Day 55 - 24th of October

9:14pm　セミナーハウス

天気：寒い、曇り

Today was a lot of fun. In the morning, I made pancakes for the first time; Diego usually does it for me. They turned out to be a bit of a disaster, but Diego gave me some tips, so I'll do better next time; seriously though his turn out so perfect and round. They tasted fine though (I added banana), although one hadn't cooked all the way through and was a bit soggy; that wasn't so nice. Oh well, live and learn. After cooking (which always takes way too long), we walked to Midori (Carly, Diego and I). I found a firewire cable for my camcorder, so now I can dump the movies onto my laptop and reuse the tapes. Deigo got himself a new mouse, and Carly just got some batteries for her toothbrush - she was going to buy an electronic dictionary but they were too expensive.

There was a soccer match on this morning, between seminar house 2 and 3 that Eddy, in our house, had organised; Bianca and Stephanie were cooking up a storm this morning to feed the hungry mop afterwards. I got there just as they finished; they were playing at the uni fields. I felt a little bad about not showing up sooner to cheer our team on. Unfortunately they lost, 13 to nil; Seminar House three had an unfair advantage with most of the guys actually expecienced in soccer. I hung around for a little while, and then left for the CIE lounge, to wait for 12:30. I met with another girl from koto club, Maarika from Estonia. We walked over to the library and met with a bunch of Japanese students. It turns out a number of clubs were going to the BBQ, and Maarika and I were the only international students. We caught the bus Yamada Lake, and then walk a while to a part of the park I hadn't been to before. It was amazing; wide open space. People had tents set up, and were playing sports in the grass; a true rarity in Japan.

There was a huge blue tarp set up for us; which we never actually used to sit on. And on it... sooooo much food; too much food in fact. I basically spent the next couple of hours eating on and off: Beef, chicken, pork, fish, mochi, noodles, cabbage, sweet potato, peppers, onions, eggplant, mushrooms, apples, bananas... and they all went on the barbeque in no particular order; it was a free-for-all. I was so full by the end of it, and I even got to take home some chestnuts; Diego suggests that we grill them. I was a lot of fun; I didn't practice my Japanese enough though. I don't know, I just seem to choke and revert back to English; gotta try harder. Even from the park, the main administration building of Kansai Gaidai is clearly visible. It seriously is the tallest building around.

We finished at around 4:30, then I walked home and this time I didn't get lost; the sunset was beautiful. I ate leftovers and bread for dinner, and then an apple. Tonight was basically a repeat of last night, just without the Potter Puppet Pals. Amber's gone now, but Carly's still here. We've all been trying to study for our exams next week. I won't be doing too much study tomorrow though; going to a rice festival at Fushimi Inari in Kyoto; I'm so excited. Lol, I burnt off some of my finger hairs in the barbeque today; there were 5 set up and we basically had chopsticks and a plastic plate, and went for it. I hope we do something like that again; it was great. Anyway, I shall be off now, Carly's going to draw a still-life of me; if I can stay still that is!