The first half of the day was a simple affair as the main activity is the Teine Hhippo Xmas party later tonight. A quick walk with Mebae and Ruki after breakfast was refreshing as the air was fresh and the brisk walk getting rid of my residual sleepiness. By now I realised that Ruki had a weird love for gnawing at snow. It was pretty interesting to see him rush to every snow pile we pasased by and chewing the ice.

Having mentioned previously that I would like to make a trip down to the post office to send some cards to my friends, Ron chan brought me to Teine Post Office which was pretty near our place actually. Once there, she helped me check with the staff how much were the postages required. I took out my cards and quickly scribbled the addresses on to it and pasted the correct amount of stamps on it and then left the Post Office.

The rest of the first half of the day was some groceries shopping, including a visit to a electrical to get Ron chan's phone fixed. The pace was relaxed which was welcomed as there was certainly no need to rush to places everyday. I really do enjoy just living and engaging in everysday activities together with them. Lunch a an equally simple affair at at nearby Macs. First time I've been to one in Hokkaido (my only previous Macs experience in Japan was in Narita Airport last year in the transit lounge enroute to San Francisco). I bought Mebae her meal as well as for myself and gobbled it down afterw we got back in the car.

We went back home after that and Naoto was already at the living room. Ron chan suggested that we continue our winning eleven rivalry and it didn't require much persuasion to get us up for it. We had about 3 games and I managed to emerge victorious this time round by a whisker though.

Soon it was time to set off for the party. The number of attendees wasn't as many as the previous party which consisted of the whole Sapporo. It was a cosy and warm affair. However the activities were similar with everyone engaging in another round of introduction and followed by some SADA. The usual HIPPO games weren't forgotton as well. London Bridge, Gawi Bawi Bo (rocks scissors paper in Korean), musical chair and Pass-the-rubber-band were played by all. I didn't have much success with the games though. For the whole duration of Gawi Bawi Bo, I only won twice out of tens of times, Wai Kai happened to be one of my 2 victims! LOL. I made it to the quarter final of the musical chair though and Ron chan made it to the Semis. Unfortuantely both of us didn't manage to progress any further than that. And Ron chan and me finished last for the Pass-the-rubber-band game. It was really good fun though.

The night's last exciting activity was a Bingo game. Everyone was given a Bingo card and the Bingo numbers are called out 1 by 1. It was fun looking at the kids getting excited when numbers on their card were called. They're just so cute! Anyway in the end, everyone got a prize and it all ends well. We finished off the party with a group photo taking session. Everyone got their cameras out and set their timer mode on. Numerous attempts to get the nicest shot paid off as everyone were happy with what their camera captured.

Linghan and me followed our host mamas to Peko chan's place to continue the night while the rest went back to their places respectively. Once there, the kids wasted no time in gathering together and had "secret" activities in Koharu's room. It was only after a while that I realised that it was a girls only activities as Kaito was left stranded outside. And the cute thing was, he made me carry him and invade the room. Hey, at that point I still didn't know about the all girls only thingy k! Still I can't believe I did that. LOL.

Anyways, Linghan and me spent sometime engaging in a conversation with the adults. Meanwhile, Kaito and Rina set up Wii and were going at it pretty wild. Linghan and me soon joined in the Wii fun. We played Wii sports tennis and I sucked. Anyway, Kaito and me teamed up against Rina and Linghan. After a while though, we got bored of the Tennis and I suggested Mario Kart (since I thought I was pretty good at it when I played at my place with Mebae).

Kids are really cute and funny I tell you, as I mentioned before. First, during the tennis game, the kids gave us controls but on seeing that we didn't really know how to play, they will, on the pretext of teaching you, take the controller away and play. It sounds funny and it really is! LOL. Then came to Mario kart, apparently Kaito and me had better cycle motor skills compared to the team of the fairer sex since we finished ahead of them almost all the time. Then the inevitable happened. Rina went all silent and tears started rolling down her cheeks. I should have seen it coming man. After some discussion with Linghan, we decided to switch teams. In no time, Rina and me were leading the races one after another. After a couple of races, I paused for a moment and checked, she was all smiles once again. How cute is that! Finally I decided that Wii was enough (I was worried Kaito might be upset this time round actually). And so we switched to playing othello and they had a very interesting rule. It can be played in teams of 2 and its not each one take a turn. Its each team having 2 turns at a time. Weird right, to me at least. LOL. We spent the next couple of hours at it.

Soon it was pretty deep into the night, The girls came down and gathered around the living room. And I once again turned into the kids swinging machine. It was tiring! At this juncture of the homestay, I felt I had already grown pretty close to the kids, especially this bunch here tonight. I was so sure I am so gonna miss them after the homestay comes to an end. And as I am writing this, I really can't stop thinking about the times I spent having fun with them. I could really go into the details of what I did with them and how I felt but I guess those are memories for me to keep to myself and also of course not to bore you readers.

Another great day for me. I tucked into bed pretty late again as with every other day. I basically didn't sleep earlier than 2am everyday fyi. The only day I did, I regretted! You will soon find out why ;-)