Day 8 at Kogakuin

Today, there were no classes because everyone had to take a health check up (kenkoshinda) at school. I was really surprised that there's a day for everyone to have their height and weight checked, x-rays taken, etc at school because in America, it's up to students and their families to do that on their own time. My class had their check up scheduled in the afternoon at around 3 pm, so I was able to sleep in. I was really happy about that because I had been waking up really early every day so far. For brunch, I went to eat Japanese style fluffy pancakes with my host family. I had always wanted to eat fluffy pancakes when I was in America, but I never had the chance to go, so I was very happy. We ordered a tiramisu one, syrup and butter one, and a whip cream and berry flavored one and shared all of them together. My favorite one had to be the whip cream and berry one. We also ordered french fries and fried chicken to balance the sweetness of the pancakes with something salty. After brunch, my host sister went to school for her health check up, but because I'm an exchange student, and I didn't need to come in to school, I spent time shopping with the other exchange student, Jake. We hung out at the stores around the train station we usually get off to ride the school bus. We went to a clothing store called GU, two different guitar stores, a bookstore called Kinokuniya, and checked out a wide variety of other stores in the vicinity. We both love guitars, so we had a lot of fun at the guitar stores. I accidentally spent a little too much money there though (haha). Jake also helped me pick out my makeup, and he ended up being very helpful despite him complaining that he didn't know what he was doing because he knows nothing about makeup and can't read Japanese. We met up with our classmates from school at the train station after they finished their health check up, and we went home.