Of Karaoke and Mt. Fuji

Nice blog title, yes? Very Japan-esque.

So it's been a week since I updated this thing! Wow! A lot has happened really. Last Wednesday we had our karaoke outing for Evil's birthday (and Mos Burger for lunch). Lots of fun. I had a video I wanted to stick up here, but Blogger hates my videos :( That's really not nice to all the people that read this blog! Oh well. I have some normal pictures. The first picture is Jeff, our token guy. This is actually the least creepy picture of him I think anyone has managed to take...usually he makes strange faces... And with Jeff is the star of the day, Laura. Next is Sarah grooving to the music in our underwater themed karaoke room. And the last picture is Rachel singing very dramatically. She was really actually very good at playing everything up. Incredibly entertaining.

Thursday was class. Apparently nothing else that day as I can't remember anything happening then. Friday, we had a program meeting at which we signed cards. One of our number had an abscess in her spine that had to be operated on: she's fine now. So there was that get well card. And more seriously even than that, Michiyo, our go to person who basically runs the Japan Study show here on the Tokyo side had a huge tragedy befall her. Her husband, a famous mountain climber here in Japan, died in a accident while climbing Mt. Everest. So there was a card for that. Not a happy meeting really.

Later Friday, I went to Shibuya with Laura, Jeff, Rachel, another Rachel, and another Laura (the other Rachel and Laura are not from our program, we met them in various classes at Waseda). There we bought cds, ate burgers and crepes, and tried to find someplace to play DDR.

And then there was the weekend. Yesterday was a national holiday here (Health-Sports day) so there was no class. Mami took me to her older sister's house in a town whose name I do not remember (something Atami, maybe?), but it was not Tokyo :P We took the Shinkansen which was pretty awesome (yes, they are insanely fast). And from the balcony at Mami's sister's one can see Mt. Fuji on a clear day (not well, but it's definitely there!). We did lots of going to playgrounds with the kids (Su-chan, Michi, and Ko-chan, all boys). Ko-chan was super adorable (Mom would love him, big, fat cheeks), but he cried if I looked at him too much. Must be my weird green eyes :P

We also ate TONS of sushi at this place with the conveyor belts. It was really cheap too (so we went twice). Seriously, us three adults and the three kids all ate for under 3,000en each time (3,000en is about $30). Here in Tokyo, sushi is really expensive so it was awesome to be able to eat like a pig.

And now you are all wondering where the pictures are. Sorry, I overslept Saturday morning and had to rush to get ready, so what did I forget? My camera. Mami took some pictures though so I'm going to see if she'll email them to me when she gets them on her computer. It might take a while though. Sorry guys.

The last big news is that I finally met my host dad last night. He was here when Mami, Su-chan, and I got back from Mami's sister's. We all went to curry together for dinner (Mami still doesn't quite believe me when I tell her that spicy foods are just fine with me, really). Anyway, my host dad is actually really tall, a few inches taller than me (about your height Dad). So I suppose I should qualify that with "for a Japanese man". Seriously, I feel tall almost constantly here.

Anyway, that's the news. There's probably more, but this post is incredibly long already so I'll leave it there.