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Six Trains, One Festival, Four Hours of Commute Time

So today there was an International Festival in Saitama city, and AFS had a booth. So they asked me, Valeria, and Huang to go and hang out, as well as promote AFS. (Sometimes I feel like an asset they trot out at events, like a prize dog, but whatever.)

My LP (the person who you can go to if you are having problems) said to meet her at Nerima station at 11 am, so I took a train and then another train to get there. No prob. Except then she dropped this bomb on me that there were four more trains we had to take in order to get to this place. Initially she wanted me to get there on my own but I took one look at the long list of trains and went NO #$%@@*! WAY (politely) so we went together. Except I hadn't brought enough money on my train pass card (because I hadn't been told!) so we had to get more money and whatnot. All of you, who know how I am about plans and not knowing what's going on can probably imagine my emotional state on the happiness-to-anger scale.

So it took two hours total to get from my house to this festival.
(I only WISHED I was on that train. Possibly one of the coolest trains ever.)

The festival was held right by the Saitama Super Dome where they have concerts and sports events and whatnot. Part of the festival was held outside, and part of it was inside.
There was lots of international food, as well as local culture and whatnot. Valeria, Huang and I wandered around trying stuff like tofu doughnuts (which were surprisingly sweet and yummy), and icecream and russian bread and brazilian sausage (the greasiest, yummiest sausage I've ever had).
(Didn't eat those, but definitely thought they were awesome. The Japanese do amazing things with their sausage, don't they?)

So we walked and ate and eventually ran into these people from JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching--more info at THIS LINK): people who come and teach English. They had a pinata (it broke before my turn, very sad).
Valeria and I talked with them for a bit, and they were pretty interesting (as well as impressed we were high schoolers! At first they asked if we were in college...) After the festival Valeria and I decided to go to Omiya, where there was a mall, and hang out for a bit in the awesomely awesome stores.


They are full of awesomely awesome things.
Then I took the train home (trains rather: omiya to ikebukuro, ikebukuro to tokorozawa, tokorozawa to sayamashi) which took about an hour forty-five. *sigh*

AFS has at least two more events lined up for November, and some more in December (like the JENESYS festival). Blah. It is what it is.

Cheers everyone! (Also, I think I'm going to be editing the tags on some of my previous posts, so if they all show up again as "new" I apologize.)

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Comments

  1. Josie To The EastNovember 6, 2011 at 11:46 PM

    "Didn't eat those, but definitely thought they were awesome. The Japanese do amazing things with their sausage, don't they?)"........ yeah i kinda don't...... like i'm sure their moms have said "DONT PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!"

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 12, 2011 at 12:09 AM

    Oh that store...I kind of want to be there!

    Love you! Clare

    ...just realized none of my posts have my name at the top...rather 1456X7&#9 or something like that!

    ReplyDelete

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