my birthday was on june 4th but it seemed like my birthday was on june 3rd, 4th, and 5th. it was awesome!

i celebrated it in a huge japanese city named kobe which is part of osaka which is part of kyoto which is part of nara. all 1st year ALTS (mine and jon's job) who are going to be staying another year had an orientation in kobe on june 2, 3, and 4. we all stayed at a very beautiful hotel that had rooms starting at 18000 yen (or about 200 dollars).

after our meeting on june 3rd, a bunch of us went out for supper at a very spicey indian curry restaurant. the japanese owner became very happy when he saw a bunch of foreigners walk in. "at last, i can make curry the way it is meant to be cooked." needless to say, it was very HOT! after that we headed out on the town to a latin music bar that was run by some algerian men. at one of the meetings, "music in the classroom", we had a dance competition to see who the best macarena dancer was. victor, a kochi jet from new york, kicked ass. coincidentally, at the latin bar we had the opportunity to show the rest of the bar what we had learnt at our meeting.

the next day - my real birthday - the conference was finished after only 3 hours. jon, vineeth, anisette, and i met up with vineeth's friend eric and toured around kobe. we visited chinatown, and the harbor where we did some shopping and sight-seeing. for supper we ate a mexican restaurant. the food was great. to continue to celebrate my birthday, we went to the 10th floor of city hall to get a night view of kobe. it was so cool - we could see our hotel. to end the night, we ventured on to the earthquake memorial park where we met up with the breakdancing club from kobe university. we chatted, had some laughs, and shot off some fireworks. a great way to celebrate my birthday (for a second day).

on june 5th, jon and i went to Universal Studios Japan. it was such a blast. there were 5 rides: spiderman, back to the future, jaws, jurassic park, and E.T. our favorites were jurassic park and spiderman. jurassic park was a tour on a boat in real water through the dinosaur park where the dinosaurs and people were friends and then the horror film where the dinosaurs had taken over. it ended with a visit into the laboratory where a dinosaur spit water on me and a real life 2 storey drop in between the legs of an angry T-rex into the water. everyone got soaked. spiderman was a 3D ride where we got to fly alongside spidey himself battling bad guys, fires, and a 30 storey drop into a spiderweb. i got scared so i closed my eyes for the drop.

jon insists that i set the new record for most happy birthdays being sung. thus, my birthday was a great one. i think that 24 will be a good age.