Kyoto and Karaoke!

What's up everybody?
Well my first weekend in Japan has come and gone, and it was quite a fun first foray into the culture of Japan. Let's start with Friday: Friday was raining a lot, but our tour of Kyoto was still on. However my group decided that we'd be better off shopping than exploring the temples with the rain and all. This decision turned out to bite us back as we got lost in a Japanese mall for approximately 4 hours. That being said, we did have some hilarious moments, I'll enclose a photo of my friend and I for your viewing pleasure, hopefully you'll enjoy. I mean, how often will I have the opportunity to wear a kimono right? The look on my pal Greg's face is pretty priceless as well.

Then came Saturday, which started out pretty low key. I decided to go jogging around the suburbs of Japan and it was actually a lot of fun. It was a little cold, but nothing like Boston, so I actually got a pretty good workout. Moving on, the rest of the day was spent hanging out, getting groceries, etc. That is, until nighttime when we decided to round up a group to go to Karaoke. We actually bumped into a group of 4 other guys who wanted to go, and merged our groups together for a Karaoke jam session. For 2000 yen ($20.00), we were able to get two hours of uninterrupted Karaoke in our own room. Now it may sound kind of odd because it was seven guys, but trust me, it was a blast! At first we were all a little apprehensive to sing in front of each other, but as soon as everyone had tried it at least once we were all having much more fun. By the end of our two hours we were all singing along to every song, instead of just solos. We ended with the song shout, which was a really great note to end on. After karaoke, we booked it back to our houses to make curfew. It actually turned out to be an awesome Saturday night in Japan.


So in other news, classes start tomorrow. That being said, I only have Spoken Japanese, so it's a little anticlimactic to only have the one class. Actually, I'll only be taking 4 classes this semester (Japanese Cinema, Japanese Sexuality, Spoken Japanese, and Japanese Reading and Writing) so this will be considerably less than the perennial pounding I've been putting myself through at Tufts. I was actually considering going for 5 classes again this semester (mainly because I love putting myself through extra work?), but one of the professors who spoke during one of orientation briefings said that we should take 4. I mean, I only have so much time in Japan so I'd like to fully enjoy it for what it's worth. I'll be sure to check back in a few days with updates on my classes. Until then, try to console yourselves by enjoying the Super Bowl, since I'm going to have to watch it here at 8 a.m. oof. Or for fun, go pick up a copy of Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it has the short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in it and would be an excellent read. Talk to you soon!