Birthdays!

 This weekend we celebrated two birthdays! The first was on Thursday and the second was on Saturday. On Thursday we decided to bake a cake for the birthday girl, the only problem being that most homes in Japan don't have ovens.. So we made it in the microwave. It wasn't the best cake ever but it turned out pretty tasty for a 3 minute microwaved cake. All of the buddies came over Thursday night to help celebrate.

Microwave cake in a bowl


Those of us that didn't have class early Friday morning went out to a nomihodai in Shibuya. Nomihodai means all you can drink, but you have a time limit. You pay a set fee for a certain amount of hours (I think it's usually two hours) but the servers also keep bringing out food and you can order all sorts of drinks. I asked my Japanese buddies what they recommend and they told me to try うめ　酎ハイ (ume chuhai). So I did. The waitress brought me what looked like a glass of water with an umeboshi on it. (umeboshi is a pickled plum) Keep in mind I've never liked umeboshi, they are very すっぱい (suppai, sour). 

Of course everyone watched me take my first sip.. tried to keep a straight face but yikes. Ume chu hai is shochu with umeboshi. Shochu is (according to wikipedia) a Japanese distilled beverage, typically from barley, sweet potatoes, or rice.Yummy. My first sip tasted a little bit like rubbing alcohol mixed with club soda. Apparently you're supposed to crush the umeboshi to add flavor, which I did, but I didn't like the flavor that it added.. So I just politely tried to sip it and pretend I loved it.


Friday afternoon at school we celebrated Emelie's birthday with a Japanese fruit roll cake. The buddies threw her a little surprise party in the cafeteria, and later that night a bunch of us went to karaoke! Karaoke was incredibly fun but I forgot to bring my camera so I'm going to have to wait until I can steal some from other people off of facebook..