! Cheers!

Pretty legit!

After (and during) eating, we drank merrily. I downed a lot of red wine. Ken, as always, got crazy, started dancing, and took his shirt off… ^^; When Yuki showed up a little later, we took tequila shots. I found out that the DJ and I went to the same university, so that was exciting! We just basically romped around the bar until last train. I was quite drunk when I left.  Usually I stay out all night and slowly wind down, but I hopped on the last train with my head swimming. Between the wine and the motion of the train, I began to feel sick and got off the train a few stops away from my station. Since it was the last train, I had no choice but to take a taxi the rest of the way home. That was a first for me and completely unexpected. I have been kind of under the weather lately, so perhaps that’s why the alcohol affected me more than usual. Anyway, 10 minutes and 2,300 yen later, I was home. I slept in the next day. Overall, good Thanksgiving! :P

Ken dancing with the DJ who went to my university.

Of course I have to add the video of him dancing!