Episode 7: “Revolve”: November 13-19

Hello again! The third month is passing by very quickly, but I actually missed something in the last entry! 

Since early September, my homeroom class has been prepping for our 文化祭 (‘bunkasai’, culture festival). The culture fest is basically a three-day event similar to our Olympics and Rockfest, and it consists of all of the first-year classes performing a song or two in a choir-like fashion. Each of the classes did excellently! Some did soul ballads, others did popular songs from recent years, but my host brother’s class did “A Whole New World” from Aladdin in English! They did the best in my opinion...

It was a very long month of early morning and late night rehearsals, but in the end it all worked out wonderfully! Our director, guitarist, and drummer did an excellent job and everyone had great cooperation and cohesion.

Each of the classes also had a different game that was hosted in their homeroom. Some classes had target practice with cork rifles, others had magic tricks, but our class had Mega Jenga! Essentially, what we did was we made tons of  4’ x 1’ x .5’ cardboard boxes and it turned out to be one of the most popular games at the festival! After the second day of the festival, we all went out to eat at a very nice yakiniku restaurant, in which the place had a traditional Japanese dinner table where you sit on pillows called 座布団 (‘zabuton’). For anyone wondering, the name for the position where you sit on your knees is called  正坐 (‘seiza’). Everyone really enjoyed the food, and so did I!

Now, let’s catch up..

I went back to Shinsaibashi and ate açai with a friend, when I remembered that there was an amazing event happening! Along the entire Midosuji street, all of the trees are illuminated with different colors. This street stretches from one end of Osaka City to the other! These trees are really tall and dressed in bulb string lights like you’d use for Christmas. In Shinsaibashi, they were blue! In Namba, they’re a mix of purple and yellow. In fact, the night that the event started, I was in Namba with my host mother and I thought they were Christmas lights... You can’t blame me though; there’s a company building that I see every day as soon as I leave the station with a huge green wreath that’s been up since the first day of November.

They’re all different colors in different parts of Osaka, and you can read more about it here! 

That’s all for this entry. Thanks as always for reading and keeping up with the journey. There’s just over a month to go until I return! I miss all of you back home dearly! See you soon!