Ninjas and Hot Springs

Last weekend while all of you guys were all ohhhh my tummyyyyy ohhh tooo much turkey I went to some place and did some stuff.

First stop was this small amusement park. Sort of. More of a ninja/samurai themed mock town, but uh, sans samurai. So really just a ninja village. And while that sort of sounds like OH WOW NINJAS (or oh lame, ninjas, depending on who you are) it really was pretty underwhelming (not very random either LOL INSIDE JOKEZ). In fact, I tried to tell my host family beforehand that I was totally fine with not going at all and kept trying to hint that I wasn't really all that interested, but I didn't really know how to politely decline on that sort of thing in Japanese, so we went anyway.

The first thing we saw at the place was a display of different ninja weapons and tools, including a pair of shoes with wooden floats attached for the purpose of walking on water. However, I have watched Mythbusters so I know that unless the ninja had a large amount of cornstarch handy, he wouldn't be crossing anything anytime soon.

We also went into a haunted house which was spoooOOOOooOOOoooOOOOky. All kinds of scary things, like dudes with ping pong balls and spaghetti on their face, and mannequins.

I did, however, get to paint a cup with something or other and I guess it's gonna get glazed and fired up in the kiln so it'll look real nice. We gotta wait a month for it to be finished though, so I guess we're gonna return there for that. Pictures when I get it back.

After the park, we went to a nearby hot spring. I gotta say that the hot spring was much more enjoyable than the NINJA TOWN. There were a ton of people there though, seeing as it was a national day off (their labor day equivalent, I think). We had some maccha ice cream when we left as well, which is always a plus.

The next day I hung out with Elina (the same girl I went to the baseball game with), who I now live really close to. We went over to Ohmura, which is a town pretty close to Isahaya. Same place that we found the store with all the second-hand stussy and supreme and all. We went to a different store this time, and I managed to find a pretty good present for the Rotary Christmas party. I'd tell you what it is, but I gotta give it to someone so for now it is a SECRET. You'll find out soon enough what it is though.

We also found some Curry and Wasabi flavored Ramune (marble soda) at the same store. Fighting our better senses, we bought a bottle of each to try. The wasabi one was just a let down. All it did was smell weird and taste like nothing. BOOOORRRRING. The curry one, however, was much different. It smelled pretty strongly of chili, yet tasted like normal ramune. The smell was strong enough to freak out Elina's dog, Alex. We tried to give him some of the soda to try, but he wanted nothing of it and ran away to hide under a table.

On Saturday, I didn't really do much except get a haircut. It's short. Real short. And I know that back at home whenever I got a haircut I'd always be all "man this is so short I am not pleased with this haircut" and everyone was always "man what are you talking about I still can't see your eyes", but this time I am for real serious. It's not a bad thing, but it is really foreign to me seeing as I've spent the last four or five years with long hair. I find myself doing all sorts of stuff out of habit that no longer make any sense with my short hair. Like flipping my head quickly when I look to the side to get my hair out of my eyes, or shaking my head when I put on shirts and sweaters to get my hair unruffled. Also, washing my hair is REALLY weird now. I keep grabbing for hair that isn't there and probably look like a fool doing so.

Also, the haircut gets big reactions at school and pretty much the past few days has just been listening to people say "Eh? Bikkurishita!" (Eh? I have been surprised!). The librarian couldn't recognize me for the first few seconds when I walked in on Monday, which was pretty amusing as well. And that, uh, is all I really have to say, I guess. I would think of a way to wrap all this up and end this post well, but I can't be bothered.

Oh wow hey the layout on this post is really bad with the photos
sorry
oops