OH!Miyage

I didn't take a picture of my gifts given...but I can explain them. I was trying to think of something fun that also summed up our experience here, there, in Japan. It’s so hard to think of something that isn’t too touristy or too “Here, look! It’s Japan! It’s everything you think of when you think of Japan!” I mean, that’s kind of the point of it, but to be really specific to us too. So I thought of the new things we experienced together that we all got used to. We all went to conbini, but I didn’t want to get a bag of goodies, I feel like other people would do that and I didn’t want to crowd that scene (I am the proud owner of the remnants of one of those goodie bags! Most of it was consumed by the end of the day). We all LIVED by the mercy of paper fans, but I feel like we all had them already, and then I’d be left with all this change. So then I thought of all the places we’d stayed at, what was the thing we all tried and got used to? Slippers were one, but the one thing most of us had never really tried before was the yukata. Comfortable and appropriate wear around the hotel? Fantastic! I actually decided, in the end, on a “jinbei,” a yukata typically made for men. I figured if the typical yukata could be unisex, any of us could wear a jinbei and not be horribly mocked, and I thought having two pieces might be easier for us. I also tossed in some alpacas that I won at an arcade because they’re cute. In closing, I have a haiku of my own:

Eric god dammit,

I know what you did with it,

Ask before you dump!

(No hard feelings)

-Gabi