KCP Fieldtrip

So the entirety of KCP Japanese School went to the Shouwa Memorial Park (Park commemorating the reign of the Shouwa Emperor Hirohito) and it was absolutely the most fun I've had in a while. Being a level 2 Japanese student, I was expected to be able to make my own way to the park this morning. It wasn't too difficult but it was quite a bit of a trip. My normal commute to school is about 1.5 hrs, but from my dorm to the park today took about 2.5 hours. That was kinda crazy. Anyway, when we all go there we separated into our specific classes and made our way into the park where we had a BBQ. My class had opted to make mostly Korean food (big surprise there, given that 99% of my class is Korean, hehehe) and it was really good if a bit spicy. It was a grilled meat (pork) that we dipped in sauce and wrapped in some sort of random vegetable leaf (no idea what vegetable). We all kind of screwed around, talked, and enjoyed the park atmosphere with each other. We also played a few generic games like tag, and because it was such a rare gorgeous day we had so much fun. It really was amazing just how many students currently enrolled in KCP were present though. There had to be hundreds, and that was just in the BBQ area. There was a spacious area where the classes who opted to make their own lunches ahead of time were. There were probably quite a few people gathered there, too.

Afterwards my Korean classmates again invited me to go out drinking with them to the same place we all went a few weeks ago. The proprietor recognized me which was pretty amusing. This time around I made an attempt to keep up with the Korean people drinking Soju/Sochu, which was dumb because even now I'm still a bit drunk. Soju is not weak stuff. I was feeling it after about 2 or 3 shots. I noticed that my Japanese kept becoming more and more casual as I drank more, and surprisingly I speak Japanese a bit better after I've imbibed a few shots of super-strong Soju. Everyone is always like "why do you speak so politely?" anyway, so it was good to be able to connect on a friendlier, more casual level with my classmates. I got hit on a fair amount tonight, though. The Koreans asked a few times if I had a boyfriend and then asked me to pass around my camera with pictures after I said I did have a boyfriend already :P. Turns out that the power ended up going out at the restaurant though, and the owner told us all not to pay and sent us on our way. I felt a bit bad about that, but he insisted. Also, I seem to be able to navigate better when bit drunk than when sober. That's just weird. Anyway, made my way home safely without any problems and didn't go into any trouble areas. See? I'm a good little girl. No problems finding my way back to the nearest train station or navigating the trains home. All in all, it was a really fun day. I didn't expect to have such a good time on the field trip or today in general :)

These pictures were all taken at the park today. The first one is of me and Yonfun-san (One of my classmates. the "-san" is an honorific in Japanese that more or less means "Mister/Miss/Mrs."). The second is a few of the Koreans, myself, and one of my teachers immediately to the right of me in the picture. The third is just a random pretty pic of the park scenery. The park was absolutely gorgeous, and it felt like we were way outside of Tokyo when we got to the trains station near the park. It was almost countryside like. The fourth is a pic of the Koreans cooking the BBQ stuff. Same with the fifth; he's grilling the pork for... whatever the hell it was called. I'll butcher the Korean word if I try to spell it out. I'll look it up later.