Sendai! -Not finished, I will post a video once I figure how to shorten it-

On the 27th I went to a neighboring city (Sendai) in another prefecture with 2 friends from AIU (the college I am studying at). We stayed for 2 nights and 3 days, and it was a lot of fun! I got to see a friend who lives in Sendai the first 2 days, I know her because she studied abroad at Ursinus last year! The first night we met up at the train station and walked around the city a little- and after being in the country for so long, this city felt like NYC! I was so happy to be in a city again it was rather silly! We met up with Yuki and her friend and went out for Okonomiyaki and wandered the streets some, seeing a small 'festival' and wandering around the Bar district of Sendai.

In short, my trip to Sendai was awesome! I got to see one of the 3 most scenic sites in Japan; Miyajima! It is a bay with hundreds of small islands with trees and all sorts of beautiful greenery growing on them! I also got to sleep in an Internet Cafe! It was super exciting, we had our own room and unlimited drinks and ice cream! It was awesome- and 12hrs cost 2,400 yen- around 30$! A pretty cheap 1 night stay!

Christmas in Japan!

Okay, before we go any further, I must introduce you to one of my favorite videos on Youtube: Please Watch before reading the rest.   Annnnnd, an explanation of the lyrics can be found here .


Anyways, I spent Christmas Eve with some friends. I helped organize a potluck lunch where people were supposed to bring dished that they always have at Christmas, but not everyone did that. For example, 2 of my Japanese friends made Takoyaki. (Yay Wikipedia for following through!) [which is a snack and not traditional at all for Christmas. Actually, in Japan the traditional food is KFC chicken! When KFC came to Japan they said that 'all Americans eat KFC on Christmas,' so now it has become tradition and it is almost impossible to buy KFC chicken on Christmas! You have to reserve it in advance!!]
And an American friend of mine bought some frozen pizzas and we cooked those, but I made Sardines and pasta which is the only time I like sardines, but it a dish I always have at Christmas (Italian family and all that). And some other friends make other yummy foods such as pie and other traditional dished. All in all it turned out great.

The only problem was that the event was in the afternoon, and I had nothing to do in the evening! I skyped with my family... but besides that I was all alone in my room until a good friend of mine (who I met here and is also from the states) came up to my room and we had hot cocoa together in the cafeteria while watching weird Japanese talk shows about becoming a Santa and the like.

Christmas day was also pretty uneventful, except that it snowed! :D My first White Christmas in years!!!


All in all, for my first Christmas not surrounded by my family it was lonely but not as bad as I had thought it could have been.

An awesome weekend!

(Also- you should view this video at its Youtube page- a lot of the text and some of the pictures are cut out when it is displayed here. So just double click on the video and you should get to Youtube)

As a belated birthday present to myself (but really because I wanted to leave campus and explore), I used the money my Aunt generously gave me as a birthday present to go to Tazawako and see the lake with the same name, stay at a ryokan, and go to Kakunodate. I went on this trip with two friends Katrin (from Germany) and Megan (USA).

Lake Tazawako is the deepest lake in Japan, and I am sure it is pretty, but when we got there it started to pour rain! Not cool. So we basically stood at the beach for 10 minutes and then spent the next 40 waiting for the bus to take us up to the Ryokan we were to stay at for the night.

A Ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn- that means tatami floors, no chairs, raised beds, and slippers everywhere! It was super fun to stay at Tsuru no Yu (lit. Crane's hot water) because we went into about 5 different baths during our stay. Needless to say, we smelt pretty sulfur-y afterwords. However, the most magical thing about this trip was that it snowed! I got to enter an onsen (hot spring bath) while snow was falling. It was so wonderful!!!!!! While waiting for the bus to get us back to the bus stop we all went on a little exploration, and boy was it pretty!

We then went to Kakunodate, which is a town famous for all its old Samurai Houses... but since we went on a Sunday, a lot of the houses were closed (they are run by families who live in the houses). But it was still cool, I look forward to visiting it again in the Spring.