Monday, November 2, 2009

Long Weekend!!

This past Friday school classes were cancelled by Oita-U for what reason? Matsuri!!!

A three day school festival that is. To take part in it, we Americans decided to sell three things we thought may be unique to the American culture but simple and tasty enough for the everyone else to enjoy. We sold hot dogs, grilled cheese and of course PB&J sandwiches! Day one, Friday was fairly interesting with several booths selling popular food known to be from the Oita region. The main attraction *caugh* er event actuall was the Mr.レーヂィーコンテスト。(Mr. Ladycontest) Yes, thats right, it was something you would only find here in Japan. A bunch of guys on stage dressed up as girls preforming dance like girls in some sort of Jpop music video. A part of me was kinda freaked out, but entertained by the whole thing.


The next night, Saturday was a different story. For most of us ryugakusei, October 31 meant something else. Halloween Party! We went to a venue downtown that might as well have had every foreigner in Oita perfecture. The music was live and loud, the room was crowded, and it was all you can drink. The party was crazy, American style! It was cool to, meeting people in person whos blogs I had followed just a month before. Kinda like "I know you... but not really."






This was probably one of the most interesting Halloween parties ive ever been to. Theres nothing like getting together with so many people from different places all knowing you have the same challenges being in Japan. As fun as it was, we still had to get up and be at school by 8:30 am the next day to introduce the world (Oita Daigaku) to American food.



The majority of the day was bad weather. Rainy and windy, it was probably the worst conditions for the one day we had to work a booth. And of course I had a hole in both of my shoes which got soaked like never before. Soaked shoes and socks are not cool. It was a crazy day but we got through it and got the opportunity to see people try PB&J and grilled cheese sandwiches for the first time. Their experiences were definitely worth it. After breaking even with what we spent to buy the stuff, we started cooking some food for ourselves and in the midst of it all, we created a new monster. Viola, the grilled PB&J sandwich!! Which basically got everyone in the booths next to us coming over to try a bite.

After three days of events, and a fourth ending in kickboxing practice, im ready to enjoy tomorrows "Culture Day." For the first time ever I will go to an onsen! (hot spring)

ps. no matsuri can be complete without some sort of sumo wrestling!!


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