Pieing Party

So I took part in my first pieing party last night and it was quite hilarious. So, it all started with having some casual drinks at Ragslow, which is just down the street from my place. I was there with Brent and someone approached us and asked if we wanted to watch someone get a pie thrown in their face. It was a strange question to ask and I thought maybe it had something to do with the dating party that happened to be going on that night at the bar, but we said yes and went with these guys. So we got in this one guy's van and we all had little paper plates with whip cream on them. I was still confused as to who was getting pied and why. So we drove for about 5min to a parking lot in Okazaki. Once we got to the location we found out that they were gonna pie their friend because it was his birthday. One girl asked me if it was my first pieing party and I said yes. That question made me think that this may be a birthday tradition among friends over here. So we got to the parking lot and then we hid and waited for the guy and when he showed up we all ran and pied the guy. I felt kinda bad pieing someone I didn't even know, but it was pretty hilarious and I think I may have found a new way to celebrate someones birthday. So I can't wait till i get home, cause who ever has the first birthday may be getting a delicious surprise for their birthday! The guy had a really good laugh about it too and his friends brought lots of towels and water to help clean him off.

Japanese beach

These pictures were taken with my cell phone camera at Hamamatsu beach. This was on December 28th, a day after I got back from Thailand and I can definitely say that I loved this beach as much as I loved the beaches in Thailand. The weather wasn't as warm but I believe that the sunset was nicer than any that I saw in Thailand. I was going to try surfing this day but as you can see the waves were very choppy so it wasn't the best time to try and learn. With the wind it was really quite cold. I went with some other teachers for the afternoon. We bought some tacos and some drinks and hung out on the beach for an hour or so. I look forward to visiting some more beaches when the weather heats up in the spring and summer.

Monkey Beach, sharks and then some

Monkey beach was exactly what it sounds like. There are monkeys roaming free all over the place. This beach was our first stop on our snorkeling tour. We got there right before all the other tourists arrived. Just as we were leaving a boat pulled up and the owner started tossing bananas and they were going wild. That guy is pictured in the second picture. After this we took off to do some snorkeling and that was really amazing. The coral and the fish were really beautiful. Our other water adventure was swimming with sharks. We went out at about 730am with a guide. The funny thing was that he took us only 1 min away from the beach, so basically we didn't really need him or pay him for that matter, but i think i felt a bit safer with him there. We didn't see any sharks at first, but after about 10min we spotted our first one and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. It felt like we were in an aquarium and so we were safe. We swam with reef sharks, so they weren't that big but I think some of them were around 6ft. Honestly, the scariest part about the whole shark experience was the tide around the reef that wouldn't let me swim towards the boat, it kept dragging me in.
When we got back to Phuket we rented a scooter and drove around the island for a few hours. Brent drove and I rode on the back. I was pretty freaked out for the first 20min or so. The driving in Phuket is a little crazy, so I wasn't so much worried about Brent's driving but the other drivers. But it was all good and a lot of fun. I tried driving it but that lasted less than 100m.