One of my friend's friends came over to Akita International University to visit Akita!  She was a girl from Keio University!  Kaori was her name, and we took her all over the place.  In two days, we went to the beautiful Mikaeri Waterfall, the majestic Tazawa Lake, the fun playground called Round One, and the delicious Kamakuraya Restaurant.  It made my weekend fly by real fast!

These past few bunch of weeks were filled with preparation for the school's festival.  Every student was either planning something, preparing something, or building something for the school festival.  Everywhere I went, there was somebody painting something, coloring something, or gluing something to another something.  That is to say, I was also very busy during our school festival.

Boy, has it been a while since I've written in my blog.  These past few weeks have been very very busy!  In fact, it was so busy, I hardly had time to relax.  Let's start with the "Shall we be friends" party!  There were performances from all sorts of people, face painting, and even a raffle prize give-away thingy.  They gave everybody who came a number, and the object of the game was to find the person who has the number.  If you found that person, the both of you would win a prize.  There were some good prizes.  They gave away microwaves, pillows, and all sorts of useful stuff.  Of course, I didn't win anything, but I had a lot of fun.  I stayed up until 2 that night!

4 weeks into Japan and I feel like I haven't eaten enough delicious foods, visited enough fantastic places. or met enough wonderful people yet!  There's so much I want to do before the winter season comes.  I want to ride my bicycle to the beach, visit the thing they call " The Godzilla Rock,"  swim under a waterfall, and travel across Japan!  With goals, come ambition; and with ambition, comes effort.  Effort takes time, and there is not enough time in the world for me to experience everything.  I want to do so much things, it almost feels as if I haven't done anything this week.  My pictures, however, tell a different story.

It's only been a little over two weeks since I got here in Akita International University and this place already feels too small.  There is one thing a person must realize before they come here: there is nothing surrounding the school.  There are a few shops, but this place is like the island of Lana'i.  Everything closes early.  If you get hungry after 9 o'clock and have no food in your refrigerator, you have to take a 15 minute bus ride to the nearest mall.  On top of all of that, if you miss the last bus home, you have to walk back to school through a bear infested forest in the pitch black of night.

The people here are for real, diverse.  You got all sorts of humor here and many more personalities.  Within my first week, I was able to meet and make friends with so many people.  I've met people from the states (USA), Australia, Germany, Macao, Czech, France, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Norway, and Switzerland. I've even met people from all over Japan.  I've met people from Okinawa, Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, Tochigi, Yokohama, Chiba, Iwate, Hokkaido, and of course, Akita.  So many things have happened in 5 days, I don't even know where to start.