izakaya

Today was one of the busiest days I could possibly imagine happening in a while. Let me break it down: Catching the first day of classes, It was important to catch that 9:52 train, let alone know which train was which given all the kanji I don't know. After classes were over I spoke as much Japanese as I could to some students who were trying to teach me some Oita-ben (Oita slang). There were two parties on campus, and in one I finally had my first 10min conversation in 95% Japanese! Im not quite there and I've got a long way to go, but Oita is a beautiful place. For the first time since ive been here all week, we finally got to experience a drop in the humidity and feel some fresh air with a cool breeze. This of course made an easy walk to our first izakaya experience! With a couple of the international students from the Kaikan, we walked downtown and found a nice place to karaoke with nomihodai(all you can drink). It was an amazing experience. Topped of with a bowl of gyuniku don from yoshinoya. Thats right. Nothing better than to top of a couple of shots with a bowl of beef and rice.