こんにちは！

I fell way behind with my entries, I`m missing at least two months worth of things that happened but I have decided that it would take to much time to wait to update two months worth of events and experiences than update now. So I will continue updates from present time and have the two months missing update later. Of course they will be dated so that everyone can see when it happened.

Tuesday was an end of the year celebration for Kansai exchange students. The special event held was a taiko drum performance. In the beginning there were two players playing the drums with a guy playing a flute off to the side. Then the main performer came  on stage wearing an onii (demon) mask standing in front of a large taiko drum. When he began to play on the drum, I could feel everything in the room shake to the virbration of the sound the taiko made. It was so incrediably loud but it wasn`t to the point where my ears began bleeding because it was so loud. The sound was just very powerful, I could hardly keep my eyes open when he struck the taiko drum.

At the end of the song he took off the mask, and bowed before hurrying off stage. Next two women came out, one going to a string instrument called the koto and the other held a three-string banjo looking instrument called a shamisen. The music was really soothing compared to the strong, pounding sound of the taiko drums.

A few more songs were played, mostly alternating between the two string instruments and the drums. But near the very end the performers pulled about fourteen people to the stage to try and play some of the taiko drums. After teaching them the basic two patterns of playing they played a song with everyone, two of the performers played two shamisen while conducting everyone. Everyone did great playing one song together, and it was so fun to watch people perform together and trying something like playing the taiko drums.

Afterwards, we went down to the second floor of the Rinpukan (the main cafeteria and hang out area). There was so much food and drinks down there. There was even alcohol. It`s funny to see alcohol willingly given out to the students if there was no problem where as back in the states I highly doubt we would see alcohol as one of the drinks that the teachers provided for the students to drink. It was a good time though, lots of mingling and eating.

Ellie, Kristen, Sam, and I went to the arcade after the party to do the UFO catcher. The night before I was in the arcade with a group of people to say good bye to Drew, and I had won six little tiger toys. The Japanese UFO catcher machines are much more challenging because there are only two claws compared to in America there  are three. So that night I decided to win Ellie, Kristen and Sam more of the little tigers. Which I did after several tries. Almost gave up on getting the third one... But I had gotten it on the last try!

Tonight though there is a going away party for Grant, Ben, Ryan, Melissa, and Shelby. There`s going to be so many people there in John and Olly`s tiny apartment I wonder if we will all fit. But I`ll be helping John cook chicken curry for everyone which I`m really excited. I cooked chicken curry before in the states but I`m alittle curious as to what John has gathered for ingrediants because I`m sure we both have different cooking styles.

But we`ll see I guess!