Hisashiburi! It's been a while.

The semester is coming to an end. We have 1 week (well... 4 days) left of class then finals start on Friday! Since a lot has happened between now and my last post in June (sorry..) I'll share the big highlights.

Hiroshima
We had a mandatory trip with CIEE to Hiroshima for a weekend. It was quite the experience cramming 60 foreigners into the Shinkansen in about 1-2 minutes flat (trains wait for nobody). I felt a little sorry for the Japanese people who were (un)fortunate enough to reserve seats in the same car as us. (60 Americans = loud!)

 Bunny and musubi dinner on the Shinkansen! Took about 4 hours.

The first day we went to the Peace Museum and got to hear from an atomic bomb survivor. Random note: the prime minister (?) of Afghanistan happened to be visiting on the same day. I tried to look for him but we were ushered inside before he came out. (But one of our staff got a picture of him!)

After the museum and park we had the option to look around some more or go to a castle. Out of the whole group, only 3 of us (me, Elizabeth, Shannon) decided to hang back. Elizabeth wanted to find eye drops so we went down a street full of shops and happened to discover that Taito (one of our frequent UFO catcher stops in Akihabara) followed us to Hiroshima.

The arcade and the spoils. Don't tell!

And purikura of the non-castle gang.

At night we ate okonomiyaki (savory Japanese pancake-like thing) and later watched Japan lose to the Netherlands during the World Cup. Apparently Japan doesn't do sports bars - we tried in vain to find a bar with a TV but ended up with conbini snacks back at the hotel.

 Hiroshima style okonomiyaki - yummy and filling!

 Snack for the game.

The following day we went to a little island called Miyajima for progressive snacking which is famous for its giant tori gate and deer.

 From left to right, top to botton: deep fried momiji manju (cheese in the middle!), the best oyster I've ever tasted, super soft sweet potato, grilled squid legs.

Hair Cut
With summer in full swing and the rainy season around the corner, I was ready for an overdue haircut. I looked up a place in Harajuku that had staff that spoke English so explaining what I wanted went very smoothly. My hairdresser even gave me a massage and offered me something to drink - nice Japan!

In honor of EDeng because I didn't make this one my facebook profile pic.

Origami Museum
The gallery was pretty small (like 1 small room small) but it was free. There were some crazy cranes and we even got a free demo. This lady whipped up a rose, fish, Christmas tree (complete with a star at the top and mini Santa), and... a dog (?). There was also a room where we saw people making origami paper, and we took home instructions for origami "kiss lips."

Photo from google but we managed to make them ourselves after much pain.

CIEE Farewell Party
I can't believe study abroad is coming to a close. There were some really nice videos and speeches, but what was really exciting was the food. And smuggling home a giant bottle of unopened oolong tea.

It's strange to think that this was the last time I would see a lot of CIEE people, but we have to go our own ways eventually.