Oct. 3rd :)

This was the day of my base school's School Festival. All the other school festivals I have gone to have actually been inside the school, and on school grounds. This school festival though was in the middle of the city, winding up through the arcade/ginza street and in the common areas of inner-city shopping. That made it pretty cool!

Because the festivities were in the middle of the city, for all: I finally met the missionaries here! I love festivals like this because it is seriously a great way to meet people. I first saw my friend Tom at this festival also! And the very first festival I went to was where I met a bunch of my other friends including Anna. So yay for random festivals all over the year!

All the booths were run by my students. I spent too much money this day, but its because I wanted to support my students! This "arcade" or walkway or whatever, I'm sure you will see in pictures throughout the year, because it is right smack in the middle of the city. My favorite bar is right here too. Which you will see in pictures at the bottom of this post. :)

Here is my schools band playing something. I think it was "over the rainbow" or something like that. hehe. I stayed for a little bit, but there were no seats left. This took place in the of the community buildings within the arcade.

So after I got done with the school festival...I watched the Series Premiere of Stargate Universe. AWESOME! But I'll try not to bore you with that. But you should watch it. Its definitely a show where you don't need to have watched the previous series to love this one.

Anyways, after SGU, I boogied over to Tokuyama to meet up with my friend Daria. She got tickets to an amazing fireworks display! I think the fireworks were in honor of autumn...they have a festival every first Saturday of October to celebrate the coming of the changing of the leaves. I think. I could be making that up. But there was definitely a mini-festival, and a GRAND display of fireworks. The Japanese definitely know what they are doing with fireworks. It was the best fireworks display I've ever seen.

Granted, I don't think I've ever actually paid for fireworks before this night. Maybe on 4th of July if I were to pay to see them, they'd be extra cool too. But the 900 Yen for these fireworks was well worth it. You can see a short snippet at the bottom of this post (videos go the bottom by default). There was music, lasers, fireworks, all perfectly timed and organized. Even the grand finale was so well thought out. I mention that because I feel like a grand finale in America is just to shoot off as many random fireworks as possible. No rhyme or reason--just a lot! But in Japan, its like the entire show was building up to one emotional finale. It was all like a Classical Composition in the sky.

After Fireworks, I met up with Anna to go to Laughable, my favorite bar (well, up until this point in time, the ONLY bar I knew of). Dude in sunglasses there is the owner, and he is really really cool.

It was a fun night, and once again, made a lot of new friends.

I really liked this guy's devil ears. Lets be friends! ...Now..., I will definitely recognize people that I meet again, but as for names........

Remembering people's names here is next to impossible. Even people I work with everyday. There are just too many people, and the names are all foreign to me. I know thats my problem, its just something I have to get use to. I have 2 folders full of names and pictures in my backpack, to help me memorize names. I'm not happy with my progress though. At least I am trying!

Remember, its always 100000 times cooler if you're there! Press the play button to get a taste.

OH! I FORGOT TO MENTION!!!.. these fireworks were all over the ocean. We had the best seats available, at the port! But the fireworks and lasers and everything were all done from a couple of boats, and an adjacent island. Really cool!