7/16
After class I met Naoko Fujii. She's one of the Japanese people I know from Wake. We met at the Starbucks right by my station home and hungout for a few hours. She said my Japanese has really improved. I left just in time to get to my appointment at Espoir. Since the competition was on the 22nd I went to Espoir for them to practice almost every day the week prior. I even let them shave my face like they wanted (man did that feel weird). Daisuke and Yumi had to be able to get my hair and make up done at the same time in 30min.
7/18-7/19
Laura came home with me to spend the night. She wanted to get a haircut so I had previously set up an appointment for her at Espoir. We had a lot of fun talking to all the employees and Daisuke-san let us sit by each other and talk during out respective appointments. Afterward we came back and she met my hostparents (my hostdad was home for the weekend since Monday was a national holiday). I felt really bad because apparently there wasn't another futon just a folded up blanket and my hostmom hadn't given me a fan for my room yet, so I don't think she got the most comfortable sleep.
The next day we went to sento, a public bathhouse. This was so cool. The place we went was huge! There were indoor baths, outdoor baths, and outdoor baths that were co-ed where everyone had to wear bathing suits. There were so many different types of baths: a tea bath that smelled really good, a collagen bath that was bright pink, baths with water jets, etc. We spent several hours there relaxing and chatting. When we got back my hostparents insisted that she eat with us even though she just wanted to leave and not bother them. My hostdad said he had already made enough curry for us all so she should just stay, and in the end it ended up being really fun. My hostparents especially liked laughing at us when the two Americans would speak Japanese to each other.
Not too many pictures for this post and most of them are of me:
The two halves of my face are done in different color schemes since we wouldn't know what color clothes I would get. I really liked the left it was yellow and orange eyeshadow and they gave me a few fake eyelashes (they were a pain to get on) including some colored ones. There's also a little bit of red hair spray in a few places.
This time you can see the brown side more. You can also make out the fake eyelashes better.
Laura's pretty haircut.
Another picture of me because, well, why not? This time you can see the curls they gave me before doing anything else. Daisuke-san was funny, after curling my hair he kept saying that if it wasn't a hair arrangement competition he would just leave it like that since it was so cute.
