Soccer, the aquarium, and my goofy friends

Create Your Own!


Well, the soccer tournament was a blast, except for my injury. The tournament was in Nagano, in the middle of the mountains. It was the most beautiful backdrop for our games. Before our team even had it's first game, there was another team that didn't have enough players, so Kristine and I volunteered to play a game with them. Within the first 5 seconds of playing, I pulled my quad. It hurt, but I was able to keep playing. We then played two games with our own team. By the end of the 2nd game, my leg was killing me. It hurt to move at all. I could only play a few minutes of the 3rd and 4th game and couldn't play at all on Sunday. I was so disappointed that I didn't get to play as much as I wanted. My leg is just now starting to feel better. I haven't been able to run for 2 weeks. I'm going to try to start working out again this weekend because the indoor soccer tournament is in 2 weeks. Hopefully I won't get hurt this time.

Last weekend, I went with Kristine to the aquarium. A 64 year old man who lives in her building is the president of the aquarium. He loves speaking English and offered to show her and a friend around. It was the first time I have ever seen any animal shows. The aquarium at Myrtle Beach doesn't have anything like that. We got to pet the walrus and I played catch with a dolphin. I felt like a little kid. We had such a good time. After, the president (as we affectionately call him), had planned a meal at this really nice place at the aquarium. Unfortunately, the menu was already decided....you guessed it, all seafood. They brought out a large assortment of fresh, raw seafood, including raw lobster. I could barely look at the food, let alone eat it. I hated telling him, but this wasn't something I could fake my way through. They brought me out some steak. Actually, they brought out about 5 more huge plates of food for each of us. I can't even imagine what this would have cost, if the president wasn't getting it for free. Even though I didn't like the food, we had a beautiful view overlooking the ocean.

We had Monday off, so Kristine, John, Taylor, and I hung out at Kristine's Sunday night just being goofy and having a good time. We later went out and walked around, stopping in at a few different bars that we hadn't been to yet. We even walked up to a shrine that was all lit up. This weekend is Kristine's birthday, so I'm sure we'll have lots of fun this weekend too. Oh and it's also my city's big Matsuri (festival). They will have traditional dancing, music, fireworks, and more parades with people pulling floats. At my Japanese class last night, we were invited to pull one of the floats!!! So on Sunday I will get to participate in the festival. I am sooo excited. Hopefully I'll have lots of good pictures to put up from it next week.

Oh, a quick update on my student penpals. They are still writing me and I love the letters. This week, the girl who first and most frequently writes me, brought me a letter from her mom. It was much like her first letter, introducing herself and asking me how I like Japan. It looks like I have a parent penpal now too!!! It's things like this that make me love Japan.