Short update

Hey everyone,

Friday night a few friends and I went down to Beppu for some food and karaoke. We ended up going to a wonderful little gyoza (fried dumpling) bar that was inside the house of some older lady. She was one of the nicest people I've met, and her food was delicious. She was just about to close the shop as we walked over, but luckily she recognized one of the other people we were with and was more than happy to let us in.

It was a really intimate place. It was practically the first room in her tiny little house, with a nice kitchen area and a makeshift bar in front. It was really cramped and small, but somehow all seven of us were able to fit comfortably. For 550 yen, we got a set with 8 pieces of gyoza, a bowl of miso soup and rice. To me, it was more of a lighter snack/meal rather than a dinner, so we were a little worried that we were going to be hungry.

However she was so happy that the person she recognized brought more students from APU that she gave us a second helping of gyoza - free of charge. Then after that was done, she gave us dessert, which consisted of dango (mochi, er, chewy rice/flour/doughy balls with some sweet syrup on top?) and THEN, she gave us snacks of all different kinds of chips and Japanese munchies. I think some Cheetos were thrown in there as well. All free of charge. Like I said, she was a sweet, sweet lady.

We met her seven year old grandson, who came waltzing down the tiny steps to peek out at all of the foreign people in his house, and then he eventually mustered up the courage to introduce himself, with the permission of his grandmother. He sure was a cutie.

After that, karaoke was fun although nothing of a spectacular time. I was pretty much wiped out from the rest of the week and the day seemed to be really long to me. I was ready for bed the moment I was done with the gyoza.

On another note.

Well I decided that I really do want to go to Nara with Carlos next weekend. I was really unsure about it because of financial issues, but now that I've talked it over with the parents and done a little bit of research, its one of the places that I am interested in going to and investing my money in.

Pictures will come with this trip, rest assured.

Aside from that, school has still been busy and I've been itching to do some drawing lately. However Ecotourism papers come first I suppose. I guess I shall get started on that rather than stalling with the blog and other successfully stalling things.

Ja (see you)~