Even If Lives DID Hang in the Balance, It Would Depend on Whose They Were!

Last weekend I went to Rie’s (Anton’s Friend) University, the Osaka University for the Arts, for the school’s festival. And I know what you’re thinking… ("A festival run by Fine Arts Students?! Uh oh!") and you’d be correct. So after a 2 hour journey we arrive at the festival in time to get harassed by food vendors!

Oh, I should mention "we" being myself, Anton, and Rie of course, but also Boon-hau, Philo (one of Anton’s coworkers) and her parents.

Actually, half the festival seemed to be made up of food vendors. Everything from hot dogs to yakisoba to bubble tea, and more. Other vendors too, selling used clothes/cds, some selling items that they had crafted themselves.

It was rather interesting, many of the students were dressed up. Besides the numerous male students dressed as schoolgirls or in Chinese style dresses, there was a girl with eggs on her head, an cardboard samurai, a guy dressed up in a chicken costume meant for a 6 year old, and Darth Vader advertising donuts.

The first show we saw was the martial arts performance. They started off with a little skit about guys possessed by evil magical pantyhose they wore on their heads, and the good guys had to use their karate skillz to exorcise the stockings. Then each group performed a routine, some involving demonstrations of throws, or breaking boards (two good ones), and one that appeared to be dancing with sticks.

Next we went to a taiko drum/dance performance which was outdoors on the main stage. They were both very good. All the guy performers had multicolored hair, and some had facepaint, which is expected for arts students. At the very last move of the dancing, the guy at the front in the very center of the stage split his pants, quite visibly, right down the middle! Talent… you couldn’t have planned that better. Then our bad karma earned by laughing at/with the guy resulted in us being dragged onstage (not just us, lots of people) to dance with them ><. Of our group, only Boon-hau showed any signs of coordination. It was amusing.

Next were some ninja-themed stage performances. They probably would have been more entertaining if I had been able to understand the plot, but what kenya do? Besides learn Japanese of course (I’m workin on it!!!)

Wow, that bird’s a good fisherman! The cormorant I’m watching just caught a 4 inch long fish and is trying to force it down it’s throat without dropping it… Mine! Mine!
I’m sitting next to the river downtown writing this, it’s a very nice spot for just hanging out. But maybe for not much longer, it’s getting rather cool.

Didn’t do much this weekend, went to the gym all three days, studied, played vid games with a friend back home, and started writing my resume and cover letters, yay! Gotta start applying for summer jobs soon.

In other news, peanut butter has been acquired. This is good news.

There’s also a girl that lives a few houses down from my dorm (no, this story is not going where you think it is…). She’s about 8 years old and she has her own unicycle! I see her practicing on my way back from the grocery store occasionally… I don’t think I could ever ride one of those, too many directions to fall in.

Officially half done my internship now. I’ve been here 161 days! And 5 months, or 146 days to go till I’m back in Canada. I hear planning is underway on my welcome home party, there’s gonna be ducks, clowns and balloon animals! I can’t wait!