So the other day I had a birthday, and before I left Canada I was thinking… ‘hmm I turn 21 only a couple weeks after I arrive in Japan, what if I don’t have any friends to celebrate with?’… turns out I didn’t have to worry at all. I’ve made some awesome friends here and we definitely did my birthday justice.

First of all, my family gave me at present at breakfast: a bag of chocolates, a little green purse and a handkerchief. Nice of them, even though I’m not too sure about the purse. It’s really small, I don’t know if I’m actually supposed to use it for a purse or if it’s just a decoration…? Oh well, we’ll see…

After an exhausting day at school (not much for breaks, had lots to do) I biked to the dorms (with Leah’s bike that she lent me for that reason) and met up with some of the girls in Lucy’s room. There’s a tiny liquor store right around the corner from there, and even though there’s no alcohol allowed in the dorms, we snuck in some cheap fruity coolers in a can (with sake in them i think?) because, well… it was my birthday. So we had happy hour and all got dolled up for the night.

Then… we met up with Drea and the guys, Tom and Trygve, and all went out for dinner close to Hirakata-shi station, which was also close to the karaoke place we wanted to go to. We didn’t know where we were going to eat but just by chance we found the perfect place with a table big enough to fit all 11 of us. Nice and Japanese, sitting on the floor with the sunken middle to put your feet down. Good food, not too expensive. More fruity drinks and Asahi beer.

Then… we went to Jankara Karaoke at about 11pm. The deal was that we each pay about $23 for karaoke till 6am with all-u-can-drink. We said “Whaaat?!” So we got our own little room, with a phone to call the server and order drinks, and we saaaaang and sang. They had pretty much every song we could think of and I think we sang every song we could think of. I was sure I would lose my voice. But at about 5am we’d had enough. (By the way, the (all-u-can)-drinks were really weak, which was probably a good thing…) So we all headed our own ways…

I ended up sleeping at Drea’s host family’s place because I don’t have a key to my family’s house and didn’t want to wake them up at 5am. Her family’s really nice and they love me.

Oh wait! I forgot about the presents! Haha… well… at one point, while we were still in the dorms, everyone pulled out noisemakers and showered me with gifts. Really weird, random gifts. They gave them to me one at a time, and they just kept coming. I almost died laughing. I got: a picture of some Japanese guy movie star, stickers for my phone, star-shaped sunglasses, a lollypop, a strap for my phone with beads that say ‘Japanada’, and about 8 stuffed animals. Thanks guys, but I really can’t carry a zoo back to Canada with me. (I’m going to give them each one back before we all go back home.) Oh, also Drea gave me a really nice fan that’s up in my room now.

It was a good birthday.

Photos courtesy of Leah.