The Last Lunch

Last Wednesday was the final day of my Nihongo Elementary 1 class in Makati and I'm very glad to tell you all that I passed the short course! *insert confetti here* We were shown our scores from our midterm and final exams after Izah-sensei discussed some points she wasn't able to fully stress-out the previous days and then off we went to eat lunch at Ukkokei Ramen Ron near our school.

Check out the gigantic ramen! :)) That's Izah-sensei in yellow and a classmate which we all fondly call Ate Laine since she's the eldest among us.

Ukkokei Ramen Ron interiors. I saw a lot of Nihon-jins during our stay. I think it's one of the famous Japanese restaurants at Arnaiz Ave. That's why.

Menu of pricey ramens and meal sets haha. :p 

My after-class walking buddy, Lauren.

An example of Japanese calligraphy. I sort of want to try this.

Kare or  Curry Rice. Oishii!

That I think, would be the last lunch I get to have with them (sensei and classmates) since I am one of those E1 passers who opted not to advance to Elementary 2 classes cos ughh. Heaven knows how much I would love to take E2 classes with those people but I am kind of torn. I want to spend my remaining months in the Philippines fruitfully and I was thinking that enrolling in E2 classes would take much of my supposed to be "free" time. Plus it is costly, with the fare to and from Makati and the tuition fee for 68 hours itself. So yeah, it's a bit heartbreaking. I'll surely miss them and our eat-outs and before-and-after-class coffee bondings.

On a lighter note, now I can go to UPLB for my clearance and visit my friends there whenever I want, and also, I can immensely bury myself with Asian dramas and novels and  go on dates with friends. I still have  more or less than four months. :-)

Nihongo Three Days a Week

I've been MIA for the past days and it's all because of Japanese language school and some side trips to Los Banos for my college clearance. I thought having graduated means full eight hours (or more) of sleep , less stress, lotsa parties and free time for leisure but boy I was wrong! My eyebags are becoming evident than it ever was when I'm in my last college semester and my sleep ranges from one to four hours everyday since I started school again last last week.

But having learned interesting things about Nihongo and Japan as a whole, all the stress of waking up at four in the morning, commuting from Bulacan to Makati via bus and MRT for my 9AM class, walking the streets of Ayala, reading and writing Hiragana and Katakana syllables.. it's all worth it, especially when you're with people with whom you share a thing or two in common. Learning became more of a challenge than a burden. :)

So early for my class! Haha!

Morning ritual

3rd floor lobby

Room 5. Sensei in blue.

Origami in our classroom :)

These are but a few photos. Will post more when I get to bring my camera, maybe after the dreaded midterms on the first week of December! Yep, we have midterms and finals. Feels like I'm still in college! :))