Party in Nagasaki

Today was a national holiday called 昭和の日(shouwa no hi) which is for Emperor Showa. Therefore, we did not have school...yay (or maybe awww because I actually had a great week). We had an AFS welcome party in Nagasaki! I woke up early-ish so that I could be at "Joyfull restoran" (spelled like that) at 9:20 to meet everyone. The day before it rained really hard in the afternoon (it rains soooo much and the weather is so unpredictable) so I left my bike at school and got a ride home. Therefore, I had to take my old bike.... Once I got out the door I realized I had NO idea where this restaurant was so I asked two neighbors separately to make sure I got the right directions....

I was getting a little worried because I had been waiting in the parking lot for about 30 minutes and Joyfull is sort of in the middle of nowhere.....
Like really....in the middle of nowhere...Except for a cool house....
And a really shady Pachinko parlor (what Pachinko parlor is not shady?) called Mikado Pachinko......I'll talk about those soon...

Anyways, we got to the place after about an hour's drive...

Which, by the way was "beautifull"...I wish I could have taken more pictures...it was mountainous and there were these ancient looking bus stops in the middle of nowhere that looked like something you would see in a Hayao Miyazaki film...I would wait for a bus there any day.
There was an American guy there named Jeff who I think owned the house...he was awesome..We ate barbecue which was sooo good and we all ate so much
Jeff was barbecuing

Besides barbecue and rice balls and ice cream and cakes we also had stuff dipped in chocolate

After they got out a wooden sword and blindfold and we directed people to the two watermelons on a tarp...so fun

The boys in the front had to jump up and run to the side multiple times when someone came their way with the sword

It was a fun day...

I feel bad though because a few of the other AFS students aren't getting along with their families and aren't having much fun in school...one girl even told me that she was already counting down the days until she goes home... 277 days apparently...great. I feel like soon, however, they'll be better...for now, I'm great.