Day 234 { ALT Party / International Villa } - Saturday, November 8, 2008

Day 234 { ALT Party / Ushimado International Villa }

Hey Happy Birthday mi cousin ...

So today was one of the days in Japan when I had the most fun. The first order of the day was an ALT's birthday get together both at his apartment and at a park nearby our apartment complex, which started at 3pm. the ALT is a very genki fellow and so he had some interesting activities planned for us on his pre-birthday get together. He had this today because his birthday will be in the week, so he decided to have this thing he dubbed "[ALT's name] birthday Olympics" today on a Saturday. So a bunch of us ALTs first met up at his apartment then headed out to the park.

First we played this game of marshmallow toss, where your teammate would try to throw a marshmallows in your mouth... If successful, then your prize will be some food from the birthday ALT... He is the chef around here so everybody likes his food. .... Unfortunately, none of the teams won in this game... The second game was to swing on this thingy and try to kick your shoes through a little pathway, stairs thing... If successful, then more food... Myself as well as a few other persons weren't so fortunate in this game at all...The third game was to blow up some balloons really big, let them go in the air then try to catch them back...I don't know what he had in mind but these balloons looked a little strange ??? I actually caught one so hoorayy, food for me... After this, we went back to his apartment and we were split in 2 teams of 5 persons each. We did a little quiz thingy but I couldn't stay for the entire time because I had to head for Okayama City to meet up with my Japanese, translator friend, as well as some of her friends, for us to stay at an international villa place name Ushimado International Villa...

So of course I had to rush to the train station while my car was overheating (what a time for this to happen)... But I didn't stop to think about it and I eventually caught the train about 5 minutes before it drove off... Hey that's not too bad when compared to my 30 second encounters. Of course, on the train I have to keep myself occupied by practicing my Japanese with the girls on the train :) ... So I saw a group of 4 girls...and of course they were staring at me for obvious reasons ... So I decided to introduce myself and then ask them their names etc... These same questions always come back to me like:

Where am I from?
When did I come to Japan?
Why did I choose Japan?
My age etc...

I then decided to do a quick, crash course in English...So I pointed at my elbow and asked them what is it in English... The other girls were lost as to what it was, but 1 girl said "Elbow" and suddenly everyone remembered and said "So nanjya" ... in other words "Oh yes that's right" OR "Is that so.." ... Then I pointed at my dimple and asked them what it was... And there was silence...all of them looking at each other confused...Then one girl said "Face.....(brief pause)......hole" ... And the 5 of us erupted in laughter...I could not stop laughing for a good minute......Anyway, eventually I got to Okayama City then I had to rush on to another train to go to a place in Okayama called Saidaiji... 

This was where I met my friend and her other friend who picked me up and dropped me off at the Ushimado Villa... There were about 8 of us there and we introduced ourselves. Most of these persons travelled to other countries before and knew another language outside of Japanese and English... Most of them are also studying Spanish probably once or twice a month......

We ate some Spanish food and chatted, did some exercise routine stuff mixed with some sort of dancing.

Then went to bed... These people were really wonderful...