Since I will no longer be taking courses starting from September, in normal circumstances, I would not be allowed to stay at the Kaikan. I would have to find my own apartment or place to live. But for me, the Kaikan is VERY cheap and is a perfect place to live. It's close to the judo club, has many good features such as a good kitchen and Internet. Simply moving out for two to three months would be very unfortunate. But lucky for me, since I'm pursuing judo here, I asked Mrs. Mitsumoto (the judo club's secretary) if she could try contacting the school for me and ask if I'd be allowed to stay here. Apparently, that worked, 'cause I was told last week I needed to change rooms since someone else would be entering my old room with my roommate. I might get to spend the remainder of my time in my new room alone... !!!!

After one year in the same room (304), I am now staying in room 303. When my sister lived in the LKan (3 years ago), her room number was 303. Coincidence?

So Friday night, we had an early Christmas party. When I arrived back from the Tokyo Grand Slam, everything was already set up. The staff had worked up a pretty good Christmas theme. I was supposed to DJ that night, but since I arrived late-ish, some other guy had brought his stuff so I just let him handle it! I then changed quickly into a "Holiday attire", picked up my laundry, and headed back to the party.

The room was filled with people. Food was on the table, music was playing, and the Christmas trees lit up. There was even a mistletoe station... Hugs were exchanged and I dropped off my present with the rest of them. We had to bring a 5$ present for a kind of secret exchange game.


After chatting for a bit, we gathered in a circle with our gifts. Basically what happened was that someone pressed play on the music and we passed the gifts around as fast as possible until the music stopped. I ended up with one of my Japanese friend's gift: caramel popcorn. I open it, and walked around giving some to anyone who wanted some. After that, we celebrated two birthdays: Chipa Mwenya, and Maho Sagawa, two of the staff from the international dorms. Chipa will be graduating this semester so this will most likely be his last party with us since he plans on moving to Osaka to work afterwards. Chipa was kinda close to me since he could understand the perspective of an outsider trying to fit in Japan. We had some good laughs and I'm sad to see him go.

After that, the music continued for a bit until my friend Kahea and I performed I'm Yours in front of everyone one last time. Some people had missed our performance at the festival and had requested we sing it again. After that the party slowly continued and soon it was over. I helped with the cleanup while everyone headed over to the Budokan to share drinks and stories. I had planned to head there for a bit when I was invited to go to Karaoke with the Japanese staff. Soon, we were on our way down to the station.

On our way there, I threw some leaves onto one of my Japanese friends and suddenly, it turned into a leaf throwing battle. It was funny to see Japanese people be that outgoing and I kinda felt good to have started the whole thing. Everyone laughed as we ran around in the dark, chasing each other.

After stopping by the grocery store for food and drinks, and trying the first Karaoke, which was packed, we headed over to the next one, and I then realized that I had been there with my sister and dad three years ago! Funny how things work out. We picked our complimentary drinks and soon we were all sitting down choosing songs. I didn't know most of the songs they picked, but it was quite an interesting study session. It's quite hard to understand the meaning of a song at that speed. I also picked a few English songs to which they tried to sing along. I noted down a few song names to look up later. I really think I need to start listening to Japanese music. We ended it off with "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars.

We walked back, and said our farewells, and yeah, that was my night.

I have now been in my dorm for a few days and I have to say I like it. They have renovated the building since my last visit three years ago, and I'm glad they did; the old one was slightly... unkempt.

I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures so you can all see for yourself. If each picture is worth a million words... that would be way too much reading you, and writing for me.