it was a busy weekend...

Karaoke!

Sunday afternoon Jason, Misa, Marshall and I got together again with the kids from HamaDai to go to karaoke and dinner. Molly was sposed to come too, but she got sick. :-(
We got to see Ai and Naoko again, as well as Jacky (the Chinese exchange student who was also one of our guides at the festival)--although Yan couldn't make it this time, which was kind of sad.
But we had a lot of fun! I even attempted a couple of Japanese songs--to varying degrees of success, lol. Although I do think I managed the Monpachi song relatively well. (I've certainly sung along to the CD in my room enough times.)

Here's a picture! (which for some reason didn't turn out all that great...oh, well). L-R is : Ai, Misa, Jacky, Naoko, Jacky's cousin (didn't speak English or Japanese, just Chinese), Marshall, and Jason.

After karaoke, we went out to dinner (minus Jacky and his cousin) at a yakiniku (literally "grilled meat") place near the station. YUM! They bring little grill-things over to each table, you order whatever kind of (raw) meat/veggies you want, and then cook it yourself at the table. In addition to being delicious, it's also a lot of fun!
Here's a photo I took of Naoko, Misa (middle), and Ai. Everyone is, of course, doing the obligatory two-fingers thing (I'm not sure if they call it a peace sign here, I don't think it has that association)--can't take a photo in Japan without one.