Setsubun

This past saturday a bunch of the Japanese students at my school arranged a little trip to a place called Osu Kanon. It's a place with a bunch of cool little shops and what not but during Setsubun (I'll get to it in a second) they have a big fun festival. Setsubun is a kind of ritual for the start of a new Season. It's kind of like the New Years Eve of season changings. Basically people throw these roasted beans to get rid of evil spirits and to bring in the good luck. Some people do this in their home but if you go out to a temple there's usually a big gathering. At Osu Kanon, they have a big big temple and this big stage type thing where people throw beans for hours. People gather underneath them with bags to try and catch these beans. You're supposed to catch and eat however many years old you are plus one. (Since I'm 20, I had to catch and eat 21.) I totally made bank with the beans caught about 8. It's basically a giant rough mosh-pit of old people. It was way rougher than I had imagined it would. It was a blast. Old ladies were grabbing my tush like nobodies business. It was, by far, the most action I'll get in Japan for sure. After doing this for an hour or so, we broke off into groups and walked around the shopping area looking at stores and finding cheap delicious food. In Japan, I am hungry all the time. Japan is the king of snack food so I frequently go to the convenient stores and get very delicious food like chocolate waffles filled with ice cream and strawberries, giant cream puffs, chocolate melon bread, or these mean sandwich things. Luckily I do enough walking that I haven't gotten fat...YET. (If I can break 140 pounds while I'm here, I'll be extremely proud of myself.) We later did a set of Karaoke and then moved to the highlight of the evening. Tabehodai (All you can eat) and Nomihodai (all you can drink). This was at a yakiniku (cook your own meat). For an hour and a half (for about 26 dollars) you basically can order where kind of delicious meat you want and any alcoholic beverage you want. It was delicious. I sat at a table with one friend who knew english, then a non-english speaking Japanese student and a guy from China who is in the same level Japanese as me and knows no english. Let's just say I tore up Japanese without even knowing it. I was pretty proud of myself. Knowing I had to get on a train and ride for an hour by myself, I was careful with my alcohol...some people weren't so lucky. I ate so much I wanted to vomit (again... see an early essay on a giant lunch I had). As soon as we left, though, I wanted a cake or something from a convenient store so I got one on my way home. I finished and realized it was a bad idea immediately. I walked in the door of my house and my host mom had saved me HUGE sushi rolls she made and very special miso soup. My host mom and dad watched until I finished it all. Then I drank a cup of tea, two cups of water and ate a starburst I found in my backpack. I lay down to get to bed and was pretty sure i was going to vomit within seconds. Using a very effective technique called "Michaelmalarkeyhatesvomiting" I prevented it and survived the night. I think this story is kind of boring. But I had such an awesome time last night.