So, lots of catching up? 8D

Sorry I've been away all, I just haven't had time to update lately!

Ok, so after Eva World, Zoe and I came back home and it's been a bit bleh I suppose. We had KIFL students stay with us for 12 days though. That was interesting. While we were away they started to stay with us, so I didn't meet them till half way through their stay. While they were here two of the students used to come visit with me every night. Yuki and Tomohiro (Tomo for short). They were really sweet. We'd talk about anime or whatnot just to pass the time. When they left, Yuki invited me to come to Tokyo and gave me his email, ahaha. They were really sweet.

 (Yuki is in the red shirt, Tomo is in the Rolling Stones shirt)

I also went to town with Helen one day. Just to get off the mountain. We just wanted to walk around and be somewhere else lol. I got the BEST chicken curry sandwich I've ever had. OMG it was so good!

Because of Obon week (a special week in August celebrating the spirits of the dead) almost everyone has time off so they all came to British Hills to visit. We had the teachers outside doing face painting again. I went to get my hand done and Brett did one hand, Sara did the other. I'm sure you can guess who did which hand.

Yup. Lol. It was really busy here during Obon! Lots of schools and day visitors. It was lots of fun!

 After Obon, the days kinda seemed to run into the other until...

ASHLEY ARRIVED!

Gah. The day Ash arrived, I requested a 1/2 day so I could go have lunch, put on my yukata and be ready to wave to her bus when it arrived. Unfortunately, I don't know how to put on a yukata myself so I had to get help from Helen, Keira and Kyoko. It took so long to get ready! It felt like forever. Unfortunately, I was done and finally dressed at 1:20. Which is when Ash and Dave's bus arrived. I flew out the door and ran to the front area to see the bus pulling away. I couldn't see Ash and I started to think maybe they didn't get on the bus. I started running to the manor house yelling "Where's my sister!? WHERE'S MY SISTER!?" I ran up the manor house steps and she saw me and ran to me from inside the manor house. We slammed into each other and hugged really tight. I started crying lol. We didn't even have time to catch up. Our bus to Shirakawa was at 2:20 and Ash needed to get dressed! Kyoko helped Ash put her yukata on. We had to run to catch the bus and we all went to Shirakawa together.

When we got there, we had to wait for our train.

After sometime, it showed up. And we all hopped on. It took about 30mins to get to Sukagawa, and every stop on the way, more people hopped on the train. SO many people! And so many yukatas! I felt under dressed compared to some of them.

When we got to Sukagawa, Helen and Paul buggered off together so it was Ash, Dave, Keira, Gwen and I. We walked around and just enjoyed ourselves.

I got a crepe. It was yummy!
We got a great place to sit for the fireworks too! We had nothing to sit on, so we just sat on the floor. But after a while, this really nice  elderly lady came over and offered us a tarp to sit on. It was such a nice gesture. So Ash and I went out to get something nice to give her for her kindness. We bought her some freshly made donuts. By the time we brought them back for the lady, we had upgraded tarps! Another person about our age had offered us their spare tarp too! So we had returned the elderly lady's tarp. Ash and I still gave her the donuts as a thank you.
The fireworks were good! But it started to rain just as they started! And it was 2 minutes of fireworks, then 5 minutes of commentary. Still good though.

They did this one really pretty thing, where they strung a bunch of fireworks on a rope and lit them all off. It looked like a shower of shooting stars. It was beautiful.

We were all totally exhausted after the day, so on the taxi ride home we all slept. After we got home though, I felt great! So I stayed up and played video games till like, 2am. Lol.

The next day, Ash, Dave and I went shopping in Shin-Shirakawa together. I bought some groceries and we went to the Sega Game World. I have shit luck with UFO catchers, but after I announced that to Ash and Dave, I of course won a plush on my first try.

It's a bunny~! With LOOOOOONG ears. It's cute. :D
We went for lunch and I showed them Mega Stage. We came back up the mountain and then it was time for the goodbye interns party!
We've had interns here since the beginning of the month, so they feel like part of the BH family now. We all went to the pub last night to have one last party with them.

 I'm gonna miss them, they were a good bunch.
They left this morning, we all went outside to wave goodbye to them. It was sad seeing them go, but we'll hopefully stay in touch!

HANABI! and Karaoke.

I went to my first Hanabi festival (fireworks festival) last night! It was amazing! I didn't wear yukata because I didn't really have time to put it on and because Zoe and Gwen said they weren't. We all thought because it was cold that no one would be wearing one, but about 1/2 the people were wearing them. Mostly girls. It was a spontaneous choice to go. Zoe, Gwen, Eriko and I were eating dinner together, and Tatsuru came in and asked if we wanted to go to the fireworks. Of course we said yes! It was the first Hanabi for all of us gaijin. It was so fun! The fireworks are amazing here, and they went on for about an hour. I filmed some of it. Please enjoy!

