A simple drinking party with my zemi friends

Somewhere in early April.

Once it hits spring there are flowers everywhere.

My friend and I decided to go take pictures right before the drinking party near the Imperial Palace.

The most famous flower in Japan in the spring time is definitely Sakura.

There are various type os sakura. This tree is called Ookan Sakura.

Some are very pink like this.

Others are white.

Some pictures in the alley way.

Inside a somewhat modern building.

We also took a little break. I got some Hagen Dazs with brandy.

A new way to enjoy icecream, no?

Pre drinking.

My friends "new" iphone.

We then moved on to the restaurant where are zemi senpais were waiting.

Even though I've never been in the same time as some of the zemi people I really enjoy talking to them because they have so much to say as already working "salary men" and simply because they've been living a lot longer than me.

Really, great people.

This is a new beer called the frozen beer where the bubbles on the top is frozen.

I thought it was unique and tasty.

Karaoke. Dumplings. Maid Cafe.

A Typhoon hit Japan on April 3rd 2012.

But I had the day off from work and school and so did my friend so we decided to go to karaoke and stay inside.

Karaoke in Japan is very cheap in the day time. It's usually about a buck per hour during the day time but once it hits 6pm the price usually goes up to about $5 per hour.

My friend was from Hong Kong so she sang in Chinese/Cantonese and I sang Japanese and English songs.

Stayed in the karaoke room for maybe 5 hours?

I can stay for longer.

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Maybe a day after that my friend from another school came by house suddenly to see me.

All I could get ready for my unexpected guest was fried noodles

and dumplings. Sorry A chan! I hope u had fun at my place though!

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I went to dinner with my friends and their parents in Ginza the next day.

An all you can eat buffet! The dad showed me this special liquid supplement? he puts in his alcohol to make him not drunk. Few drops in your drink will break apart the cause of drunkenness. It's natural and looks like its a good buy! (It's pretty expensive though)

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And so school started in early April. (Finally!)

After class few of my friends and I decided to visit Akihabara to go to a Maid cafe.

Walking around Akiahabara to find our maids.

Country Side Driving

April 2nd 2012

One day my friend and I was bored (It's still spring break) so we decided to go out for a drive in Kanagawa prefecture.

But we needed to make ourselves full before going on a ride. 

My friend took me to a very tasty ramen shop in Ebina. Salt soup based Ramen!

We started from Ebina.

My friend and her smooth driving skills.

I would kill myself if I drove in Japan because of the very narrow roads and crazy drivers.

* I have nothing against asian drivers 

I really just enjoy seeing around the random semi country scenery.

This is an elementary school.

Lots of mountains in Japan which makes driving a lot more fun then straight roads and farms that continue for miles like in Canada.

Ah- I would love to live in the country side when I'm old.

It's not like we drove without a destination though. 

We wanted to go visit the "Sagami river Village of Nature"

Sounds crazy but its totally legit.

Picking new students to enter our zemi.

Beginning of April 

We welcomed new third years to our zemi in April.

But it ain't that easy to enter this zemi.

There are several steps into entering a zemi in the faculty of business and commerce in Keio.

1. You need to attend the information seminars our zemi holds through out the year.

2. You need to hand in an entry sheet (this looks like it takes a looong time to fill out)

3. You need to have three interviews which is all done in one day.

First is group discussion where you are put into a group and given a topic to see if you can cooperate and discuss with others.

This is how a group discussion will look like.

2.This is the zemi member interview room where few zemi members will interview based on the entry sheet you filled out.

3.You also have the teacher interview where you have an interview with the teacher and the masters students.

This whole process takes a whole day as we have around 23 students to interview and look at.

This is the waiting room.

And at the end of the day we actually pick out the students who we choose to be part of our zemi.

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On a side note while we were doing the interviews my friend went to go buy coke.

This coke didn't have coke inside but a watch.

Graduation

The last week of march.

People

 move into Tokyo,

move out of Tokyo,

graduate school,

go into school,

in the season of Spring.

And my friend from Canada was now starting a new life in Tokyo at her new job place.

We went to Karaoke, sang and updated each other on our lives.

She is so good at singing Amuro Namie!

Singing some oldies.

We then moved to the izakaya.

The potato salad here is amazing. It's really good! $3.5

The skewers are pretty good as well. $1

And this is my favourite of all time. Potato wedges with garlic butter on the side.

Go to "choinomi" when visiting Tamachi.

I'm really considering buying another camera.

After a long chat I wished her good luck at her new work place.

It's great that some of my friends are moving into Tokyo!

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Next is me helping my friend move out of Tokyo.

Tons of cleaning to do before moving out because they decide to give u back the deposit on whether ur room is clean or not.

Also when you try to throw away big garbage like beds and tables you need to pay lottts of money. (It cost my friend aprox $500 to throw out things)