First off my group for Japanese Affairs visited Kitaichi Glass Factory here in Otaru. There are several glass factories in Otaru, one of which makes nothing but glass beads, another of which also makes glass beads (and you can make your own individual one!) but they also make some other simple glass works. The Kitaichi glass factory mainly makes such things as glass dishes, vases, lamp shades, and other high quality handmade glass products. It was actually a pretty cool tour & then we went and visited their 'outlet' store where they sell most of the products. So many different versions of each product, some with lots of etch work, some with hardly any, some looked like pressed glass, and others had an irridescent sheen to them. Very cool stuff you know? And personally I think our presentation was the best of all three of the glass factories. But that's just me you know?
I've also been doing a lot of christmas shopping around here in Otaru, trying to get gifts for friends and people that I know would like something from Japan. I've probably forgotten people though, I have that niggling feeling in the back of my brain. I guess I need to go pick up a couple of 'emergency gifts' just in case. Lol.
Over Thanksgiving I was given the opportunity to call my family even though the connection kept cutting out. I was glad to hear that everyone was doing well for the holiday & that nobody was eating alone or anything like that. The 3 Americans, Ren, Jenna, and myself got invited to spend friday with HOMAS a group that is interested in english language exchange and has a twice yearly party, this year they were having a 'Thanksgiving' Party and we got to go to it. It was at a very nice restuarant in Sapporo called Mimosa and the food was good, however it was all japanese food so I was still a bit homesick for traditional turkey & pie.
The following weekend I was invited to An-chan's (henceforth known as jin-chan) Mandolin concert recital. It was very good, but I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of the actual concert because they told us not to take any and I haven't been able to steal any from Barney just yet. Haha. So I'll try to edit this entry and post some up when I get them. I do have a few of before the concert for you. It was a very good performance actually, mostly mandolin's but some sort of larger mandolin was there and also a couple of cellos. Those two korean girls are very talented they draw very well and both play an instrument. In An's case it is a piano but Jin-chan's mandolin is also very beautifully played. After the concert we went to a restuarant (don't remember the name) that served Okinawa food with a couple that are friends of An & Jin-chan and who own a bar/restuarant/store thingy close to Nagasakiya. They are japanese, and looked very eclectic. So Okinawa food, I will probably not want a repeat of that. It was... really gross. They served us pig ears on top of the salad (I did try a bite it was very icky), and lots of seafood with octopus & prawn heads. I know I know I'm in Japan and most people I know who come here love the food but I just can't dive into the same way. I've always been a picky eater as a kid & it's followed me (although not quite as badly) into adulthood.
The weekend after that, which was this past weekend we celebrated 3 birthdays. Jeremy, Barney, and Arzu. Arzu has been terribly depressed about her birthday because she is 27 now and she feels too old to be in Japan having fun with us. She showed up at my room friday night and we had a nice talk & then Alex came up to talk to her about their school project, then went back downstairs where he and his seminar group were getting drunk in the lounge. About 15 minutes after he left he phoned back up to my room and wanted to come back up to see Arzu. I said ok, but when he arrived he had like 10 people with him, they pushed into my room and kidnapped Arzu!!! She was literally carried outside by Alex & Eagle and thrown into the snow and rolled around in it. Afterwards there was a small snowball fight & we headed back inside. In the lobby of the building everyone was joking around and Arzu said 'yeah that's fun, it's do it again' and Eagle picked her up, took her back outside and dumped her in the snow again.
It was soooo funny. She told us to just leave her there for death to take her away, it was hilarious. After that time we all went back to the lounge and talked and hung out. Saturday was the big party day, I had gone friday afternoon with Seghir & Pierre to buy decorations for the party so we had to then set everything up in the lounge that evening before everybody got there. We even had a Gaijin Ranger photo shoot because Pierre had bought the masks for his japanese affairs group and we were testing them out.
Needless to say the party was a hit! We had about 35 people show up about 20 of them were japanese students that shared seminars or whatever with the guys & Arzu. :) Lots of fun stuff going on and Karolina had made weird cakes using a dutch oven that Mao supplied her. The cakes tasted good, the frosting was a little runny (maybe on purpose?) but the concept of how they were made has thrown me. Afterwards everybody who was left (about 20 people) went down to the local Karaoke place near the canal. We ended up in two different rooms to start out with and let me tell you Alex & Eagle cannot sing. Like, at all. And all they wanted to sing were heavy metal band music which just made the whole experience worse. Lol. On the upside Saori and Kosuke can sing & really quite good! Then about an hour later we got to go into the big party room where we could all be together and it just got more fun after that because there we were, 20 people all singing Mariah Carey's "All I want for christmas is you" at the top of our lungs. Lol.
We got home at about 3:00 am which is painful. Trust me, very painful, I went to bed straight away but everybody who was left (8 people) went back into the lounge and stayed up until about 6:00 am. Then Saori, Arzu, and myself got up around 11:00/12:00 ish and took the train to Sapporo so that Arzu and I could do some more christmas shopping. I'm almost done I swear! Like 2 people left to buy for. Lol. Anyway we ended up staying long enough for it to get dark and then we got to see Sapporo's Winter Illumination (not to be confused with their snow festival) in Oodori Park, right outside of the TV Tower. Those of you getting Christmas cards from me this year will probably recognize some of the pics from here. Lol. After that we headed home to REST. And basically I've been doing nothing since then but counting the days till CHRISTMAS!!!!
UPDATE: Check out my webshots account for more japan photos. I just uploaded more yesterday. :)
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