3 more days?!?!?!?

Craziness, this trip is almost over!

On Monday, my presentation went well enough. I talked about being kicked out of the pachinko parlor in kyoto. After class, we decided to splurge for lunch and had wonderful 焼肉 (grilled meat). There are some restaurants with a grill in the middle of the table, and you are given raw meat that has been marinated. You cook it for yourself on the grill and eat it with rice (of course). It was amazing! So yummy! It was the most expensive meal I've bought for myself since being here at 1150 yen (11 dollars), but it was so good. Now, I want to go there again before I leave . . . shame on me!

Afterwards, we had the afternoon off, so I went to try and figure out how to send my large suitecase to the airport. Japan has a luggage delivery service all over the country, with terminals at every combini (convenience store - every block). I went to ask whether i could send my luggage from the nearest combini to my airport. I called it Nagoya airport and they said no.

Then I had to go talk to the teachers to see what they could do. They said they would announce on Tuesday in class, and they did. I got my 28 kilo (over 60 pound) large suitecase sent out this morning with little to no trouble. I just hope it's at the airport when i need it. It's Japan so they should be efficient and they have 3 days so it should be fine.

Afterwards, I helped with preparing for the party that the other American students are putting on for the SGE Japanese students and our professors. We decorated 3 different rooms, made 70 servings worth of spaghetti and had signs up for people to sign. We also had Dance Dance Revolution in one of the rooms to play, and we were able to get all of the sensei's to do it. It was great! Making that much spaghetti in our little kitches went much better than expected, and everyone seemes to get yummy spaghetti.

Afterwards, my roommate had an asthma attack, which was the scariest looking thing I have every seen. I now have a renewed respect for anyone who lives with asthma because that looked like the scaries thing to go through. She really didn't want to go to the hospital, and then when they suggested it, she got even more scared which made the asthma worse. They ended up going to the hospital and walking around there but not going in because she was finally getting better by that point.

Tuesday was a culture class and the beginning of SaJeKa (Yay!). Lunch and then project class, where my partner and I made our bridge amazing. I will definitely have to put a picture up of this one. We "painted" the balsa wood with purple, pink, and green markers, and then added paper cranes on it to make it 美しい(beautiful). It's quite comical, and has been claimed as "ridiculous" by many of the Americans, but I'm always going for the most creative award (even if there isn't one), so I could care less what people think. It's beautiful in my eyes! ("If you could see her through my eyes" - Cabaret)

Afterwards, I went to see the family that owned the vet clinic again to pick up the crazy shell things. Of course they couldn't just give them to me and let me go. It had to be a big performance again. The vet was prepping for a cat castration at the time, and since my mom does this surgery all the time, I was interested to see the differences. There were quite a few differences, mostly that it took him like 15 minutes for a surgery that takes my mom maybe a minute, but alas, no worries.

Then we went upstairs to the area they live in, and had something to drink as they showed me the shells. She had put the cloth on the back of the shells I liked, and I was super happy cause it was purple. She said the material she used was very old, but I couldn't understand what it had come from. Then they gave me another shell because in Japan it is lucky to give a pair of things. They also gave me these things made to carry the cups used in tea ceremony that were made out of the grandmother's old obi (belt for kimono). The grandmother is so crafty and kind.

Then they decided to give me some watermelon as well, which is always a treat in Japan. Yuminess! We talked for a couple of hours or so, and then it was time for me to head back to find my peeps for dinner. We got some oyakodon at Itadakimasu and it was yummy.

We couldn't make a decision where to go, so we ended up playing a few games of hearts in my room and listening to Rent. Oh, how someone in our group needs to learn how to make a decision. We still want to do karaoke again, but we had trouble getting enough energy to go and do it last night because you have to ride the bike there and such, and we didn't really know how to get there either so it would make it real interesting.

This morning, I woke up and sent out my super heavy suitecase! Yay! I'm free of it! I feel 60 pounds lighter (not really).

I miss you all! 3 nights of futon left and then a bed! Hehe.

Oh, happy birthday Matt (if you even read this)!