Fun Weekend

Hi all! Last Friday we had these round-table discussions with Japanese students about various social, political, or economic topics involving both countries - Liz and I had International Development which was about global poverty and volunteerism/awareness about poverty issues. Very cool the students were really nice and very curious (smart too!). Then we had a little reception which was lotsa fun and I wish we had more exposure to kids our age like that so we can ask more questions. I'm lucky because my host mom is very honest and fluent but many of us dont really get to ask questions either due to a language barrier or age barrier.

Saturday Chris, Jeff, and I went with Jeff/My host family to Tokyo Tower and Roppongi Hills. Tokyo Tower was neat I didnt go up because we're going on Wednesday when its less crowded but Jeff and Chris took the 600 stairs up! It was Childrens Day (national holiday) so it was pretty crowded, plus being a Saturday too. Roppongi we went to an modern art museum which was nice but modern art wasnt really my thing. Some stuff was cool like the historical art of laughter but the movies of people like walking down a street where not so interesting.

Today Meghan, Lyn, Jessica, Kim, Abby, and I went to Ueno Zoo which was fun :) Then we got McDonalds because I was craving it (plus NO american food in over a week, including Diet Coke) and went to Tokyo Dome City since it was raining pretty hard. Lyn and Jessica went on the ferris wheel while the rest of us went to "Bubba Gump Shrimp" Restaurant. Its a chain devoted to Forrest Gump the movie and was SO COOL. Theres one in Osaka too so we're gonna go then too. LOVED it so awesome very cool environment to relax in. So we had a bit of an pseudo-American day which was fun to take a minibreak from the Japanese overload. Good weekend overall :)
~Sam~