9th day - WIC welcome event and Tendon

Hey everyone!

Sorry for not posting much, classes have properly started now and I'm still trying to get settled in. But I will still aim for one post a day.

On the 20th we had a WIC welcome event. Now, I know what you are thinking, "ANOTHER welcome event?". Well I promise you it was different, the one before was a welcome PARTY. See? Completely different.

The event started at 16.45 where we met outside our respective dormitories. We walked together with the WIC members to the Okuma Audiorium (a Waseda building not so far from my dorm). This event WAS actually different from the WIC welcome party the day before. This event was a chance to get to know other people from the same dorm. We were split up into teams according to our dorms - only around 6 people came from my dorm but lots of people came from the other dorms so our group was tiny!! We then played competitive games against the other dorms.

We were given stickers to write our names on when we came in which was helpful because I am awful at remembering names! Each dorm had their own table which had drinks and snacks on top.

After we had eaten a few snacks we started playing games. The first game we played was similar to "chinese whispers" but with drawings. Each team had to choose 5 people. The first person has the thing they are supposed to draw whispered into their ear by the referee. The first person then has 20 seconds to draw said thing - each team gets a different thing - the other team members must not look. After they are finished ne next person looks at the drawing and then draws it again. The aim is that they understand what the first picture is depicting and then draw it again so that the next person can guess and replicate it correctly. The 3rd and 4th person also does this and then the 5th person sees the last picture and guesses what the word that was whispered into the 1st persons ear was. If they get it right then the team gets points!

It was a very fun game with some funny results!!

After that we played Musical Chairs! Que the flashbacks to childhood parties! Although most of the people in our group got out early in most rounds but Ana - a lovely girl from my home university who is also in my dorm - was pretty good! She managed to co-win all rounds that she was in bar one! In fact I was coerced into playing a round which I managed to co-win too!! So I was pretty happy. 

Even though we had so few team members we managed to tie with Nishi-Waseda dorm, but we had a tiebreaker game and although we were doing well at the start we lost the death round so Nishi-Waseda won the prize! 

We may not have won but it was a good event and I was able to meet some nice people from Hoshien dorm.

Unfortunately I was too busy joining the games so I didn't take any photos of the event but we went to have dinner after where I did manage to take some pictures!

We split up into different groups depending on what we wanted to eat. Amy and I regrouped from our different dorm groups. We hadn't had Tempura don (tempura on rice) before so we decided to join that group.

We went to a Tendon (Tempura don) restaurant that was really nearby. Amy and I ended up sitting with another exchange student and a WIC group member, we talked about Japanese slang and Taku - the WIC member taught us some funny Japanese slang.

I ordered a small Tempura don and noodle set. It was only around 500 yen for the whole thing (around £3.21) - "FOR ALL THAT?" I hear you cry! We also had infinite refills of tea for free!

The set included the Tempura don, - which had rice with prawn, fish and vegetable tempura and some sauce on top - soup with ginger and spring onion to add to taste (I added it all!) and noodles in a basket which you dip into the soup.

It was SOOOO good!! I want to eat it again and again!!!! I haven't been back since but I have been hankering for it since!

After that Taku and Jami (the other exchange student) were going to a cafe to do some homework and Amy and I tagged along to get some cake!

Amy ordered a cranberry soda drink.

I ordered an alcoholic Calpis drink - Alcohol is very cheap here and I like cocktails so I couldn't resist. They weren't skimpy on the alcohol either as I thought might be the case!

Amy ordered a cookie crumble cheesecake - which looked rather nice!

I had the Chiffon cake which was pretty good!

It was really nice and when Amy and I went to pay Taku had already paid for us, we tried to insist on paying but he really kindly paid for everyone. It was really nice of him!

It was a good day, it was good meeting some more people from my dorm as it had been quite quiet. The dinner and cake after was also so tasty with some good conversation!!

See you later!