Day 97 - DANCE

Today started pretty much like any other saturday. Go to school, pick up Tamarra. We were gonna get lunch, but both ended up feeling not up to it. So we went straight to the zoo. Yup, another zoo today.

Actually went to a different zoo today. Only have been to Tama before, but today we went to Ueno. This one is an older, much smaller zoo. The main attraction here is the PANDAS. Finally found some. Well, one anyway. The zoo has two, but only had one out in the pen today. He seemed pretty content. I even managed to snap a few pics. Will upload eventually. Maybe.

The other big thing for today was going to the Obon festival with Tamarra and her host family. I chickened out this morning and didn't bring my Yukata to dance in. But Tama-chan brought her's. I was helping her put it on in the womens' changing area and realized I'd made it uneven at the bottom. We kinda just stood and stared at it for a moment when an old woman stepped up and asked if we wanted help. I gave a weak nod and the woman pretty much just stripped everything away and started from the beginning. Whoops. She was really nice, but spent way too much time making Tama-chan's yukata just right. It was a little embarrassing. But we thanked her profusely. Anyway, she seemed only toooo happy to help the clueless foreigners. Little old ladies here are just adorable, kind, brilliant forces of nature.

Learned a bunch of dances today. Each region has their own special, and we danced a lot of those. Tama already knew a lot from watching a video, but this was my first time. I got a little overwhelmed, and it was extremely hot pretty much the entire time. I did dance at least two full ones though, and some of the way though quite a few others. Didn't see a lot of foreigners there, but didn't really expect to. It's a very Japanese thing and can be intimidating if you don't know what you're doing.

After dance was dinner. Her family took us and a pair of their friends to this really nice italian place. As in more than $15 for appetizers kind of place. It was lovely. We all shared foods, got three different types of pasta and a pizza. Very tasty. Tama's host dad had gotten pretty drunk at the festival though, and had more to drink at dinner. Got to teach him new words. Taught him "smashed" and "buzzed", as english equivalents to よぱっりand ちょっとよっぱり. He and his friend got a kick out of it.

Tama-chan and I decided to head out and just kinda chill a little, find somewhere good for dessert, on our own. Wanted Sweets Paradise, but it was closed when we got there. So went to TGI Fridays instead. Finally had the brownie sundae I've been mooning over for the past forever. Was good, but not what I expected. But good.

Heading home was kind of an irritation. Pretty much caught the last trains. Going Ike to Shinjuku wasn't too bad, the Saikyo isn't usually busy. But from Shinjuku home was a nightmare. Managed to get a spot standing near the end, near a door to the next car, which thankfully not too crowded. I may have found a new good place to stand when the car's gonna be packed. But getting out… Ugh. So many people crammed around the exit, and no one wants to move from their "place" for some foreigner. Thankfully, my Japanese accent is good enough they just kind of automatically move before they realize I'm foreign. Horay.

Anyway, wore the wrong shoes and shorts today, so my legs hurt all over. My headache has finally gone away from this morning. Hopefully I'll sleep enough and rest enough to be restored for tomorrow. Our Grutt pass runs out this week and we wanna get as much of it done as possible. Of course, we're busy all the rest of this week, so that means we have to do all of it tomorrow. Ugh. Gonna be so busy.