Christmas Parties and Dinners

Christmas and New Years in Japan Part 2:  The Rifa Party, and Christmas.

Since the last post was so flipping long, I decided to make a new post for this party.  I'll also try to add in the little Christmas party that took place on Christmas day.

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Japanese Word of the Post:

踊り (odori) - Dance.

Short and simple, I know... but because the Rifa party was all a stage based celebration, and one of the most memorable parts was when one group busted out in dance moves, it makes it a logical choice...

鈴 (suzu) - Bell

I only chose to put this in because during our Christmas Bingo during the Rifa party, we were told to put any words we think of on our sheet as our bingo board.  I put bell, but they said it had to specifically be "suzu".

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THE RIFA PARTY

Thinking about it, I'm not sure if there's necessarily a lot to talk about in this party.  It was mainly a lot of performing and games...  I'll post pictures up.


The stage...it's a tilted picture, I know.  Oh well, it shows you where everything took place.


Hey guys!  Time to get this party started.


Fly little Santa Angels!  Fly to the sleigh!

For the first part, we had people that participated in the celebration by singing, dancing, and other things (like very short games.

To start it all, about half the main girls in Rifa joined to do this cute number:




Unfortunately I didn't record this one...


This is a picture of the announcers, who announced who was coming on, and what we were doing next.  They actually rotated a few times, so we had maybe 4 or 5 announcers...?


Gmae one... (guess the famous icon from the clues).  I'm so glad my group was not chosen for this game, we wouldn't have been able to do it at all...


So festive....


This is the same game that was mentioned above, but this time Elise's group participated in it.  I believe their famous icon was Tiger Woods..  Hahaha.


"Oh my...how am I gonna do this..." - stated by Elise's face...


Finally, this guy sang for us.  I actually recorded him before my camera died...



Finally, Rifa got together a nice presentation of The Lion King.  It was a smaller version, with fewer props, and some silly humor added in, but it was still recognizable as The Lion King.  I'm sorry for the black part, they turned off the lights, and one of the students walked up in the middle...  I also apologize for the shaking when it got blurry.  I was trying to get it to focus.



So.  As you can see, the Rifa party was basically a night of games and people performing!



Because everyone was out for break on the day of Christmas, my friends, Sarah, Elise and I decided to celebrate Christmas with a little bit of a dinner on Christmas Day.



We spent the better part of the day getting ready for our Christmas Dinner.  I went shopping and bought a bunch of items that I thought we may need at around 2PM, and when I came back, we got down to working.


In the background is Sarah's brownies.
Everything in front is stuff that we're somehow incorporating into our meal (except for the sashimi!)


Close up of Sarah's brownies, with brownie crumbs littering the table.  Haha.


Fruit bowl:  Strawberries, Kiwi, and apple slices.  The kiwi was a bit sour, but the apples were perfectly sweet, and the strawberries were magnificent.  (The strawberries were also the most expensive, so they had better be good.)


This is the cake that Elise made.  She made it herself, from scratch!

There were also other things to eat, of course.  We made a vegetable stir-fry with carrots, broccoli, garlic, and onions.  And we also had chicken wings, weiners, and steaks.

Oh, Elise also made some sauerkraut.


We invited Gary and Stephan to our little night, and went to the central area between the boy's and girl's dorm so we could meet.

For drinks, we had green tea, apple juice, mitsuya cider, and hot cocoa.

After a few hours eating and talking, we decided to call it a night, and headed back to the dorm.  I went up to the fifth floor with Elise and Sarah, and we just chilled for a while in eachother's company.

It was at that time that Sarah and Elise gave out gifts for us.


The one on the left is Sarah's gift, the one on the right is from Elise.

I still have to get them their gifts....crap....

So that concludes my Christmas in Japan.  I'll try to update quickly so that I can tackle New Years as well.

またね。。。