My japanese birthday and snow, lots and lots of snow

Hello everyone! Sorry I have been absent for a little while, I had a pretty busy weekend. It was my birthday on Saturday and I had a blast celebrating it in Japan.

To start things off, on Friday night I finally met my third host brother. Daisuke, the oldest, lives at home. Yusuke, the middle child, I met last month. Now I finally met Kensuke, he came home for the weekend. He was pretty nice, and he understood some english so he tried to talk to me in english sometimes. He also went to Okinawa recently so he brought back some Okinawa omiyage, souvenirs. He gave me these two small clay dogs that are popular in Okinawa and are often seen at the entrance of shrines.

On Saturday the fun times started. At 12 my host family threw me a party at my Okaasan's English teacher's Mexican restaurant. Okaasan, Otoosan, Kensuke, Mal, Euna, Daiki, and Yatsu all went. There was so much food there and it was all delicious. We ate so much. There were tacos, chips and 7 layer dip, grilled chicken, jalapeno chicken, and pizza. We also got crepes and Oreo cake for dessert.

After stuffing ourselves, my friends surprised me by giving me some birthday presents. Mal and Euna gave me a back of different goodies. I got a bus pass case, a cellphone case, cellphone charms, a gold medal, and confetti poppers. Daiki got me some new gloves and Yatsu got me new indoor slippers to wear in the winter (in Japan you normally wear indoor slippers in the house instead of shoes you would wear outside). It was really nice of them to buy these things for me.

We then left that party, went home and rested for a little while before Me, Mal, Euna, Daiki, and Yatsu met up with 16 of my other friends and then went to a restaurant, Biz Cube Dining. This was a nice Italian type restaurant that my friend Shun helped reserve for my birthday. The food was really good and everyone had a great time eating and talking with each other.

After dinner me and about 10 of my friends decided to go to Karaoke. We went to a near by Karaoke place and sung for about 2 hours. We had a lot of fun. This is probably a good time to give everyone a glimpse of what Japanese Karaoke is really like and why it is so much fun.

After Karaoke the party was over and it was then time to go home. It was a great birthday and I am happy that I got to celebrate it in Japan with all of my new friends.

On Sunday my birthday was over, at least in Japan, but the parties were not. Sunday night I went with Daiki, Yatsu, Yukina, and 4 other Korean students out to dinner and then to a Halloween party. The party was put on my college students from many different colleges in or near Sapporo. It was a lot of fun. There were different dance groups that preformed, Bingo, and a fashion show.

On Monday it was back to school. This first half of the week is a little busy and at the end of the week I have a Kanji exam. Anyway, on Monday I ate lunch with my friend Yannbinn. He is Chinese, but lives in Japan and speaks Japanese fluently He is really nice and want to explore Sapporo with me and my friends. I have a feeling November is going to be a pretty busy month.

I was going to talk about how the yukimushi, bugs in Hokkaido that are associated with the coming of snow, have been popping up a lot and that this could mean snow is coming. But instead I will just say that it snowed, a lot, and it isn't even Halloween yet. The snow started in the morning and didn't really stick or anything. It was mainly just big, wet, cold snow and it was pretty windy so going to school was not fun. However as I am writing this, it seems like the snow is starting to stick somewhat and build up. Tomorrow could be a pretty interesting day if it keeps up.

Anyway it is supposed to get somewhat warmer later in the week so the snow probably won't be around too much longer. On Friday there is going to be a Halloween party at Hokusei that I am going to with my friends. Then on Sunday I am going to go to a dam with some friends and take a tour and then explore the near by valley, apparently it is very beautiful in the fall. After the dam tour we will go to an onsen and then head home. It looks like this weekend will be a lot of fun, but first I have to pass my kanji exam.