We even did the hand gestures for A*RA*SHI.

Gah. I'm sick. David had a nasty cold last week and I seem to have caught it. Yick. Sore and dry throat, but no coughing yet! Thank god. Oh well. I'll live~ Bring on the Halls and orange juice!

So, we're settling into life here pretty well. We live just outside of Sendai and I like our area. I've had a real hankering for matcha lately, so I went and bought some. I figured out how to make my own homemade matcha lattes. Go me. And I've been drinking them lately. Yum yum~ Although, I tend to have a heavy hand with it. Most recipes online tell you to add in 1-2 teaspoons. I've been adding like 4-6. Ahaha... Yeah.

I've also discovered that Japanese frozen foods are pretty good. I've been eating a lot of pasta that way and it's tasty. I really like the carbonera. But then, I add a bunch of veggies in whenever I eat it, so that helps. Yum yum.

Well then, onto more current stuff. I got together with a friend yesterday. Uyen (pronounced 'win') is from Vietnam and is on a backpacking tour of Japan. We met through an Arashi fan community and she came for a visit on her way to Tokyo. It was a fun day! We met at the train station and set out from there. Neither of us had a lot of money, so we first went to the arcade and just walked about and window shopped. Fall and winter fashions are everywhere right now and there were sooo many cute boots and jackets! She's also a geek like me and takes photos of Arashi members on billboards.

I managed to steer her over to the Disney Store, too. Turns out when she was in high school she was an exchange student who lived in Florida near Disney World. We chatted about of love for Disney while we walked about. So much cute stuff on sale right now! It took all my self control to not buy anything. They were playing the Art of Skiing on the TV upstairs. It still makes me giggle.

Afterwards we were pretty hungry, so we walked around trying to find a place to eat. We ended up eating at McDonalds, because it's cheap and easy. And, apparently, they don't have McDonalds in Vietnam! Crazy, eh? We got our food, sat down and chatted for about 2-3 hours. We were there for a long time, but it was really nice to just sit and have a chat about common interests and whatnot. We talked about Arashi, Japanese music and entertainment in general, about Vietnam, Disney, a whole bunch of different topics. She showed me pictures from her trip so far, too. It was nice. There was a protest march walking by while we were there. They were protesting Nuclear Power. It was too dark for me to get many pictures, but it was rather random.

So, after dinner it was getting a little late, but we decided to do a quick round of karaoke. We hopped over to Big Echo and bought an hour. Good times ensued. We sang all kinds of stuff. And what was hilarious, was singing songs we only knew half the words to. But, we laughed and it was fun. We even did the hand gestures for A*RA*SHI. Ahahaha. Good times.

And then, it was time to go home. We said goodbye at the station and Uyen hopped a train to her hostel and I popped home. It was a nice day. And next week I'm meeting up with another girl from Fukushima for shopping and Arashi fangirl shenanigans. Oh, and I'm signing up for Japanese lessons from the local community center. Wooo!