Birthday fun part one

Ahoy hoy,
So I definitely have two mid-terms and a speech this week, so how am I spending my time? By updating of course. This won't be quite so long however. I decided to get some folks together for a birthday shindig, and what I initially thought was going to be a smaller gathering quickly ballooned when word spread through my Japanese class. We ended up with a healthy majority of the 18 total students in the class, which made it all the more fun. We pretty much went with the standard course of action for 'going out' in Nagoya, which entails heading to Sakae, the party/entertainment/business hub of Nagoya, going to a pub of sorts (izakaya) and then heading to karaoke. We ended up hitting a place called Murasaki (which means purple...so remember that word Courtney!) and fittingly all the employee of the place are in purple garb. We had a good dozen or so people, and the thing about izakaya is that you order a bunch of little dishes and appetizers and pass them around the table. Everyone splits the evenly, no matter how much you ate/didn't eat, drank/didn't drink. I don't mind the sharing the bill thing, but I always leave these pubs still hungry. That whole passing the food idea is good in theory since you get to try a lot of different stuff, but it fails to satisfy my hunger...I really need a Snickers right now. The mixed drinks are super sweet, which is to my liking, but seriously doubt there is anything above a homeopathic level of alcohol in those things. I wouldn't have felt a thing if hadn't been for Aki who got down to business and ordered some sake. I have made this revelation...sake MUST be warm when you drink it. It seriously changes the flavor and how it feels going down. So Jason, Voss, you really ought to try that out if you haven't yet. I really can't stand the stuff cold, but it's decent when warm. Again, the whole bill sharing thing...I felt kind of bad because one of my classmates Sara(h) is vegetarian (hardcore, too, no cheese, etc.) so she hardly ate anything and still ended up paying close to equal that of everyone else...but that 's how it is done in Japan, plus my sympathy for vegetarians is somewhat lacking.
After that we headed to KaraokeJoyJoy, namely becuase that place is cheap, even when you do nomihoudai, which is a fun little practice where you get unlimited drinks during your time there. The only catch is the glass is kind of small and you have to go downstairs to the lobby desk to get alcholic drinks. But again, these didn't seem to pack much of a punch; they only served to satiate my sweet tooth. It is somewhat surprising to see what songs get into the books and which don't. For instance, they have the Power Rangers Theme Song, some stuff from West Side Story, even a song by Mest, but they lack Yellowcard and other bands that were relatively popular compared to some of the more obscure songs in there. I can't think of more examples now, but trust me.
After the karaoke we stopped at a local arcade to take purikura. It's basically a photo booth where you can add a bunch of crazy clip art and text to the photos afterward. I have no way of loading these up, although they turned out pretty crazy. I'll just have to show them to you when I get back...if I don't lose them, that is. They are tiny!!
Then on Sunday, my actual birthday, there was a small local festival. We gathered as a neighborhood and sported the ever fashionable happi festival jacket and made our way to a river bank where a group of guys were to fire off replica teppou, or old-style firearms. This group toured the entire town the whole day, firing off the teppou at various locations. So we watched that and then paraded around the neighborhood. Yugo got enlisted to help shake a rope with bells on it. The coupe de grace, though, was the float the kids had made. Normally the floats are little portable shinto shrines or whatnot, but the kids had made a float using an inflatable Stich, from Lilo and Stitch, all decked out in a Happi jacket. Of all the things to deify...only in Japan. After that, we crashed at the house until evening when a few family and friends came over for my birthday party. We had shabu shabu, a sweet cake that Shiho-san brought over. They sang happy birthday, with the requisite butchering of the 'th' sound. I got a slew of presents, ranging from crazy socks, to a photo guide of Japan, to a bunch of random candy...all in all a good, and extremely unexpected, haul of schtuff. I didn't expect such an elaborate party or the presents from Shiho-san, Tokiyo-san, etc, who I barely know. If there has been one thing I've been impressed/taken aback by, it is the level of kindness everyone has shown. Waaaay above and beyond the call of duty...err society.
Dave, the word for awesome that you are looking for is 'sugoi' It conjugates just like other adjectives that end in i (omoshiroi, kawaii, etc.)
Later