friendship party

so wednesday we had a friendship party at TIU. this means a bunch of japanese kids coming out and meeting the new exchange students and playing games. first of all we broke into groups and introduced ourselves, then we joined groups and played the shoe game and got to know each other a bit better and fondle each other's shoes a bit. then game time started. after a couple of ice breakers we started the competitive games. game 1 was the “pass the paper ribbon around the group using only your head” game. you know the one i'm talking about. I was worried that my gianormous head wasn't gonna fit, but coupled with the smaller than average japanese head we were fine. we got I think third or fourth place or so.
next we (the blue team) dominated at telephone. you know, where you whisper a funny saying into another person's ear and then pass it on and try to keep it the same all the way through. first saying was “kin no tomago”, 金野と孫, golden egg. 1st place for us. second was “i eat apples and bananas in the morning” by the time it got to me I had already heard the entire thing a few times from the people around us, so I fixed the grammar and passed it on. first place. for the third saying we were only allowed to use gestures. made it kinda hard. we were supposed to pass on “riding a crowded train”, I don't remember the fancy japanese word for it. we got the train riding part across even though it started looking like a densha rock concert (densha 電車=train) and we ended up in 7th place.
after that we played a japanese version of cops and robbers where the robbers start out encircled by the cops, who are holding hands in a circle, and have to escape. the purple team (our robbers) mostly escaped pretty quickly, but we held onto takeshi for a pretty long time and eventually just let him go. we got fourth place I think. since most of the team got out pretty easily the purple kids were talkin a lot of shit as they circled up around us. luckily for us I had a secret plan. as soon as they said “Go!” I just picked up Krista, another of the JSP kids, so that everyone else could escape under her. worked perfectly. as soon as everyone was out I put her back down and escaped in the confusion. pretty much my philosophy on everything. why break through obstacles when you can pick them up and throw them out of the way. unfortunately she was a bit butthurt about being manhandled to her team's detriment, we got another first, but oh well she gave me a kick in the ankle when I wasn't looking and felt better.
in the end we tied the pink team for first place so we had a janken (japanese for paper rock scissors) tie breaker. and lost. fortunately the second place prize was a sarong that jun, the guy who organized the entire thing, had brought back from india a few days earlier and first place was a bunch of candy. so I think we won out in the end. only problem is who gets to keep the sarong?