Today was SO much fun!!!!

Well, I am looking forward to a pretty miserable night though. My legs are going to be killing me. I don't even know if I will be able to walk tomorrow! That's what happens when you jump up and down for almost 2 hours straight!!! You may be wondering what the heck was Haven doing in Japan jumping for 2 hours straight? Well, its a long story, but a good one!!
This morning I took my time getting out of the hostel. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do. But I talked with the girl who runs the hostel and she told me about this huge park place that has museums and Japanese gardens and stuff. So at 12:00ish I headed out on the subway. After a few train changes I ended up there, bought my ticket and walked into the park. Well, there were lots of groups of people doing different things. 2 boys and 2 girls where playing bad mitten, a group of Junior High girls in uniform playing volley ball on the grass, another group of girls jump roping, and families picnicking. So I sat down on a bench and watched for a while. I was contemplating interrupting the girls volley ball and asking to play. That was actually a pretty good plan, but I waiting too long, and anyways what happened later was way funner! A group of people showed up and set a tarp on the ground. One of the guys in the group walked over to the girls and so they all headed over to the tarp. I couldn't tell what they were doing, but it looked like some of them were writing on the tarp. Having missed my opportunity I just decided to walk on past them and kinda peek. Well, while I was walking past and kinda peeking the same guy came running over. Next thing I know I'm kneeling over the tarp on which they had taped a huge cloth poster, people are clapping  and I'm suppose to be writing a message to the Tsunami victims!! embarrassed.....talk about pressure! As soon as I walked over they all moved off the tarp handed me a marker. eh, heh heh... I did manage after a while to write something and then put my name in Japanese. Mine was the only English one on there. Then they told me I had to draw a leaf where my name was. At everyone's name there was drawn a green leaf. Apparently my leaf was cute, because when I drew it they were all like, "kawaii!" After I finished, I decided not to just run off and to make the most of this opportunity!!! So I started talking to one of the guys there. None of them could speak good English, but his was the best. They are all college students around 22, except him, he was 28. They all work at the same restaurant and they are going to put the poster up in the restaurant I guess. And then guess what?! I wanted to take a picture so they all sat around the poster and made me sit in the middle at the top... embarrassed again. And whats with all the clapping? every time I did basically anything or said anything they thought it was great and would clap. So, I was pretty happy about that. It was fun, but you may be thinking, "yah, that sounded fun, but not like SO much fun, so why was your day so great?" Well, I'm getting to it!!!
So, I headed off, in some random direction.About ten minutes later I passed a paved area kinda like a basket ball court only there was nothing in it ans it was about twice the size. I saw a group of people doing the big long jump rope. Like maybe 15 people. So, since I was kinda far I didn't feel embarrassed to video. One of them waved and then I noticed that it was the same group of people!! They started waving at me to come over so I put the camera away and next thing I know, I'm jumping with them!! It was a lot of fun! Forget gardens, this was way cooler!! We did the long jump rope everyone together for about 45 minutes, with kyuke's in between. Every once in a while they would do just one person, and the other people would join in. I actually did it one time by myself. Then they changed it. Everyone would stand in a line and then while two people swung the rope you would have to run in jump over it and run out the other side. I was terrible at it, and yes it is on video, but no you can't see it. After a whole I just stopped and watched since I almost never made it and they were trying to see how high they could go without anyone messing up, but after while joined back in and sorta got it down. We actually got to 90 jumps one time! And for once it wasn't me who messed up!! There were 9 guys and 4 girls.The funny thing about I think Asian people in general, is that in comparison to American's they are really not competitive. They play games and stuff, but it never really becomes a competition.  If it were up to me, I would have totally turned it into an elimination game to see who stayed in the longest, regardless of the fact that I would probably be one of the first four people out. Its just way more exciting that way.
So I think I hung out with them from 2 till 4:30. But my watch broke at 3:45 so I don't really know. So then I decide to actually explore some of the park. I only ended up going to the Plum tree garden, which was beautiful!! So, after that I took the train back. I stopped at a station ate dinner and then like I have been doing for the past few nights, walk to the nearest Family Mart and also small grocery store and buy some fruit and pastries for breakfast!! A bag of four oranges is about $4. That's not that bad!!

This is a story form a few nights ago. One of the guys (30yrs) staying at the hostel is from Cal. but he lives in Tokyo. He left yesterday, which was too bad, because he was one of the few actually cool non-Japanese guys that I have talked too. So, I was talking to him and a not so cool guy about my family and they were like "wow, that's a big family" The one guy asked, "So why did they have so many kids?" "well, they had my oldest sister and then they were like.." The other guy (Brian) finished my sentence, " hey this is fun, lets have another!!" I practically jumped out of my skin! "Hey, that's almost exactly what I was going to say!!! Stop reading my mind!!!" Its kinda funny because he was also Home schooled. Anywho, he was really funny.
Yesterday I went to see a Japanese movie with my Pen pal and her friend. When I came back he asked what the movie was about. It was SO stereotypical of Japanese movies. I basically said, " there was a dessert cafe, a random girl shows up, is really persistent so she gets a job there, and then there is this other guy who use to be a chef but he quit when his daughter got killed but in the end he gets back into it because somehow she helps him recover." You can basically just change the occupation and you have the plot for about 75 percent of Japanese movies. Oh, yah and really long scenes of peoples faces or them just standing there, or the flower outside the door. But hey, I've been to a Japanese movie theater!!
Well, that's all for now!
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