As you may (or may not) know my birthday is June 9th and this year I turned 24! Which is actually not cool because here I am 24 and still in college when my mom & dad were both out of school, married, and having me! So depressing. But oh well. :P
Actually I was a bit worried about my birthday here in Japan. Originally I was planning on going to Tokyo Disney with my friend Jenna but then one of our teachers (drat you Prof. Clymer!) decided to hold our big presentations on my birthday so we couldn't skip class. That made me sad because not only would I not be able to go to Disney but I was also worried that I wouldn't have a good b-day because everyone (myself included) would be worn out from the presentations and not want to do anything. Then the week before my birthday Prof. Clymer announce that he would be pushing back the presentations by a week. So my b-day was free, but it was too late to get tickets for Tokyo Disney. ::cries:: Oh well. At least now I've got a reason to come back to Japan someday.
So instead we decided to go out for sushi on my birthday instead. We invited a lot of people but some of the guys had sports practice and Young Eun and Bonglim were celebrating with Jin Mo because his birthday was also on the 9th. Actually there were 5 people who had a birthday in June, 4 of them the same week as me! Miku's birthday was on the 10th and Yuusuke's was on the 13th. So we were having a group b-day party on the 14th. :)
Karolina (who had broken her foot by now) couldn't come so it ended up just being Jenna, Natasha, and I. But I think we had a lot of fun! We went out and stuffed ourselves on sushi and then wandered around the downtown area. We went over to the canal and took some pictures and then when we went back up to the dorm we happened upon the end of Jin Mo's birthday party with cake and watermelon.
So we got invited in and Bonglim had to take about 40 billion pictures and then we got to eat some watermelon and I got gifts! I was totally not expecting any but I got a really nice paperweight from An that looks like a sea wave complete with air bubbles and a tin of strawberry tea from the 'Afternoon Tea' store from Young Eun. (I love that store!).
The group party started that Saturday, the 14th. It was much better than I thought it'd be. The guys had set up a bar area with woven straw mats to make a table wrap around and had the dish cabinet full of drinks they could pass out. And this time they made everybody pay for nomihodai (all you can drink) because usually a lot of the Japanese students just show up without bringing anything, drink it all up and leave. Which is moochy and rude actually and probably explains our barbeque parties. :P
I got a coffee mug from Hiroki that had Hello Kitty on it and it was the birthday mug (wrong date, he got the 14th) which was cool because it was a good comemeration of the event! And I got some really nice honey and mud soaps from New Zealand from Natasha. I haven't tried them out yet but they smelled wonderful.
But best of all there was CAKE!!!! Which is like really expensive in Japan but I guess all the guys in the dorm chipped in 500 yen and we ended up with three cakes. A chocolate one with white cream in the middle, a white cake with fruit and whipped cream frosting, and a new york style cheesecake. I have to say I will really miss the delicious cakes they sell here in Japan. They make them like wedding cake bakeries you know? Everything has to look perfect and taste delicious and there's always at least one bakery that makes them every 1/2 mile or something. When I get back to the US and the crappy sheet cake culture I shall cry.
Anywho lots of fun ensued and lots of silly pics were taken (which have been interspersed througout this entry) and then at 12:00 when all normal people are heading to bed and the school security guard was making his rounds through our building we headed out to karaoke. Karaoke is very different in Japan than it is in the US. For one thing in the US there is usually just one machine, and it's set up in the middle of the room and everybody has to watch you sing. In Japan you get a private room for you & your friends with couches, tables, etc. And you can basically order anything you want to eat or drink while you're singing. Also karaoke places are usually open really late until at least 3 but more often until 4 or 5 am. So a lot of people that miss their last trains for the night will camp out in the karaoke place until trains start back up at 5 and then head home to change clothes.
When I managed to get back from Karaoke (directing a very tipsy Jenna) it was like 3:00 am and I was exhausted! Thankfully I had nowhere to go the next day. It was a really interesting birthday but I found myself enjoying it in spite of myself. I know I have this extreme pessimistic tendency but sometimes things work out anyway you know? :P
Oh! And I want to thank everybody for the birthday cards that I was given, all the gifts, and thank you especially to Amanda for her gift. I really like this necklace because it's got pink running through the stones and it goes with the bracelet Doris gave me. :)
Next post should be about the school festival. I think. But anyway enjoy my b-day pictures! :)
