I Love Test Weekends

A late and lazy post.

The first weekend of December was the weekend that I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 2. I had to say goodbye to Chris on Friday night, as he caught a night bus to Tokyo, where he would be taking the LSAT.

On Saturday afternoon, I met Clay (also taking the JLPT) in Sannomiya, where we had lunch at Baanthai and pretended to study over drinks.

In the evening, I joined Bren and Lena (more JLPT-takers) for donuts and coffee in Akashi. Again, another pretend study session. Several hours of Mister Donut goodness later and we moved to dinner. Then to Lena's for a sleepover study session. None of us got much sleep that night.

On Sunday morning, we had enormous breakfasts, bought lunches at 7-11, and hightailed it to Okamoto, one stop after Sannomiya on the Hankyu Line. We followed the mass of foreigners making their way to Konan University, the test site.

The test was worse than I thought it would be. I couldn't recognize many of the vocabulary in the Listening Section, my strongest point, and I fell asleep during a short portion of the Reading. (What can I say? The passages were boring.) Altogether, I have no clue as to how I did. The results come in February. If I passed, I'll announce it loud and clear here. If I failed, well . . . you can do the guesswork.

Following the test, the gaijin mass again descended onto the Okamoto neighborhood. The girls and I decided to avoid the crowds and ducked into a small cafe.

Lena's that happy that the test is over.

It turns out that we found a dog cafe. Owners sipped coffees as their pets were groomed. As would be expected, there were plenty of treats available for the pooches too.

Limes are dangerous!

Vegetable curry. たっぷり！

Cheese fondue.

Two of the cutest dogs I've ever seen. The sisters had matching "pigtails" and raced around the bottoms of our chairs.

After our canine time, we caught the train for Sannomiya, but were too late to meet Dylan and Heather. Instead we shopped at Lush and met James to help with some holiday shopping. We had dinner at Mother Moon Cafe, located in the 神戸国際会館.

Festive!

This place serves smoothies that are expensive, but delish!

Chicken Caesar.

strawberry / peach / ???

All the food there was ridiculously good, and I've attempted to return on numerous occasions, but it's always been packed. To wrap this post up, I learned that test weekends rock when you have amazing friends who like you, prefer to have fun and not study.