Nihongo No Sekai: Manila Nihongo Center's Open House with Tiffa and Friends

- September 3, 2011, Saturday.

- My friend Tiffany sent me an online memo a week or two ago that Manila's Nihongo Center (The Philippine Institute of Japanese Language and Culture Foundation, Inc.) would be having an open house today, from 9:30 until around 5pm.

- I was initially hesitant to go, due to possible schedule conflicts, and because my neighbor won't be joining Tiffa and me. After today's class however, the morning rain stopped completely, and since I finished the necessary schoolwork to be done, I decided to drop by at the Nihongo Center. The Nihongo Center (Manila branch) is located directly across the FEU gymnasium in Morayta.

- I arrived at the Nihongo Center around 12:45pm, sweating like crazy, and waited for Tiffa and her friends Peppy and Karlo to come back from lunch. While waiting for the three of them, I went around the venue and familiarized myself with the activities schedule for the day.

- Tiffa arrived with the other two around ten to 1pm, and decided to attend the free Nihongo demo class. While waiting for the previous demo class to finish, I was very hungry, and was searching for food. Unfortunately, the only food stall available in the venue was a takoyaki stall. I have tasted takoyaki before, and I know it tastes good, but I have this thing against eating anything octopus; I treat octopuses as my friends so I don't really like eating them. However, as it was my only choice, I bought an order of 4 BIG balls for 50php, and ate them while sitting on one of the sofas. Later on, a lady ushered us to the "eiga" (movie) room, where we were asked to watch a movie/cool ourselves with the air conditioning system while waiting for the next Nihongo class to begin.

- At around 1:10pm, people who wanted to join the Nihongo class were asked to enter a classroom, and wait for the teacher to arrive. Our teacher later set up the powerpoint presentation, and welcomed us with a big and warm "Konnichiwa!!" Our teacher was a Filipina who was fluent in Japanese.

- The 45 minutes of Nihongo was spent on learning basic greetings, numbers, and self-introduction. There were times when the teacher had to call us one by one to introduce ourselves in Japanese, or read a certain number written by the teacher on the board, but there was this girl who refused to participate in the exercises. No one knew why, but at least no one "forced" her to participate. Anyway, I did learn some new phrases that I wasn't able to encounter during my basic Japanese class in Ateneo. (God I miss Ateneo.)

- The class ended quickly, and we were dismissed with a sincere "Arigatou!!" Karlo needed to head home, so he went ahead, while Tiffa, Peppy and I stayed to see some of the other activities I missed during the morning. I wasn't able to catch most of them, like the kimono-wearing or the origami classes, but I was able to witness (but not participate) the tea-ceremony and the calligraphy classes.

- Since most of the booths were closing, we had no other choice but to watch the contests and performances at the small auditorium. Before the main event started, I snuck out to the second floor again to but two more orders of takoyaki (yes, I was still hungry, and the more octopus balls I ate, the more "guilty" I felt.)

- The first of the series of events was the cosplay contest. For a Japanese event, I was surprised that there were only three contestants who participated. Guess what, my "idol" Sailor Moon was there too!! After the really short cosplay contest, there was a speech contest, where surprisingly, I was able to understand some parts of the speeches of some of the participants.

- The last of the series that I was able to catch was the karaoke contest. Sadly, I left after the second contestant (who by the way sung really well....but my ear drums suffered because the speaker was directly above where I was seated.) From what I know, some demonstrations like sumo wrestling were in line also, but I'll just let Tiffa tell me what happened after I left. Haha.

- Yes, I may have missed a lot of the fun cultural activites, especially the kimono -wearing, the tea ceremony, the calligraphy, and the origami class, but at least I was able to join the demo class; it was my priority among the activities. I was able to see Tiffa again after our Little Indian adventure shortly after my India-Nepal-Thailand trip, which of course made my day too, not to mention seeing other friends like Peppy and Karlo. Too bad my neighbor Charmaine wasn't able to come today, but I suppose we'll have another cultural adventure soon, when schedule and school work permit. Hahahaha.