"It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive"

That title is something I would only expect Stan, Shannon, Trevor and Luke (in advance because I know he’s going to end up a huge BOSS fan) to know where it comes from. It has been about a week since I last made a post…so this one might be a bit lengthy. But I’ve been having a great time lately! I broke it down into small pieces so if you feel like you're uninterested in a particular topic..u can just skip. but i promise I tried to keep it as interesting as possible!

-Last Thursday, I went to a city called Hiroo with Cousin Marc to get some Mexican food. I finally caved and felt like eating something a bit more “American”, and it didn’t disappoint. We had margaritas and Negro Modelo…and the food was good for being Japanese Mexican food. After that we went to Shinjuku to an izakaya. We did what is called a “nomihodai”. Basically, for two hours, it is all you can drink as long as you order a little food. Obviously very fun.

- Friday after work I had a party with my co-workers. Guess what we did? We went to an izakaya and did another nomihodai. My work paid for my admission, so it was pretty bomb eating and drinking for free again. One of the highlights of the night was trying to teach an American fraternity drinking song to the younger guys I work with. Also, one of the ladies I work with was trying to set me up with her daughter. They made me give a couple toasts, but with my limited Japanese toasting abilities, I mostly just informed everyone about the funny slang that my co-workers taught me. Luckily, I had drunk a lot of beer, so it wasn’t too much a problem of getting the courage to stand up in front of everyone and speak.

-Saturday I went to DisneySea with a few friends: Hunter and Jeff from my program, Michiko and Sayuri from Keio University, and Sakurako who is Hunter’s friend. It was a lot of fun. DisneySea is a lot like California Adventure. Not a whole lot of rides, and more of an adult friendly atmosphere. DisneySea is right by the ocean, and it turns out it is actually sitting on top of a whole bunch of garbage that the Japanese used to make more land! Some of the highlights from DisneySea include: My friend Michiko hurting her ankle so that we got a wheel chair and didn’t have to wait in lines, Braviseamo (a crazy show on the big lake in the middle of DisneySea), the Tower of Terror, Cities modeled after the cities from Aladdin and the Little Mermaid, and going to the bar in DisneySea to have a few drinks.

-Michiko and Sayuri (who are both native Japanese) described me as "nenden"...which they told me means I am "naturally funny" or "naturally drunk". I wasnt sure I should be flattered or not, but they seemed to think that I would be good on Japanese television if I spoke better Japanese, and they often told me I was cute when I was trying to speak Japanese. Truth be told...I've never been told that I am "cute" more times than when I was at Disneysea with Michiko and Sayuri. It was slightly embarassing, especially since I felt like it was more "cute" in the way that a baby is cute when it tries to walk or a dog is cute when it gets confused by its own reflection in a mirror. Oh well.

-Sunday I went to a BBQ with some friends. We didn’t know it at first, but it was $30 entrance fee for all you could drink and eat. I brought some drinks with me figuring it would be rude to show up empty handed, but ended up having to pay to get in anyway. It was at river in Tokyo, and it was definitely a lot of fun. There were a lot of people the same age as me there. After that, I went to McDonalds and had ice cream.

-Today (Tuesday) I went out for a crazy dinner with my host mom and lil bro. It was basically a kushi-yaki style restaurant, which a variety of skewers to eat. I ate: pig ear, chicken skin, pig tongue, the stem of garlic, and last but not least….CHICKEN SASHIMI! I know it sounds really gross/unsafe but it was delicious. And so far (an hour later), I’m not sick yet, so I’m assuming I don’t have e. coli or anything. Keep your fingers crossed that by the time you’re reading this, I haven’t already puked 7 times.

-On the way home from dinner, I raced my lil bro Ren. He was on a bike. I was running. I won the first time. But he was just too fast to beat for a second time.

-We rented Star Wars at a local DVD rental store. I intend upon leaving a divinely American influence on Ren by introducing him to the glory of Star Wars.

-Apologies for the long blog post. I really do miss you all a lot. As much fun as I am having out here, I still really look forward to seeing you after a month.