Yikes!

Last Wednesday night was the opening of the Foundation Day celebration at Silliman University. I went to the opening of booths at one of the soccer fields with my friends, Daphnie and Ethel, and my cousin, Chary. Later that night, we went to the Boulevard, which isn't very far from my school where there was a Food and Beer Festival. They had a kick-ass band from Iloilo that was really, really good.

Last night we went to the booth festival at SU again. FYI, the booth area is filled with quite a number of native booths where people sell food and any kind of stuff. Anyways, every night there are programs at the booth area, and last night was a dance contest and a fashion show, to be preceded by a band. We got to watch the "fashion show" and it was, erm... amusing. After that, we left the booth area to go to the boulevard, but on the way, we got distracted by people preparing fireworks. It turned out there was a fireworks display at 10:00 pm. Since it was about 15 mins. before 10:00, we decided to stay about 50 meters from where the fireworks were, and waited to watch. When they were lighted, waaaaaaaaaa!!! It was ok at first, but soon, we got scared because they didn't get too high and they were exploding right over our heads. Yikes!

After that, we went to the boulevard for the Food and Beer festival, just when the band that was playing was just finishing. They weren't very good, not like the other band we witnessed, and as some people said, not unlike the band from Cebu the previous night. After the band got off the stage, another band took over, and they played techno-tribal music. Yikes! That was sooo fun... NOT!!!

The night went really worst for me, however, because my eyelids started getting puffy. In other words, I got allergies, goodness knows from what! It could have been the fish that I ate for the first time that lunch, but I thought it was because of the tree that we were sitting under last night. Oh my, they got so puffy and red like I've never seen them before, so we went home. Before, when I was growing up, my eyelids would get puffy sometimes (but never as puffy as last night), and I thought I was over that. My symptoms had changed to just sneezing. Gahhh!!! OMG, I hate this fuckin' allergy! Until now, my eyelids are still sorta puffy... *cry cry*

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Whew.

Busy, busy, busy! But thank God it's finally over now!

Annie and myself all dressed up for hanabi

My friends and I went to hanabi last Saturday. Hanabi is the summer fireworks festival in Japan. We went to the one that was held in the water near Yamashita Park. Oh my God, there were so many poeple in the Yamashita Park/Minato Mirai area. I have never seen so many people in my entire life! There's supposed to be almost 500,000 people who go to that affair every year. Now, just imagine that number!

As expected, the fireworks were amazing. However, there was this big-ass ship docked right in front of where we were staying, so we couldn't see the fireworks leave the ground. That's ok, though, we could still see them up in the sky. Nevertheless, we kept on wishing that ship would just sink. :P We all wore a yukata to the hanabi, by the way (quite a number of Japanese people do that). :)

Saturday was also when Annie's parents arrived from the States. Her mom is gonna stay for two weeks, her dad, a week. I went to Kamakura and Enoshima with them yesterday, and they are two of the nicest people I have ever met!

The Great Buddha of Kamakura

It was my first time to go to Kamakura, and it was beautiful (don't ask me, I just didn't get the chance to go in the past). For those of you who don't know, Kamakura lies about 30 minutes in the south-west of Yokohama and was an old capital of Japan. It's where a huge Bronze statue of Buddha that was built in the 13th century stands to this day, withstanding a tidal wave that destroyed a temple surrounding it in the 15th century, and the Great Kanto quake of 1923 that only destroyed its base (that has been fixed and is now designed to make the Buddha just sway in case of another strong quake). We also went to the Hase Temple in Kamukura. It was just so beautiful with its amazing gardens, and the altars were so majestic.

Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera, one of the great Buddhist temples in Kamakura

The sunset from Enoshima

After that, we went to Enoshima, a tiny rock of an island that lies south-west of Kamakura. It's connected to the main land by a long bridge. There were no beaches, but up at the top of the island, there's a shrine, and an observatory where you can see all around you. They have this sunset deck, and since we went there in the afternoon, we were able to catch the sunset at that place. What was more, just a little to the side of the sun setting was Mount Fuji. It was amazing.

Today, I had my oral exam in Japanese. We had it here at the dorm because we planned to have lunch together with our teacher, Ito Sensei. It was great having lunch with sensei. She's very nice and I'm so greatful for all the things she's done to help us with our stay here. I made adobo, April made a kinda Japanese rice, and our other classmate, a Chinese girl we call Shu-san, made a Chinese dish with eggplants. It was all good. I was so full afterwards. ^^;

And now, two weeks to go till we go home. What's next? Cleaning and packing. Ugh.

adobo - a Filipino dish cooked with meat that has been marinated in soy sauce and vinegar

yukata - summery, Japanese kimono made of cotton

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*Cry cry cry*

I am so so disappointed. =( Today was the scheduled Cherry Blossom Festival at Yokosuka Naval Base, right? Well, the weather was bad so it got canceled. The sad thing is, my partner in crime (--thanks for putting up with my lunacies, gurl) and I only knew it got canceled when we got there. So in short, we traveled for almost 1 hour and a half (one way) and paid roughly around 1000 yen (US$10; back and forth) for nothing. The fact that it was raining and cold while we were walking from the station to the base and back was not something to be happy about either. However, I'd like to thank the very kind (you're an angel) for trying to meet up with us.

