International Festival

So on November 3rd there was a huge festival at Kansai Gaidai. From Friday all the student clubs (Japanese students) had their own festival and sold food for fund raising. I think they also had other stuff going on like performances from the street dancing club and judo clubs and such but I wasn't able to see any of it because we, the Mexicans, were working last minute (unfortunately, typical Mexican bad habit) to get our world booth together. I took a few pictures of their festival. Oh yeah, I didn't really buy any of their food because it was too expensive. I did buy fried (tempura) ice cream, green tea (macha) flavored and it was YUMMY!!

The guy on the left studied abroad in Mexico. They were selling really bad tacos for $3 each, didn't buy any.

Just thought it was interesting

Diana, she's my closest friend here, she's awesome.

Christel and Maria. It was around 4pm, we were supposed to be done with our booth by 3 haha. But almost nobody was done so we didn't feel bad. It's funny because Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador were all in the same corner; none of were done on time. Oh Hispanics...

Marcela, gluing together a map of Mexico.

The Center for International Education (CIE) lounge, this is where all the world booths were.

After we "finished" our booth we went to a sushi bar. I thought he shinkansen (bullet train) was really cute. If there was a dish u wanted and it wasn't on the carousel you could order it and it would arrive on the shinkansen, cool huh?

Francois and I

Beer was really expensive so Francois ordered the cheapest not realizing that it was non-alcoholic beer. It tasted awful. Look at his face, it's priceless.

The day of the International Festival. Somehow our booth got completed just in time that morning. Jose came in the morning and brought a bunch of stuff to decorate the booth with. A bunch of people complemented us, we totally pulled it out of our asses haha.

Ana and Brandon

Adriana and some Japanese girl who's name I don't know

Afia and Teri from Kenya, they're awesome and a lot of fun to be with

China

Finland

Thailand

We did some loteria (Mexican bingo?) games. The winner got a Cerveza Modelo hat, some traditional Mexican candy, and a book mark made in Mexico. I feel really bad because Diana had to be at the booth all day. All of us had other things going on like the world dance and fashion show so she had to stay and look after the booth.

Paul, me, Diana, Christel. Paul's really cool, he speaks Spanish so he practices with us all the time.

Ecuador. Carlos, Carolina, and another Japanese girl

Marcela with a traditional Mexican dress from Veracruz

We danced bon odori again so I had to go dress up again. We danced with some Japanese students. I wish I had met to of them sooner because they're really cool girls. It was cool because we wore different kimonos this time, it was a bunch of fun \(^_^)/

Jose and Christel dancing cumbia with Japanese students. It was a good dance.

Maria and Jose dancing banda

Marce, Christel, and I dancing with Japanese students. I'm behind Marce so you can't see me

There I am next to Marce

Oh fun times!

Paul and I, again

Chris, Maria, me, Diana, Francois

I went to Osaka to meet my friend Evelyn and saw a band playing at the station so I took a picture.

This is Evelyn. We went to Reed College together my freshman year before I transfered to Lewis and Clark. She was my mentor (program they have to help you adapt to college life) and she's awesome. It's weird because she added me on Facebook and I told her I was in Japan and then she told me she was too!! She's doing the JET Program and one of her acquaintances had a bday so they all decided to go to a Mexican restaurant in Osaka. She invited me and we met. It was awesome. I really needed someone from home so it was really good to see her.

The restaurant is called El Pancho. It's pretty Mexican and the food is really good but pretty expensive.

I tried to include everyone but it didn't work. We were like 16 people.

Chili pepper!