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!

Day 39 - Yataimura Festival, Competetive Cooking and Karaoke!

Hey everyone, are you withstanding the cold?

It's becoming pretty nippy here too! I may have to buy some trousers!

October 20th was Waseda's Yataimura (屋台村) festival. At this festival there are lots of stalls - mostly food stalls - where the circles (clubs) try to sell things!

Apart from the food stalls there were some other things to do such as face painting and some games.
However, as I was taking part I did not get to check out the festival much!

Every year one of the circles I have joined takes part in the Yataimura by splitting into 4 groups or so and selling food. Each team has a theme or a country and has to make costumes, an advertisement board and some food to sell!

This year the teams were:
Peter Pan
Heidi
Arabian Nights
and... Journey to the West

Amy and I chose to join the Journey to the West group!

Over the few weeks prior to the festival we did lots of preparation. Our groups designed and made all the costumes, advertisement board and chose the menu and made the food!

Amy and I went to a few sessions to help make the costumes and we went to both the cooking practice session and the food making session the day before the event.

It was really fun making the food with all the circle members, and we got to eat what we made on the practice run! During the practice cooking session we got to make pancakes too (just for fun). We added lots of random things to the mix to make different flavours. The banana flavour was the most popular, however the wasabi-smeared sweet chili pancakes didn't go down too well for some reason!

Unfortunately, the day of the Yataimura had horrendous weather! It may not look so bad in this photo but it was pouring with rain!

My shoes were soaking wet before I had even arrived to Waseda! On top of that because we had to show off our costumes we weren't wearing so much so it was really freezing!

The Arabian nights team posing after getting changed!

After we arrived we waited around for a bit in one of building 11's rooms and then started to get changed into our costumes!

The Arabian Nights costumes were so cute! If not a little politically incorrect!

Shereen (Arabian nights) , me, Amy (Journey to the West) and Cami (Heidi)  in our costumes

Our stall and sign!

Shortly after my shoes had finally dried out it was time to go outside to help with the stall. However they weren't ready yet so we went back inside to wait a bit longer, but it was already too late, my shoes were soaking again!

While we were waiting inside we saw the Waseda mascot so we got a photo with him!

Amy and I with the Waseda Mascot!

After some more waiting we went back out to help try to sell some of our food!

Amy enduring the rain!

As our group was Journey to the West (a Chinese tale) our costumes and food were Chinese themed!

The food we made was Banbanji (a Japanese-Chinese dish) and Chinese style dumplings (Gyoza). 

~Gyoza~

I split off with some of the circle members to try selling the food person to person! We were glad because we managed to sell all of the food we took with us!
It was really tough because the weather was so bad but we all did our best and from what we had heard we were selling the most food!

Trying our luck in one of Waseda's many buildings!

When we had finished, we all collected in the room in building 11 again to hear the results!

Anticipating the results!

Everyone had worked hard!

The awards were given out in categories and then the overall winner was announced:

Best costumes went to Heidi
Best food went to Arabian Nights
Best board went to Peter Pan

And....

Celebratory photo!

 We won overall!!

One thing that surprised me was how emotional some of the the circle members became over their results. This was something I found to be very different to English University clubs! But it was nice to see the results how hard everyone had worked!

After the Yataimura had ended we had a Nomikai (drinking party) of course!
Actually... not one Nomikai, but two!
It is quite normal to have an initial party and then a second party and sometimes even more!

The circle is quite old, and with that comes tradition! There was a drinking ceremony where the Leader would drink and pass the HUGE bottle down to other senior members that were lined up while the rest of us (or at least those who could) chanted songs!

Presents were given out to group leaders for their hard work and people in my group were each given a copy of the group photo to take home!

At the nomikai lots of nice food was served! From snacks such as crisps to more filling dishes like udon!

Monja croquette!

After the second party some of us went on to Karaoke - the trains stop at around 12 am so for some people it is necessary to stay on the the later parties until the trains start again!

The parties were only in Takadanobaba so it was within walking distance to my house but we decided to stay on to enjoy Karaoke with everyone!

I love Karaoke so it was lots of fun! It was also my first time going with Japanese students so it was a different experience!

As usual we had unlimited soft-drinks!

One of the Karaoke rooms we rented was being used as a little sleeping room for the more tired party-goers!

I ended up going home at around 4 am! I was pretty knackered and I had classes the next day!

Overall it was really fun. It was lots of work for everyone but it was great getting involved in the festival with the circle like this and everyone did their best!

Thank you everyone!

Well, see you later!