When we got back to Yokohama, Annie and I roamed around because we thought that it would be a total waste to have left the dorm and just go back. We went to SOGO, and I did buy a paperback of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (I can't afford hardcovers), which was relatively cheap. Sigh. I've really been wanting to read that book, so at least that makes me feel a little bit better.

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Oh joy!

Ahehe. I'm back to blogging after a long time of... not blogging! XD

The past week has been fun, in my opinion. After almost a whole week of rain, Saturday and Sunday were sunny. And, since it's spring, cherry blossoms are now in bloom. To my surprise, there's an American Naval Service Facility (NSF) not very far from my dorm. Maybe just about a 30-40 minute walk. Back home, that distance would be from my house to the downtown area of Dumaguete, but look here now: I'm describing it as not very far. Things have certainly changed.

Well anyway, in that area called Kamiseya, there's a long stretch of street lined with cherry blossoms. Every year, the NSF which is located there holds a flower-viewing festival. I heard about this on the radio (AFN - Armed Forces Network) which I've been listening to almost 24/7 here. (Thank God for this station else I would have gone crazy with boredom!) So off we went to the festival last Saturday, and it was heaps of fun! ^^; Yay, yay, yay! (And with cute servicemen! *evil laugh*) There were booths with food for sale, some presentations, demonstrations, and the Pacific Air Force Band, which totally rocks! =)

Here are the pictures from that event:

The cherry blossoms up close. Aren't they pretty???

I love this picture! ^^; So there was a demonstration at the festival, and Annie took this picture with my camera. Look at that mouth wide open and ready to take a big chunk out! *shudder*

The cherry trees along the road.

While Annie and I were walking home, we spotted this dog in its doghouse. It was so serene that I thought it wasn't real, but it is! And look, it's even got an umbrella! LOL

Yesterday, Annie and I went back again (this time using bikes) cause we were hoping to take a picture of the trees without lots of vehicles/people around. But it turned out, there were still a lot of people in the place. I think the Japanese made it into a two-day activity. There were no more Americans around but there were still booths and people were still having picnics. This Sunday, we're planning to go to the Yokosuka Naval Base's flower viewing festival. It's a bit far this time, we need to take two trains, but it'll be even more fun, I bet!

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Money

Ok, let's see. Our allowance arrived last Oct. 31. And since then, I have withdrawn a total of 25,000 yen. In my wallet, I still have around 5,000 and at the bank I have around 55,000. I can't believe it! Money just slips through your fingers sooo fast, it's even faster than the proverbial "water slipping through your fingers".

If I were in the Philippines, I would probably be rich right now. My allowance in pesos is actually around 35,000 per month. Imagine that?!? My monthly allowance back when I was still at home would just be around 5,000 pesos max. *blink blink* See? But here, phew! You have to really scrimp if you want to save. Clothes are the ultimate downfall, coz the really good ones are soooo freakin expensive. Can you imagine I saw a 198,000 yen coat at the department store near Ferris. That was probably a real fur coat, which just makes it even more sad! Because, they had to kill a poor animal for the fur, and now they're targeting the pockets of vain people. Soooo sad! Where are the animal rights activists?

Oh wait, I haven't posted much about the Ferris Festival, have I? *giggles lots* Well, there's this really amusing thing they did here at the school. Of course, there were a lot of Japanese guys who came here during the festival. There was a "booth" where these guys could have their pictures taken, write their contact info at the back of their pictures, and then post them for the girls to see and contact them later. Actually, the pictures are still posted until now. Hehehehe. It's amusing, isn't it?

Sukiyaki

Last night, our coordinators at the dorm invited April and I for dinner with them. However, April couldn't come because her seminar class was having a welcome party for her (speaking of welcome parties, my seminar class with Haruki sensei is giving me one on the 12th). I was really scared with that, coz I thought I had to face them on my own! Imagine just one barely-Japanese-speaking girl in the midst of two non-English-speaking adults! Fortunately, I learned that the two Chinese exchange students, Kak-san and Tei-san, were also invited. *phew!* We had sukiyaki (which I ate for the first time), and it was absolutely, absolutely oishi!!! It's my favorite Japanese food now!

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Halloween and Ferris Festival

OMG I am so freakin' tired!!! Wanna sleep! But it's still too early. It's not even 7 pm yet...

Well, that was some weekend. So many things happened this week, but frankly, I don't have the energy to go into detail about it. So, to make it short, for halloween, we didn't go out because of our curfew and had a "party" at the dorm. Annie rented "scary" videos, and I dressed up as a cellphone. Haha. I cut off tin foil for numbers and stuck them on my chest and used a foil-wrapped chopstick for antenna and stuck it behind my ear.

Saturday, we went to Hiroko sensei's wedding... she's finally married! Funny things happened, but... I'll elaborate next time. And today, we had that presentation about the Philippines (including a dance haha) at Ferris. And so all these things made me as tired as I am now.

ZzzZZzz...

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