Yes, I totally am speaking in Japanese for some of it. Mostly "oooh! sugoi!" and "kawaii~!" silly things like that. I was saying "wow great!" and "cute~!" mostly. I couldn't help it. Lol. Tatsuru and Eriko were both speaking in Japanese, and Gwen joined in so I did too. They were awesome.
After the fireworks, we went to the fair set up there. This was a really small festival so all the booths were food and drinks, with the exception of 1 booth that sold masks (a traditional thing for festivals). Every anime that has a festival episode has the characters wearing a mask that you can buy at a festival, so Zoe, Gwen and I bought masks to make our night more anime-like. It was so much fun!

After Hanabi, we went for karaoke. I really love karaoke. I only sang two songs because one person kept putting in songs, but its ok. I enjoyed myself.

 Crap quality because it was dark. But it was fun! Yay!

Also, I am learning Katakana and Hiragana (the Japanese forms of writing. Katakana is for foreign words and Hiragana is for Japanese words). I wrote my name a bunch of times, and my family's names!

Harry Freaking Potter.

Yes, I saw Harry Potter Part 7.5 last night.
Yuta, Keira, Zoe, Sam, Mike, Belinda and I all went together. Yuta, Keira and I went down to Shirakawa first for dinner, and met up with Sam. We went to Big Boy. It was yummy!

 Yumyum.
After dinner, everyone came to Big Boy to meet, and we all drove to the theatre. It was a pretty cool theatre. Smallish screen, but the seats were really comfy. And it was really well planned for height. My feet were right behind someone's head. So there was NO chance of not being able to see the movie because someone is tall.
Before the movie, we went to TRIAL (kinda like Liquidation World and Walmart mixed together) and looked around to kill time. I found three awesome shirts. I totally want the red one.

 Things. We all really love them.
Yes, so the movie was fantastic. I won't spoil anything, but there's one part that hit really close to home for Ashley and I, and as such I cried my eyes out at that point. I was the only one from our group that cried. Ahaha. It was sad though.
It was funny, right before the movie, Zoe and I were talking about The Three Musketeers, and how she watched it the night previous. And someone asked which version it was (Kiefer Sutherland version) and she said it's old, but ok because they make a new one every 10 years or so anyway. And then the previews started. And guess what? The first one we see is a Three Musketeers preview! Crazy!
Also, the Japanese "don't videotape movies or steal them that's bad" commercial is the beset one I've ever seen.
Zoe filmed it. Ahahah.

 Yeah, good times were had.
 So after the movie, we all piled back into our cars and drove home. Yuta made a pit stop at a 7-11 and bought me a melon soda.

Yay. I love melon soda!
I slept most of the way home though. Ahaha. I never can stay awake in a car.
Great times though! Can't wait to go on another field trip together!

Fire drill tonight. That will be interesting.

Puroland.

 Wow. If that place was any sweeter, I'd pass out. Seriously, soooo cute! Because it was our birthdays, we all got special cards to hang around our necks, and everywhere we went a staff member would put a sticker on it and say "otajoubi, omedetou gozaimasu! Happi birsuday!" it was really sweet.

 Puroland is mostly attractions. There were only 2 rides.
I managed to film some of the boat ride. It's really cute!

The place was really cutesy. Here, have some pictures:

 

 

 

 

There are some more pictures, but they're on Wendy's camera, so I won't have them till she uploads them. :3

I ended up buying a really cute purse there. The only thing I bought the whole time! Be proud!

One of the things to do while we were there was participate in "The Next Hello Kitty" game. It's a series of 7 mini-games that Hello Kitty has set up to discover who the next ruler of her kingdom will be. (Kitty is the Queen) Whoever wins all the mini-games becomes the heir to the throne. At the end they take your picture. And depending what outcome you get, your background and frame change. I won, so I got the cool frame and cute background. :3

So during the course of the day, my feet started to really hurt. I was wearing my pink boots and I still haven't broken them in yet so they really make my feet blister. By the end of the day, my feet hurt so bad, I was limping and shuffling. Like, really really slow. I think a turtle would have outrun me. Wendy was kind enough to switch shoes with me until we got me some new shoes. The first shop we found was Daiso. I ended up buying some bright pink flip flops.

 After getting new shoes, we went for dinner. I was ravenously hungry and really thirsty. I got steakkkkk. It was beautiful. Like reuniting with a lost lover. I didn't even get a picture. I was too busy eating. I did however get a picture of dessert. I got a crepe! It was tasty. Strawberry and chocolate with cream.