just "hanging out"

In America when I tell you I am going to go "hang out with my friend(s)" I usually mean sit at home chatting for 4 hours. Maybe we will take this chatting to the mall but that is about as exciting as it gets in Utah. Hanging out with friends in Japan is an adventure and a party that can take up an entire day without you getting bored! For example: Yesterday.

Yesterday I got to hang out with a friend from school, Masami. Let me just say this, I have not had that much fun "hanging out" in a long time! It was the start of testing so we got out of school at about 11:00, (as soon as the tests for that day were finished) and we headed out to lunch first. I have been craving greasy American food like nothing else lately so we went for some McDonalds. (How much more American can you get?!). We spent the next 5 hours singing Karaoke, eating some donuts (sugar to contrast the previous grease), and shopping!

Karaoke in Japan is amazing. This was my first experience with karaoke and let me just say this: WOW! Why in heaven's name do we not have one of these places in Utah?!! We got a little room to ourselves with a huge TV and a huge, and I mean HUGE, book of songs to choose from. We rocked out to The Beatles, Franz Ferdinand, Blue Hearts, and much much more! Eventually our time ran out and we had to leave that little room of awesome but that is OK because in Japan, there is ALWAYS something else to do!
We went out for donuts!! There are no words good enough to describe these delicious circles of goodness so you will just have to use your imagination.

Following the donuts came shopping!! We rode our bikes down to the closest shopping mall and stayed there for an hour or so. That is the one thing that is the same in America and Japan, Shopping. You can probably figure out what that was like without a lengthy description.

To end my day after returning home from my awesome adventure with Masami I went to eat Ramen for dinner with Airi! Now if you think those little packages of dehydrated noodles and salt that call themselves ramen are tasty after eating ramen in Japan I think you need to get all your taste buds removed for you are not worthy to have them anymore. This ramen was SOOOO good and that bowl was HUGE. This is probably the only thing in Japan that comes in a huge serving size. A huge delicious serving size. ^^ It was the perfect end to a perfect day!