Day 51 - All-you-can-eat and Karaoke, and the Waseda festival opening ceremony!

Hey everyone!

On November 1st Amy and I went to meet Meg for some good old face stuffing accompanied by all of our beautiful voices!

Yup that's right, we went to a tabehoudai (食べ放題) restaurant with karaoke!
Tabehoudai essentially means all-you-can-eat.

It was a really interesting restaurant. There were normal seating areas at the front but around the back of the restaurant there were individual karaoke rooms. We paid a set price for the karaoke room which included one main meal, nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink) and free access to the all-you-can-eat salad and chocolate fountain buffet. Yes, I said chocolate fountain!

I found Nemo!

Fishies!

They even had a fish tank with lots of tropical fish and a water feature in the center of the dining area

A rather cluttered plate of salad

The buffet had soups, salads, pastas, noodles and tofu. At the end of this was a chocolate fountain with various biscuits, wafers and sweets to dip in to the liquid gold!

The Karaoke room was a nice size, especially for only 3 people! It was also one of the nicest designed rooms I have been to so far since coming to Japan. The seats and walls were covered in a black leather-like cushioning which made it feel quite cosy. As usual there was a table in the center and the karaoke TV was in the corner of the room by the door. 

Locomoco

Meg and Amy both ordered a Locomoco. Locomoco is a Hawaiian dish which is quite popular in Japan. Of course, it being Japan there was a Japanese twist to it. A Locomoco usually consists of a hamburger patty, egg and a brown gravy resting on a bed of rice.

Luckily our table was big!

After the restaurant we went back to Waseda to catch the opening ceremony for the Waseda festival.

Every year Waseda holds a festival called Waseda Sai (Literally 'Waseda festival'). The Waseda Sai is the biggest university festival in Japan. But I will talk more about it in my next post.

All the preparations were being made for the festival that would be held the next day. There were barriers put up and some stages were erected for the entertainment acts.

As part of the opening ceremony there were some performances being held on one of the stages. There were already quite a lot of people there even though it was only the opening ceremony.

A rather curious muscle man act????

The real part of the opening ceremony however, was held in the Okuma Auditorium, which is in Waseda's characteristic clock tower building.

When we went in we were all given glow sticks! I LOVE glow sticks!! What's more is that they were blue- my favorite!

The glow sticks were for waving during the ceremony as a kind of cheering-on act!

So happy with my glow stick

Before the ceremony started

Lots of people came!

Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos or videos during the performance. And like a good student I obliged so I am afraid I don't have any shots of the performances. But you can take my word that they were fun.

If I remember correctly we all sang the Waseda song at the beginning, linking arms with the people next to us and swaying! You could really feel the Waseda spirit. People are truly proud of there universities here!

The acts were a variety of dance, music, magic and trick performances, I think there was even perhaps a little comedy? It was a good introduction to some of the performances that we would be able to see during the Waseda Sai. The performances are all carried out by Waseda circles (clubs), so all the performers were Waseda students.

It was a lot of fun and I really did feel happy to be a Waseda student! I feel like I have so much love for this university, I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to study here!

After the opening ceremony Kento had finished his practice for his performance at the Waseda Sai so he joined Amy, Meg and I for a chat in building 11's lounge area.

Meg had to go back to avoid missing the last train, so we said our goodbyes and then went to a nearby cafe for some drinks.

I had a really great day and the opening ceremony did its job of getting me pumped for the Waseda Sai the next day!