Ren's Footprints

It is fun how some nights just seem to go on forever! Friday night I went to a presentation put on by Mongolian exchange students showcasing their homeland. It was very well done and even included an appearance by a sumo wrestler. A there was also a cool performance of a Mongolian string instrument alongside throat-singing. The throat singer had a cold so he actually had to stop singing at one point. I caught that on video actually! Anyway, I got to drink Mongolian tea, eat Mongolian dumplings, learn about a game played with ankle bones of goats, and meet new people (all for free). I also got to try on traditional Mongolian clothes (pictures to come later). All of this reinforced my desire to visit Mongolia someday.

I got to see something really unique when the throat singer asked for someone to come up and try it with him and the (Japanese) guy went up there and started beatboxing. The throat singer was really into it and started to do his thing alongside the beatboxing creating a cool clash of ancient and modern sounds!

Mongolian Music At Waseda University In Tokyo Japan






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After that ended I took off to go to my friend's birthday party. The party included lots of people, food, and drink and was a great birthday bash indeed! I met a guy named Silver and a Ugandan woman named Kenya with her Kenyan friend who's name I have forgotten.

That lasted until around midnight and after that a friend and I checked out a popular bar to see if there was anyone there we knew. As we expected there were, and though I didn't order anything we hung out there for around an hour. My friend then suggested we go to an abandoned building with some others so we recruited a fellow Californian girl we ran into at the bar and all headed to the building.We all went to the creepy building which reminded me of pictures from devastating earthquakes. Some people were drinking on the top floor and we hung out with them. Things got pretty loud and eventually someone with a bright flashlight started yelling at us from below telling us to come down. Someone supposedly heard him say that he called the police but I don't think that was true.

Finally, we went to my friend's dorm and everybody started playing video games and I decided to go home.

On Saturday I earned my first yen ever! It ended up being 5000 yen for 2 hours of English conversation with an internet site director. We agreed to meet once a week for 3 months. I was bought a nice lunch at The Cotton Club, a place that I have walked passed many times but never considered going to because it seemed too expensive. He said he was going to mention me to his friends who were also hoping to get some English conversation practice.

By the way, I don't eat KFC!