why o why

so i have a theory ... when school is in session, the weather is absolutely gorgeous! but ... when it is the weekend or during the holiday, the weather is crap! i dont think i remember a weekend where this hasnt been the case. all week, skies are blue, sun is shining, and just absolutely beautiful outside, BUT, during the weekend it becomes gloomy and rainy and u just wanna stay home instead of taking advantage of doing stuff outside. oye!

but, alas, i didnt let it stop me this weekend. headed out to ajigasawa friday night to hang out with some friends. went to a japanese izakaya (restaurant) and had some good food. then headed to a very small bar to sing (quite horribly, well at lease me :-P) some karaoke. all in all, it was quite fun and didnt get back to meredith's place until 4 in the morning! slept in, then had some pancakes and watched movied. u wanna know something though? for all my american friends, pancakes in england and australia and other western countries arent the same pancakes we have in america. the pancakes they make are what we would call crepes. but, still delicious! so after vegging out for a while, went home and then met up with a couple of friends, a lady from my office, and her friend to go out to eat at a very good japanese restaurant followed by (of course) karaoke. it was a lot of fun. im hoping it will be the beginning of a couple of good relationships with japanese people!

and today, just doing laundry and planning on going into town to buy my ticket for next weekend. guess where im going? im gonna go to sapporo!!! i cant wait! well, i hope all the tickets arent sold out :-P that would suck! ive been here for 2 months, but never called my host family because i hate talking on the phone. well, knowing that i wanted to go to sapporo for my 3 day weekend, i decided that i could no longer delay calling them. but they werent home so i emailed them. my host mom emailed me back and can i just say that i love my host family!!! she said she was so happy to see my email and they they didnt have any plans that weekend and that i should come and stay at their house!! yay! i was hoping that would be the case :) i didnt want to ask and be a burden, so very glad that offered with open arms!

what else? well i think thats about all for now ... oh yeah, i want to share some pictures. the first few are from my area ... views of the town (can u see that im surrounded by rice fields?) and my night out last night.