Day 8 & 9 - Izakaya

So these two days have been pretty fun. I don't exactly know where to start. Well, I'll start off with some really exciting news -- Clinton and I bought BoA concert tickets! :D That was basically my highlight of the day. It cost me an arm and a leg for nose-bleed seats, but I don't care, she's one of my favorite artists -- as is a lot of yours I'm sure. :P

Koreans are crazy. I just touched the topic in my last blog, but they are really, really nuts. They're so loud and always screaming at us. Haha. I keep getting "Nande?!" (why) after everything I say; likewise Clinton and Per. Our savior of a friend Senna can speak English well so she translates a lot of the gibberish we hear so we can catch on. Aside from that, they're always doing stupid or funny things. And to our surprise their understanding of English amazes us -- if only they spoke. But that brings me to my next point, sometimes they'll speak with such a clear American accent it blows us away. I haven't caught it on video yet, but I will soon I hope. Often times Dasom (crazy Korean girl #1) might say "retsu gow. rets go. Let's go!" with such precision.

A non-crazy Korean I've met is this guy Kide. He's pretty cool, but again the only common language we share is Japanese. It's actually good though, because we're forced to speak to each other practicing Japanese otherwise we might as well be sitting in silence. But I think when we're all drinking, Japanese or any language flows out a bit smoother and easier -- which brings me to my next topic.

Well, I went to the Izakaya (bar) again but with about 30 others this time. It was basically all the students from the JLSP program, a few of the older students in a similar program, and a bunch of the Japanese students who we've become friends with over the last several days. It was a blast, and everyone was getting tipsy left and right. You know you've had enough to drink when your Japanese starts coming out more naturally and a heck of a lot louder when speaking to the natives. It's really funny because you don't have to think as much about what to say because it will just flow out of your mouth as though your mind was thinking in Japanese.

We ended up chatting up the huge and rowdier group just to the table next to us and continued until our time was up. It seems as though they only allow you to stay there for 3 hours, because when we were leaving at 10:00pm, others were just coming in for drinks, and I can't imagine them closing so early. Either way though, we ended up heading to Per's house, and drinking over there. I had my fill at the bar, so just stuck to a light So-Chu for the rest of the night. There we talked and laughed until the early hours when we had to go home. There's nothing better than everyone socializing in something we all have in common. And there's nothing more fun than trying to speak to people from all over the world in a language somewhat unknown to yourself. Good times. :D