Sayonara Party

The weekend before I left Japan in 2008, I had my going away party with a few of my friends and my host parents. My host parents came up with the idea of inviting friends over for food and games, and though they originally said a total of 10 people would be okay, when I had found that many I was told me that 8 including myself would probably be all that could fit in the house. So I invited my Japanese friend Kouta, my Japanese conversation partner Mika, and my ryuugakusei friends Van, Joel, Joo-Young, Celeste, and Suguru. Unfortunately, Mika told me she would be busy that day, and Suguru eventually dropped out because he was exhausted from all-night karaoke the night before. This means I could have invited my friend Kaito but it was already too late. :[

The plan was that everyone would make their way to the nearest station and I would pick them up with my host dad at around noon. The clock hit 12 and Van showed up with Kouta, who had brought me 2 CDs of bands he wanted me to try as a parting gift. I had forgotten my cell phone at home so Van started contacting the others; Celeste was running late, Joel was on campus and apparently didn’t know when this party would be, and Joo was waiting for her host sister to come home so they could leave together. Celeste finally arrived about a half hour later, so we drove back home and started the party.

The highlight of the going-away party was definitely the food. We had cheese balls, pizza, takoyaki (octopus dumplings), karage (friend chicken balls), salad, and drinks. Everything was delicious, even the curry cheese balls despite the fact that I had a hand in making them. ;p Joel called and said he had walked from the station, and as soon as he saw bread and cheese he was good to go. We also had a hot sauce competition with the Death bottle I won at a Christmas party the night before, and Joel was crazy enough to dunk a red pepper in it to prove he could take the most spice of everyone. Needless to say, he was "dead” the rest of the time.

Joo sent messages saying that she was finally on her way, but without her host sister. By this time we were just about done eating so we decided to break out my curry-flavored ramune, perhaps to go with the cheese balls. I had already drank Wasabi and kimchi flavors by this point, the latter of which was a horrible experience, so there was a 50/50 chance with this flavor. I poured a little for everyone, kanpai! Then everyone took their shot. And it tasted like… cinnamon apple? o_O

It was then that Joo arrived at the station and I went with my host dad to pick her up. When we returned, my friends had taken the label off the rest of the curry ramune and were offering it to Joo. The fact that everyone was staring and Celeste was taking a video set off alarm bells so I tried to make light conversation until Joo finally couldn’t ignore this any longer. We told her that what she was drinking wasn’t really apple ramune, but she liked it anyway I think. lol

Meanwhile, Van was doing what he did best, making a phoenix origami out of the chopstick paper laying around. One thing we learned at the party was not to make Van laugh when he is drinking milk, which seems to lead to the entire table getting sprayed. Shortly afterward, everyone, or should I say all the guys, helped make home-cooked takoyaki. I’m not a huge fan of octopus myself, so we also had ebi (shrimp), cheese, and kimchi flavors. It was a lot of fun making them, and they happened to turn out really well. And after all this.. fruit, and sweet mochi anki (thick rice balls with anki red bean on top) I got from my friend Kouta. We were stuffed.

So the sun hadn’t quite gone down at this time, and the weather was great, so we all took a walk to the nearby tower. By the time we got there and climbed to the top where you could see all of Nagoya, the lights of the city were turning on and it was beautiful. As if to add icing to the cake, a huge red moon could be seen coming up over the horizon which, according to Van, only occurs once a year.


It was getting late, so we left the tower around 5:30, took final pictures with everyone, and then my host parents drove everyone to the station. I believe there was an incident with a lost stuffed dog, but he was found safely in the tower the next day. ;]

Until next time, Japan! And now, my study abroad session has finally, FINALLY come to an end.

Pictures on Facebook
Pictures on Photobucket
Videos on YouTube

EDIT:

Now that I've finished with the Japan 2008 blogs, I made a note on Facebook that lists them all out by event, rather nicely if I do say so myself. Here it is for completion sake.

"For those of you interested in what I do staying up until 4:30 in the morning before heading back to Japan, it's this. Organize and finish blogs from when I was there in Fall 2008?! Am I still not over that??

This has taken a while to compile, and it feels good to have them done at last. Everyone who was tagged was mentioned in one of these somewhere. In each of my blog posts, I have links to Facebook picture albums, Photobucket picture albums, and YouTube videos if they're available. In each of the Facebook picture albums, on the first picture caption I have links to all the other photo albums of people who were at the event. :X Photobucket has all of my pictures arranged in order of event, and YouTube still has all my videos. There are a few blogs I didn't write, but I think the captions in the Facebook albums still cover them pretty well."

Events:
[01] 21st Birthday Karaoke
[02] Neko Matsuri
[03] Nagoya Castle
[04] Kodomo Matsuri
[05] Tokyo Game Show 08
[06] Owariasahi Matsuri
[07] Japan Halloween Parties
[08] Inuyama
[09] Iga Ueno Matsuri - Facebook album 1, album 2
[10] Jasmin in Japan - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
[11] Huutendou Shrine - Facebook album
[12] Hikone Castle - Facebook album
[13] Nagashima Spaland
[14] Japan Ocean - Facebook album
[15] Sayonara Party

Other blogs:
Travel Through Japan and Semester Schedule
Tour of Japanese Home (and Hair)
Maid Cafes
Japan Checklist
Japanese Home Appliances
Manga Club
Japan Update
Japanese Movie Theaters
Supaa Sentoo Onsen
Japanese Cell Phone

Now to start my JET experience off fresh!