Well. I'm a grandfather.

Last week I was hanging out in the lounge one night, eating my dinner. I was making an effort to try to talk to people I had never spoken to before, especially Japanese people. There was this really cute Japanese girl making funny faces for her friends, including a monkey face. So I finally joined in and did a monkey face with her. It turned into a face off and we kept trying to top each other's faces. That kind of ended when I revealed the infamous "old man face" that was once in such high demand when I was in high school. The Japanese girls pretty much couldn't get over it. They kept asking me to do it again, and trying to take pictures with me while I made the face. At one point, I jokingly pointed to myself and said "ojisan," meaning grandfather. Well, that did it. I dug myself a hole right there.

For the rest of the night I was "Ojichan." Everyone called me Ojichan and gave me hugs and requested the face over and over again. I'm pretty sure the name is gonna stick, too. The foreigners living in the guest house were not so opposed to calling me Ojichan either. One Japanese girl called me "Catojichan," which I found pretty clever.

All in all, I can't say I feel too upset about being called the grandfather of the guest house. I've made quite a few new friends and acquaintances in the guest house as a result. I really am starting to feel a part of the place. I quite like living here and think I may stay for quite awhile. Not only is hanging in the lounge a great way to socialize, but it's a great way to ensure that my Japanese improves. I have become very determined to learn as well as I can. It is probably my major goal of my time in Japan. If I have to stay an extra year or two to really get my Japanese down, I may do it.

Last night, my guest house had a big party because a bunch of people are leaving the guest house soon. Some are Japanese, but many of them are foreigners that have been studying Japanese as full-time students at ICU, an international University nearby. They have been here for a year and now they are all leaving Japan. Three of them are British and one is American. They are really nice people and I am sad to see them go. I had a great time at the party though. I got to practice my Japanese a lot, and it was fun to be at a party. I hadn't been to a party in ages. This one Korean guy who works at a cake shop, who everyone calls Kim Pan because he used to work at a bread bakery, made a HUGE cake for the party. It was amazingly huge and delicious. It was decorated with fruit in the shape of a British flag, cause most of the students leaving Japan are British. We ate through that entire thing with no problem. Well, I was impressed.

Oh, another nice thing earlier this week: I went out to dinner with three of the foreign students who are leaving soon. We went to this Okonomiyaki place where you make it yourself! It was tabe ho dai, which means all you can eat for 1500 yen! (Tabe is short for Taberu, the verb for to eat.) That's fifteen dollars, for all you can eat. And eat we did. We ordered a lot of food. We got traditional okonomiyaki, where you mix cabbage and egg and flour and meat together to make a sort of omelette pancake thing. Then we made yaki udon, fried udon noodles with meat and vegetables. All of it was really good, though maybe it didn't look that nice cause we were rather new to cooking our own okonomiyaki. At the end we made dessert okonomiyaki. They brought us a cup of butter, whipped cream, corn flakes, a whole banana, almonds, chocolate, and who knows what else. We dumped it onto the fryer and heated into a big gooey yummy mess. It was dee-licious.

The place was pretty interesting, too. The restaurant was in the basement of a building and it was totally packed. Half of the place was traditional Japanese style where you take off your shoes and sit on the floor. You huddle around a low table with a burner in the middle of the table, where you cook your food. We sat in the other half though, where we sat in chairs at the table. I couldn't believe how packed it was, though. And, literally EVERY customer looked like a young 20-something. It was unbelievably noisy in there. All in all, definitely a very interesting, new experience.