Southern Fried Sushi: Laurie in Japan: INFES Starts

Today I went to class. Above: Tajima-sensei corrects one of the other student's kanji. She's so short. ^.^

It was pretty hard to concentrate because right out the window was the Internationl Festival (INFES). I thought it was just Friday, but apparently it was today as well.

I went around that morning before it got too crowded and took pictures of the decorations they worked so hard on yesterday.

All the clubs and groups had their own booths and were selling food for very cheap prices. It smelled so good! I've always felt like the smell of leaves burning was what fall smelled like to me. But this smell, I think, is another flavor that I will not soon forget. I wish I could bottle the smell and send it home.

So this festival was not just for students. There were so many families with small children there.

I stopped at this booth for lunch. Noodles for 150 yen! With tea!

Then I stopped for a baked potato for 100 yen.

You had the option of adding butter or mayonnaise. I chose butter...

Chicken balloons! Sorry bad pic...

From my SUMI E class, we could see the cheerleaders performing.

We stopped to watched.

It's a miricle that I got anything done. I guess I was thinking about Poppie Joe today... Cyprus trees "Asian-i-fied"...

"GO PYRATES!"

...

...so are we lazy pyromaniacs or pirates that can't spell? Every Japanese student I've asked has confirmed that it's the latter, not the former...

When I ran up to ask these lovely ladies for their photograph, they freaked out and screamed "Alice-chan!" The second time today...

We made posters for the dance performance tomorrow...

And decorated the rooms...

And the fashion booth people were practicing too. I loved looking at the clothing from different countries... It turns out, that people brought clothing from their home country, but most of them were too shy to actually wear it on the runway, so a good amount of the models were Japanese wearing international clothing...