A Week of Spontaneous Activities

Highlights of this week include attending two festivals that I didn't really know were happening until last minute, going to some fun dinners, jamming with some guys from class, and going out to a friend's DJ night!

Last Tuesday I was standing in front of my school's dining hall wondering what to do since I had forgotten my wallet at home, when two Japanese girls that I recognized from my band club approached me. They asked what I was up to and if I was free, so I explained and we walked to the nearest convenience store and grabbed some food. Turns out they were both waiting for the club event later that afternoon that I was also going to, so the three of us sat down at a table and chatted while we waited. Yuki, Rina, and then Rina's boyfriend (I can't remember his name at the moment) who joined us right before we all walked over to the club building for the event. We mostly were talking in Japanese, which was great practice for me. I've found that my fluency goes up the longer I am in a situation that requires my brain to be in "Japanese mode", and when I go back to English, my fluency usually resets back down to where it was before. Anyways, we were talking about what we did for work and Yuki brought up that she worked at an Okinomiyaki restaurant in Shijo and suggested we all go sometime, which rolled into us all going together that day, but unfortunately without Rina's boyfriend because he had work. I had a lovely time talking to the two of them, and will be looking forward to hearing them play together at our club's upcoming live show in June!

Also on Tuesday, I was told about a yearly Kyoto fesitival called "Aoi Matsuri", where sections of city streets were closed for a Parade that started at the imperial palace, passing through two shrines before ending. My friend Yifan invited me to go watch together, so we planned out our location based on the website and map with times for Wednesday. We met up at campus at about 9:00 AM and then biked over to the area we picked early, which was good because there were a lot of people waiting for the parade.

Fifteen minutes before the parade was going to start, Yifan decided to go check on our bikes since they were parked in a spot that wasn't technically meant for bike parking, and she was worried that they might have been moved. She let me know that the bikes were okay, but the police had closed off access to where I was then waiting for the parade! Yifan tried to find a different spot to watch but there were too many people, so I enjoyed the procession for her and took some photos and videos to share later on.

After the parade finished, I was waiting for Yifan and she suddenly appeared holding a small bird! She had found it in the middle of the street near where she had been trying to watch the parade. It seemed to be uninjured and she said it looked like it was trying to fly, so we deduced that it was just a baby bird that had fallen to the ground. I send out an Instagram story and messaged a few of my Japanese friends for what to do. Luckily I got some quick responses, and was instructed to return the bird to a tree or bush near where it was found, which is what we did. Turns out it is actually illegal to take a bird to one's home in Japan! Which as much as Yifan wanted to keep the bird because she thought it was "very cute", I told her it was 1) not allowed and 2) probably a bad idea for the sake of the bird's survival. We also found this funny duck on a post.

After the festival, I had to go to my Japanese geography class. Afterwards, my buddy John invited me to come watch his band practice at the studio. John plays drums for the "Lilac Rainbows" heavy metal group, so I was interested to check it out at least. I told him I had a lot of homework to get done, so I would only be there for half an hour. Well, their bass player never showed up, so I ended up playing instead and jammed out for about three hours. Oops. Talk about procrastinating.

Thursday night I went out to an all-you-can-eat-and-drink place with my friend Shiyou! Her and I have had some very interesting chats about some complex Japanese cultural topics and issues, where a lot of the ideas in my previous post were started from. We enjoyed the food and drinks while we talked about all sorts of cultural differences between American and Japan. We unfortunately over ordered on the food and were stressing that we were going to be charged extra, but the waitress must have taken pity on us because she let us go without any incident! Afterwards, we went to a karaoke place, where we sang some American pop and Disney songs. Disney as it turns out, is insanely popular in Japan, especially with how easy it is to watch content now with Disney+.

On Friday, I went out to a club with Alex, Yan, and Anthony. We have this favorite cafe that is close to campus, ran by this older dude who is super friendly and makes the best sandwiches ever (or so I've heard, I still haven't eaten one but it looks amazing and the coffee he makes is delicious, so I trust it). His name is Shin, and I wasn't initially looking to go out, but turns out he DJs mostly JPOP and JROCK stuff which is right up my alley, so I figured I'd check it out. I wasn't planning to be out late, but he was cooking up some fire mixes, so I ended up dancing until 4:00 in the morning, and once his sets were over, we all went and ate McDonalds at about 5:00 AM which was pretty crazy. I also found two very cool cars while we were out, so here they are as well. I was a little drunk while taking those videos of the music, so don't watch them if you get motion sick. I was NOT holding my phone still whatsoever, sorry. That's all I got for this post!