On the 17th March was Jojo's leaving party. I really couldn't believe that she was leaving here. She always organized someone's party, but this time she was the main person of the party, so it was our turn to organize. Shell and I was planning to make an album for her. We thought it was good idea, but there were 2 problems. One was that it took so much time to make it. We started just the day we went to Onsen, one week before this party. The first day what we could do was only to develop some pictures. We hadn't collected all her friends' comments and had to go to Onsen, so we were worring during Onsen trip. After Onsen trip we headed to Shell's place and started making. Thursday night we were working and Jon H helped us giving nice idea, and finally Saturday morning, the party day, we finished. It took 4 days! Last summer she made an album for Jon by her self, and I heard it took a week. really hard work. She is amazing. And another problem was that we had to hide it from Jo. So I had been so wired to her. I wanted talk about that with her, so it was killing me. Sorry Jojo.

 

The party was secret to Jo, but actually not. She noticed something was going to be happened, but didn't know anything. We held it at a big room of karaoke. It was a surprise for her. It was a nice place that we could talk, dring, eat and sing. We sang some songs with her on a stage and had fun. After that we headed to Tiger to have drinks. Jo and I danced togather. It was so fun. I didn't feel that was the last night all of us gathered and drank at Tiger. I felt it was just usual. Jo was there and almost all our friends were there. So fun night.

I went to Onsen in Ako with 4 girls, Jo, shell, Kanako and Kazumi last weekend. It was Jo's idea to have a  apanese traditional experience before she leaves here.

 

We went to Ako after Jo finished her work. When we arrived at a Japanese onsen hotel (a ryokan), it was dinner time. But Kazumi suggested to take a bath first, because we could feel better if we had dinner in yukata after taking a bath, and actually it was our image of having a fun time at a ryokan. Onsen was nice. We went to an outside bath first. There was a tub made of rocks and it had a roof. The ryokan was on the sea, so we could hear the sound of waves imagining that the ocean was spreading in front of us, because it was dark, we couldn't see it. After a quick bath we had Kaiseki dinner, a Japanese traditional ryokan dinner. We relaxed, didn't talk so much, but had a nice time with delicious food. We took a bath again after that, and came back to our room, then started having drinks. Drinking and relaxing in yukata was so nice. Poor Jojo was tired after working all day, so she went to bed earlier. Rest of us just kept talking about many things and went to bed around 4 am. I was so sleepy, but after a few hours sleep I woke up because I didn't want to miss to see the sea from a bath. When I woke up, they were still sleeping except Shell. So two of us went to an outside bath. It was so NICE! We could see the sea hearing the sound of waves, the sky was getting light. Oh, heaven! It was worth gettin up in early morning even though I was still so sleepy.

 

It was a short trip, but I had fun. Nice idea, Jojo.