Since I'm a student of College of Tourism (観光学部), I registered for a course called '2nd year seminar (2年のゼミ)' conducted by Masutani Sensei (舛谷先生). It's a new experience for me because students can decide what project they want to do and discuss the updates of their project during class. Some of the projects are home stay programme (they will go to Brunei), global standard and travel writing.
According to my friend from the class, they decided on the project since their 1st year, i.e. in 1st year seminar. So, they will continue their projects until their 4th year.
To celebrate the new year, they did a New Year Party or called Shin nen kai in Shiki on 16th January 2011. It was an all-you-can-drink or called 飲み放題 Nomi houdai type of party. Here's the drink menu,
Obviously, I can only drink soft drinks and Oolong tea. Hehe.. Besides the unlimited flow of drinks, the package also comes with appetizer, main dish and dessert. For appetizer, it was plain crackers with avocado, cheese and mayonnaise-like dipping sauce. It was so good! ^^
Later, the salad came, not bad for me..
Putting food-related talks aside, what I enjoyed the most about the New Year's Party is the chance to finally get to know my seminar friends. To be honest, before the party, we didn't have any real conversation so I didn't know them very well. At the party, we talked about lots of things including cultural differences. I can still remember the shock they had when I told them sex before marriage is prohibited in Islam.. Hehe.. And as usual, I had a hard time trying to explain why I can't eat pork and non-Halal meat (chicken and beef in Japan) and why I can't drink alcohol.. Oh, I explained about my long name and how the 'Bin (son of)' in Muslim name system worked too.. :)
Overall, even though the fee for the New Year's Party is quite expensive for me (3000yen), but it was worth it, maybe I can consider it as a fee to get the chance to socialise with my seminar friends.. Thanks a lot to Enkei-kun for planning the party..
