Halloween

Hey everybody!

So I ended up having an even bussier weekend than I originally anticipated! But I enjoyed it all the more!

Thursday and Friday nothing note-worthy happened, so let's start with Saturday. Saturday I had aikido training with the KGU university club from 10 till 12. This turned out to be quite a spectacular experience! I was given a black belt and hakama to borrow for the training, which felt pretty good :P But there was only about 7 people in the club/dress room so I was wondering where everybody else was. That question was answered when we left the room and turned the corner. A student in white gear yelled something I couldn't understand, presumably to announce our arrival. As we entered, all the students without hakama were already sitting there, bowing to us as we entered. I was instructed to enter 2nd, after the teacher, and take place next to him! :O I was shocked! :O I later found out this was because I was a guest, but it still seemed strange to me. Them during the aikitaiso (warm up), as we were practicing rolling, this is what happended: As the 1st years were rolling, the 2nd years would yell "fighto!" at the top of there lungs untill out of breath, only to draw breath and yell again and again. Then where the 2nd years rolled, the 1st years yelled. But when it was the turn of the hakama's to roll, BOTH 1st AND 2nd YEARS yelled! My ears hurst from it XD And once we actually started the training, more strange things happened. That Saturday was apparently boken (wooden sword) practice. 2 or 3 students rushed to bring me a sword, only to be told by the teacher that I would be using a medium (for us normal size) sword, rather than a big one which has a normal handle but a broader blade. And when we were finished, more students cam rushing to take the boken away again. 2 Times there was a 2 minute break to drink, in which a friend of mine brought me a drink :O He even folded my hakama for me after training! It was a highly ritualised, highly interesting training and a rather strange expeience :P

So after the training, I had an appointment at Nishinomiya Kitaguchi station at 13:00, because I was going to see "Kimi no Na ha" in the cinema! It is a Japanese anime movie and it is all the hype in Japan now! Even though the movie came to cinema a month ago, it was still almost completely sold out!!! So I went to see it with a Japanese friend, and we both enjoyed the movie so much that we decided to go see it again after our mid-term exams are over :D It is truly a beautiful movie and I hope you will get the chance to see it online or on tv sometime as well!

Then at 18:15 I met up with 2 people from my dorm and Shun form the GS-network, because we were gonna have a little Halloween get-together! We did groceries for Korean food (prepared by our Korean friend Jay) and drinking games afterwards! I went to bed around 01:00 so you can guess how much fun we had! In fact, I had so much fun that I promised Zach (who briefly dropped by that evening) that I would go to Mino with him on Sunday at 06:00 XD

So we left at 6, it was rediculously cold, but in the end it was worth it. In Mino there is a waterfall, and it is also a good place to visit when the leaves have turned red. Unfortunately, the leaves hadn't really turned yet, but it was still a gorgeous sight to behold! On the way back we had breakfast somewhere and by the time we got back to the dorm, I had a few hours left to study before my next appointment XD

My next appointment being a Halloween/birthday party in Kobe that I got invited to by some of the same people I met at the English party from last month. It was at the same bar, with good drinks, good food and some pretty good costumes as well! Unfortunately I'd had no time to go look for a costume :( But yeah, that was a great evening too! :D

So then Monday morning I had to wake up early to get to 1st period at school, during which I held a short speech about the Efteling (Everybody in my class want's to come now!). And during 2nd period I had my mid-term exam for grammar class. The students among you will probably share my feeling up absolute surprise when I got back my test with results this morning! Apparently our teacher had been grading last night till 20:00 to get it done! So a passing grade is anything from 60% and up. And I got 76,6%! :D So I'm pretty satisfied with that ^^

And now you are all back up to speed again, so that's it for now :)

Bye bye!