Socializing - Sept/Oct



This page is where I'll put all the pictures from September and October that have nothing to do with work. So basically, outings and hanging out with friends.

Wednesday night is ladies' night at the movie theatres around here, so tickets are only 1000 yen for women. We had a Thursday off, so a big group of us met up in Osaka the night before to see Shingo's movie, NINxNIN Ninja Hattori-kun! It was HILARIOUS, as expected. Afterwards, all but one of our little posse wandered off to do all-night karaoke, at which I took the following pictures. In the second two, Alyson is doing her famous rendition of Ayaya's "Ne~". The group shots show Alyson's old speaking partners Misako, Yuuko, and Megumi, lj friend Dani and her Gaidai friend Amy, Alyson, and Yuuki, a friend from our Gaidai days.



I don't really remember what order a lot of this stuff happened in, but another weekend, I met up with Reecie and Aaron from Whitman, and we spent some time messing around in Kyoto, and took Aaron to his first karaoke! Whee! That night, I met up with Jamie and Megan, and stayed over at Jamie's place in Ishibe, where a friendly dog followed us around for a while. And while we were walking to the train station, we saw a crawfish in the gutter! Apparently that's not so rare here, but I thought it was cool.



For the first time since Gaidai, I got to see my host mom! She took to me Eigamura in Kyoto, a fake Edo-style town created for movie and tv sets. The haunted house was terrifying!! There are photos here of some random Inu-Yasha cosplayers, a maccha snack we shared, and a guy dressed as a Shinsengumi for tourists to pose with. I love the placid looking pond, especially when a random godzilla-ish thing pops out. Which of those two pictures is more stereotypically Japanese?



Cooking at home! These pictures are from two different days: Jujin helping me make dinner, and me eating some chahan Kouichi made.



Wakana took me to an amazing shop in Kyoto that specializes in maccha parfaits. She said she doesn't go there often 'cause it's really famous, in all the guidebooks, and therefore usually way too crowded. It was a bit spendy, but sooooooo good!!



A day on the town with Alyson and the twins = fun! We hit up a lot of our favorite places in Osaka, and I insisted on stopping in at what is clearly the best chain store ever, Shop 99. Another shop had a little stuffed tanuki mascot. Oh, and everybody loves parfaits. No day is complete without karaoke, but after that we were pretty wiped out, and crashed at my place.



Here's one of the rapidly growing kittens that live at the station:



Next came a weekend in Himeji with Alyson. She showed me an awesome coffee shop, and then we wandered around shopping for hours, before crashing with chuhai, magazines, and Nurseman in a surprisingly affordable hotel. The next day we got lunch before heading home.



Another weekend, we went to Nanba and ate rare and exotic Mexican food! CHEEEEEESE!



Wakana organized a Whitman get-together! A ton of people with some relation to Whitman College met in Kyoto: Eriko, from Doushisha, who studied abroad at Whitman last year; Inoue Sensei, who taught me third-year Japanese during his visiting professorship at Whitman; Toyoda Sensei, who taught pottery at Whitman last year; Toyoda Sensei's wife; Kerry, Rosa, Dylan and Aaron, all current Whitman juniors studying at Doushisha; me (a Whitman grad, in case you don't know); Yamada Sensei, who taught me fourth year independent study Japanese; and Wakana, who was the native speaker at Whitman's Tekisuijuku for two years. We walked along the river for a while, and had dinner at a nice izakaya.



Yoshie, a JTE who has helped me out a ton since I got here this year, throws frequent parties, usually mostly attended by English teachers. At the last one, I got to meet Tamao's son. Tamao is my translator, and like every else, it seems, Yoshie's friend. Yuuta is two years old, positively adorable, and can answer simple questions in English!



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