good times, food friends, and a new place

It`s been a while since i`ve written and so much has happend. Lets see if i can give a summery of everything without typing for ever and a half.

Lets see. First about my classes. I`m currently taking 7 Japanese language classes, 1 culture class and 1 english literature class (seriously it was the only thing that fit into my schedule and i had an hour to find 1 more credit). I don`t have class on fridays which means i always have at least a 3 day weekend to explore. Thursdays are pretty tough having 4 classes that are an hour and a half a piece. ouch. Classes are fun and i`m meeting alot of new fun people. Oddly enough the people I have been hanging out with are Japanese, not the exchange students (well other than kk). I hear japanese being spoken alot and I would like to think my listening is improving, I need to make a bigger attempt to speak in japanese instead of always falling back on English. I will try.

So other than classes KK and I have been wandering around Kumamoto trying to figure things out. That became alot easier when Jamie came down to visit for the long weekend. He arrived on Friday night and we ate with his friends Taiyo and Ichinose (who are amazing). After that we returned to our apartment and ended up laughing till super later. We woke up and surprised Mao (who was supposed to meet kk and I to hang out but had no idea Jamie was there). what followed was an amazing day:
- used kimono sale- jamie, kk, yudai, mao, and yuka all went and looked at old kimonos. unfortunatly i`m too but for japan so all the sleeves were short haha. I`m going to look at a few other places while im here.
- Went downtown and ate ramen (oh god kumamoto ramen is the best), then we ate mr donut, after that we just hung out for a while untill we went to kumamotojou (the castle) to see what was going on. Mao told us that they were lighting things in the moat and we wanted to find out what it was all about. Turns out to be the autumn festival or something (i`ll double check and update). It was amazing. we walked around for a while, ate some pork and horse (yeah i said it, horse) had some delicious smoothies with the giant tapioca balls, then laughed hysterically when the kumamoto castle mascot (a giant inflatable castle costume) came onstage and was danging and jumping and singing. After that we met back up with Taiyo and Ichinose and went to to "free time". That basically means we did karaoke till super late for not very much money haha. so much fun.

Next day we met up with Aiko and went to suisenji park. Walked around there, took a billion pictures then went back downtown to meet more people. Later that night we went to a Yakinikku place which turned out to not only be all you can eat, but also all you can drink for only 2000￥ (about $20 for 2 hours)...well for the girls mwahaha. it was so much fun, everyone got along so well and we all just enjoyed each others company.

Monday came and we had to say goodbye to Jamie. It was sad but I know he`s coming back for christmas so thats good. I made alot of good friends this weekend and I`m excited to continue hanging out with them.

Today its back to school, but fond memories were made. Jamie showed us alot of neat tricks around kumamoto that will come in handy (i need to buy a bike! kk won one but i didnt. boo) It was also really cool to hear stories about Jamie and his time here and to realize how much fun and how good it is for your japanese (once again i need to speak more japanese!)

Thats all for now but i finally got wifi working on my laptop so while I`m on campus I can finally upload pictures. yes! so i`ll post some and a link to my photobucket.