Saturday, November 6, 2010

Shank and Hey Smith? Why not.

Today was super fun!  Mie University, which is right across the street from the Center, had their festival today.  It was way bigger and more exciting than I expected!  The walkways were lined with stalls where students from various clubs were selling food, mostly.  Lots and lots of really awesome food.  Most of the booths were decorated, and club members tried to convince you to try their food.  It was pretty great when people kept trying to talk to us in broken English, thinking we didn't understand Japanese.  Like this one guy who was telling us to try his club's takoyaki, except he was like, "Octopusu boru!  Japaneezu heritage!", trying to explain what it was, haha.  At one point he pointed to his shirt, trying to tell us that it said takoyaki.  Becky called him out by saying that it didn't, and he was like, "Ehhhh?!" when he realized we knew Japanese.  The whole episode was pretty hilarious.  There were also a couple of girls, one dressed as Rilakkuma, who came running after me as I passed by their churro booth (I had no idea churros were popular in Japan but there were SO MANY BOOTHS selling them), and asked me in English if I like churros, and would I come to their booth.  When I agreed to come back later, and then when I did come to get my churro, they were super happy.  It was adorable!  There were other similar incidents, haha.  Oh Japanese people, trying to speak English...  And this booth was pretty hilarious too.  (Ignore how terrible I look in this picture.  >_>)

Becky figured out that it's a literal translation of the food I'm holding there: taiyaki.  For the record, it was delicious.

It was way more packed with people than I would have expected at a school festival.  This isn't the best picture, but it can kind of give an idea of what it looked like:


It was a really fun atmosphere overall.  And I ate a lot of different things, since everything was like only a couple of dollars.  Let's see if I can remember everything I had...  Takoyaki (for the first time!), agepan, taiyaki, grape Fanta, croquette, apple juice, okonomiyaki, Calpis, and a churro, in that order, I think.  (In my defense, the portions were small, okay, and this was all throughout the day.  DON'T JUDGE ME.)  I didn't think to take pictures of most of my food, but I did take a picture of my okonomiyaki.  I was super excited to find it!  Yay for living in Kansai~



Anyway, I did do other things besides eat.  Nao-chan, who lives on the third floor of the Center in the dorms, is in a jazz band, so we went to go watch them play.  They were really good!


And right after that we went to see Julia (sp?), an exchange student from Germany who I met last night at the movie night, sing in her choir.  Most of the songs were a capella, and it totally made me miss singing in a choir.  We got there late though, so we were all the way in the back, sitting on the floor.  I couldn't believe how packed it was!  



The other highlight for me was after Carol and Becky both left to take care of other things, so I was on my own.  After hearing one of the bands warming up, I decided that I wanted to stay for the concert that started at 5.  There were two bands, Shank, which was a punk band, and Hey Smith, which was ska.  So yeah, totally right up my alley, music-wise.  I'd never heard of either of them before, but I liked them both a lot!  But man, it was crazy.  A mosh pit broke out like five seconds after the first concert started and only increased in size and intensity as the concert went on.  There was quite a bit of crowdsurfing and such going on, and it was kinda fun to watch them all, but I decided that, in order to not get injured, I'd stay off to the side with the sane people.  Anyway, that whole experience was super fun.  Here, have a bad picture of Shank:


And also, for today's Engrish, have the back of a sweatshirt of a guy at the concert.

Yeah, I don't know either.

After the concert, I headed back to the Center, and I sat in one of Becky's classes with a girl who's a student at the university.  After that, Carol, Becky and I practiced the song we're going to be singing at the church in Kyoto tomorrow.  I'm playing guitar, and I think I'm managing okay, considering I haven't played in quite a while, haha.

Anyway, I really should head to bed, since I have to get up early tomorrow to go to Kyoto!  I probably won't  be online again until Monday night, so I'll most likely make one big post about my trip to Kyoto.  :D

4 comments:

  1. i do believe i want that sweatshirt xD

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  2. ps...did you know you spelt "english" incorrectly as "engrish" ??
    just checking

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  3. Haha, Stef, I definitely spelled it as Engrish on purpose... When in doubt, you can assume my misspellings are intentional. I like to use Internet slang and stuff a lot.

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  4. i thought it was probably something like that...lol

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