Thursday, November 17, 2011

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!

1 comment:

  1. that sounds like so much fun and a really great way to get to know the culture even more... and i love it when you see your own culture and your host culture collide, haha...
    PS they put mayo on everything in costa rica too, but they don't have as good of taste as they have there, i don't think...

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