AFS BBQ and Hanging out in Kanazawa

I have been in Japan a little more than a month now! Time has gone by so fast, but it also feels like I have been here forever.

Today was a holiday, so we had a kind of welcome BBQ with everyone from AFS. It was in a park outside of the main city. It was soo beautiful! All the green, and being able to see the mountains!

Unfortunately, my camera died, so I didn’t get very many pictures. My cell phone (pics of phone here) camera is only 1.3 megapixels so the pics would suck... plus I'm not sure if there is a way to get them on to my computer. Also, it was pretty cold and windy, but it was still a lot of fun hanging out with everyone. We had yakisoba for lunch. Yakisoba seems like what you have at every BBQ. You have a big pan thing over the fire, and then grill the vegetables and meat and soba (noodles) and mix it all up. So tasty!

I met one of the Rotary exchange students from Canada at my Japanese Lessons, and so after the BBQ, us 3 AFSers met up with him and two other ppl from rotary (a girl from Canada, and a guy from the US). Since they have been here since last August, they showed us around Kanazawa. We went and did purikura! I finally got to go! Purikura is like a photo booth, except so much better. You take pictures, and can have the backgrounds and then afterwards, you write/decorate the pictures.

Afterwards, the Rotary girl left and the rest of us went and did karaoke for about 3 hours. It was a lot of fun. We sang everything from Jpop to hardcore rap to Circle of Life and Barbie Girl XD.

We had okonomiyaki for supper. Sooo delicious! I think it is my favourite food in Japan, tied with Curry Rice XD. It is kinda like a pancake pizza thing. You get all the ingredients in a bowl which are the batter, shredded cabbage, egg and some other vegetables. You also get some kind of meat you grill first, and then stick in to the batter. I had shrimp. You mix everything yourself, and then stick on the grill to cook, and flip it once. After there are different sauces and spices you can put on top. It tastes really good with mayonnaise :D. I love Japanese mayonnaise! It tastes so much better than the stuff in N. America.

The AFS girl left right after, and the rest of us walked around a bit before we went our separate ways. Kanazawa is quite a lively city. I unfortunately missed the last bus home, and was going to walk (only about 15 mins) but my host mom came and picked me up instead. I felt bad that she had to come and get me… but everything turned out all right.

Everyone at school is busy with clubs, so they can't really hang out. It was great to finally be able to go out and hang out with friends.

Hopefully I can hang out with everyone again soon, it was a lot of fun!