Pictures. KGU campus and my walk home in Takarazuka.

 KGU Campus entrance, and some of the beautiful gardens and ponds on campus

On my way home.

My apartment building



School Festival

Whoa, look at me go getting on here again this week. So, it was like two weeks ago that our school had a festival: Shingetsusai, which they have every fall and a few days of class are cancelled! =]=]

I joined a "club" here at KGU with another ryugakusei (foreign exchange student) Madeleine who is from Germany! It is the 「デザイングループ」　= the design group (oh and those are the japanese version of quotation marks) So, this design group had an exhibition at the festival, so we worked some of the shifts, which didn't involve anything but drawing "live art" on chalk boards for 4 hours. It was a long day. Haha, but here are some sweet pictures of some of the art that the group members did:

Also, at this festival, a lot of the sports clubs and circles have tents where they sell food, in order to raise money for the year. It is a pretty sweet way to fundraise. And they actually make a lot of money because the food is good, and not only do the 20,000 plus students go to the festival during the days off, but a ton of people from the community come! I, of course, loved the food a little too much, and went to the festival to eat 3 of the 4 days it went on. Some of the food I ate was: yakisoba with a fried egg on a rice cake (delicious fried noodles in special sauce and mayonaise on top) , yakiudon (fat noodles with same special sauce and mayo), okonomiyaki (cabbage pancake with yaki sauce, mayo, and seaweed), akashiyaki (octopus and egg dumplings in a fish broth), an egg omlett with veggies and mayonaise, and some friend icecream with maple syrup! All was exceptionally delicious. =]=] I'm not sure if I have mentioned this yet, but the Japanese put mayonaise on EVERYTHING. And it is delicious... very delicious... YUM. haha. I second guessed it a lot at first, but they know what they are doing when it comes to mayonaise. And its not like that fake stuff, Miracle Whip, its almost the same as Hellmanns, which is my personal favorite! =]=]

Also, there are clubs and circles focused on music, so the entire festival there were different clubs and circles holding miny concerts in the different academic buildings. It was pretty sweet watching rock bands in a classroom/ lecture hall. Almost like a music video or something! Each music club is made up of about 60-80 members and they divide up into different bands. Some were AMAZING, and others were pretty funny. One group that I distinctly remember was a "beatles cover band" one. Poor lead singer... didn't really know the words to many of the songs... "Its been a hard days night, and I've been sweatin like a drawer?" Haha, and in a language where the "l" and "r" sound has no distinction, singing a song with "love" in the chorus may not be the best choice. "Can't buy me rooove, rooove, rooove." =]=] It was really funny, and pretty dang cute.



 Oh, and there are dance clubs and circles too, here are a few pictures of some of the "dance off" performances!

I think NWU should have a festival like this. It was awesome! =]=]
That's all for now! Love and miss you all!

Hair. Halloween.

Hello everyone! Still in Japan. Haha, so... if you look at the picture below, what is the one thing that is the same in each??

Yup, that's right, almost every Japanese girl you see here has BANGS! All of them, so it was no surprise when I went to get my hair cut a few weeks ago and they asked me if I wanted bangs. I declined, but she definitely thought I would be "metcha kawaī" (really cute). They're obsessed. But, after the bang discussion, I had an amazing experience. 40 minute head massage/ shampooing. WOW. I didn't know it was possible to recieve that treatment at a salon, but it is. They massaged my head, laid several warm towels on it, while I was conditioning, and then gave me a shoulder rub after it was all done. The chair was similar to a lazy boy recliner, and the lights were dimmed, with a faint smell of fresh lavender. =] Wow... I'm weird. Anyways, I will definitely be returning before I leave.

That next weekend was HALLOWEEN! Of course it was a Saturday, so I met up with Lucas, Clay, and Maren at our favorite Indian restaurant for the curry special, they also gave us free dessert. There are many perks to becoming a regular at restaurants, and with being a foreigner! =] I need to take a picture of the place, its so cute inside with all the bali decor. Later on, I met up with Clay and Lucas to help out with their "costumes." On the way to our Halloween party, we were like CELEBRITIES. People not only stared at us, like usual, but they also kept asking to take pictures with us. We were loving it. But looking at this picture, I don't know who wouldn't want to take a picture.

We went to Sannomiya in Kobe for the dance party. It was sponsered by an entertainment group on campus, and was a lot of fun!! =]=] I even helped Clay win a dance competition. =] After we ate tons of chicken on a stick at our favorite torizoku place. What a great night! =]

Well, that's all for now, I promise to update again this week. I can't believe it's already the middle of November! See you all soon in the 402! =]=]



2 months, WHOA.

So, still not great at updating this more than once a week! But, that is okay, b/c like I've said, I've been journaling so I don't forget anything! =]

So.... two weeks ago still.... was Sunday October 23, and I had to pleasure of going golfing with my hostfamily father! We got in the car, and drove about 1.5 hours to Nara, to a golf course hidden up in the mountain/hill area. Right away I noticed something completely different, the golf carts were moving on their own! (ghost rider =]) This was crazy to me, we had a remote control that we pushed to get them to move along the cart path; however, this meant that you couldn't steer the cart ever or make it go any faster than the designated speed that was control by the computer in the cart. You don't even have to be in the cart while it is moving! So, for all of you people that go golfing to drive the cart because it's fun, don't go to Japan, because I guess all of the courses are this way! I asked my hostfamily father why, and he said that there was a terrible accident that killed someone before the remote control golf carts, and now they don't trust the Japanese to drive them on their own. So, basically these carts move at about half the speed that they should, along a magnetized cart path... its like a bad amusement park ride. Also, the carts are abnormally large, you only need one per group, its like a big caravan! =] Here's a few pictures from the course!

cool view from the course

stadium lights

Also, this course took forever and a day to play! Our 10:30 tee time was an hour late, and we didn't leave the course until about 6:30 at night! It was dark as we finished, which wasn't a problem b/c they had STADIUM LIGHTS, so you could finish your round. It started to rain though, so we wanted to leave, but its not like we could, because of the magnetised carts, you can't get around the people in front of you! So, we were trapped behind the die hard golfers who weren't already frustrated with the 7 hour round, or the rain at this point... what a day. =] After seeing how long it would take to complete a full round here, I'm not sure if I would still love golfing if I lived here in Japan... especially since in high school we were told to basically sprint to your next shot, as to not waste any time! PLAY READY GOLF! =]

Anyways, gosh I keep writing so much... okay I will update again tomorrow, I need to catch this thing up with what is actually going on now, and not two weeks ago! Sorry charlies!

Love and miss you all!