Good Times, Good Fun

I’ve been working hard lately, but I’ve also been (trying) to play hard (for me). On Wednesday, I skipped class to take a trip to Nara. It was an excused absence for foreign students, so it wasn’t terribly rebellious, but I was still excited about it. Nara was beautiful, and I finally got to see some mountains and rice paddies as our tour bus drove through the countryside.

Nara was the capital of Japan from the year 710 to 784, and it has a big park with lots of shrines and temples. The main purpose for the trip was to see Todaiji Temple (東大寺 “Great Eastern Temple”) which houses the Daibutsu ( 大仏　“Great Buddha”). It is a HUGE statue of Buddha.

Nara Park (奈良公園) was lovely, and the weather was perfect. The Japanese even have a word for nice Autumn weather: akibare (秋晴れ), so there’s your language lesson for the day. An interesting thing about Nara Park is that it is home to many tame deer that wander around being friendly and using their cuteness to get food from the human visitors.

In Shinto, deer are believed to be messengers of the gods. These deer are very important to Nara, and they have become an icon of the city. There are many deer-themed souvenirs, and even the city’s mascot sports a fancy set of antlers.

In other news, Halloween was this week. Japan doesn’t really celebrate Halloween…actually, it seems that the U.S. is pretty much the only country that does. It is starting to catch on, though, and we had a few costume parties this week. I made myself a pretty sweet flamingo mask with things I bought at the 100yen shop.

The parties didn’t seem to go quite as I expected them to. The first party was on Monday, and was actually just people wearing costumes, eating cookies, and playing bingo for an hour and a half. The party was only from 7pm to 9pm, and most of us agreed that we should spend more than 2 hours in the costumes everyone went to the trouble to obtain, so we grabbed some drinks from the convenience store and headed to the other dorm where there was hanging out, ping pong, and overall good times.

The second party was on Friday, and was supposed to be more of (what the Western students consider to be) a party. There was music and drinks and another chance for us to wear our costumes. At least, that’s what I heard. I didn’t actually get to see any of this because I went out to an awesome dinner first (which I will describe below), and by the time my friends and I got to the party, there was an ambulance in front of the building and everyone was leaving. Apparently, a young Mongolian had too much to drink and either fell or jumped out of the first floor window. I guess young people making bad life decisions is a universal phenomenon. From what I hear, he is ok, but had to be hospitalized because of his injuries. We were really disappointed, and thought it was an early and abrupt end to an otherwise awesome night, so, once again, we grabbed some drinks from the convenience store and headed to the other dorm where there was hanging out, ping pong, and overall good times.

So, about that awesome dinner. Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) is something everyone should try. It is a life-changing experience. “Okonomi” means “preference” or “as you like it”, and “yaki” is “fried” or “grilled”. You can make it yourself or have the pros do it for you. Here’s how it works:

Receive ingredients.

Mix.

Grill.

Put on the toppings: sauce, dried fish, seaweed, and mayo

Nom!

It’s a great social activity. As much fun to make as it is to eat!

Also, on the way to and from dinner, we got to ride in car! They drive on the left side of the road here, so everything feels backwards and wrong. My friends let me ride shotgun, and I immediately tried to get into the driver’s seat because that would be the passenger’s seat in the U.S. For such a mundane activity, I found it incredibly entertaining.

But wait! There’s more! On Saturday night we went out for dinner and karaoke to celebrate the birthday of our French friend, Delphine. We had a huge group, and Japanese restaurants are small, so we had to split up and go to different restaurants. I went to a place called Sukiya that is a type of Japanese fast-food chain. The food was cheap, but delicious. I went with a dish called gyuudon (牛丼), which is beef on rice. Very yummy.

Then it was karaoke time! Japanese karaoke is far superior to American karaoke. You get your own room, so you’re only singing with your friends. Plus, there’s unlimited soft drinks and ice cream! You can also pay extra for unlimited alcoholic drinks, too. 

Getting into karaoke was a little challenging since we’re very unorganized, but once we got settled into a room we took turns picking songs, and sang most of them together. I’ve learned that songs in English are pretty popular around the world. On the other hand, whenever people got shy, I had to sing all of the songs. “You’re American, so you should know all the words, right?”… it’s a good way to overcome my stagefright, I suppose.

A lot of late nights and great experiences made this an exciting week.