Coffee with Hara-san, and earthquake???

Hello! Last night we went out for coffee with Hara-san. He is currently working on his discertation and wanted to take a break for awhile. We had a lot of fun, and laughed practically the entire evening. He likes to hear Casey speak Japanese and he giggles when we say things wrong, so we were laughing quite a bit, as you can imagine. (He's also a great resource for learning Japanese because he's so good at English!) We ended up getting into a conversation about what words are used for animal noises in Japanese (cow = moooo... etc) but the funniest one we found was that a rooster says "koki ko kooooo" (I think I spelled it wrong, and it doesn't do it justice unless you here Hara and Casey making this noise... it was hilarious!) Anyway, I think Hara-san got the idea to call our friend Tanaka-san and simply say it and hang up. So Casey did. I look forward to hearing what she thought of the whole thing when they see each other at work today...
In other news, I am fairly certain that I felt a small earthquake around 11:00 today. I was laying in bed (coffee = restless sleep) but the bed started moving a bit and it was significant enough that I sat straight up. I even looked over to the laundry rack and realized it was moving a bit, too. I looked online to see if they had reported anything, but haven't checked it within the last hour or so. I'll update that later if I find out that anything really happened. If not, something must be wrong with me! But that is, of course, very possible. :) But if it was an earthquake, then two things happened this week that are fairly rare in Osaka- earthquakes and snow!
That's about it for now. Case and I are headed to Shakey's tonight in Kyoto- yay! I'll update tomorrow and let you know how it went. Happy holidays to whoever is reading this!!

--This is a post for Christmas Eve-- First of all, I think that the 'earthquake' I may have felt was actually a construction company tearing down a building on our block. I have checked the reports and haven't heard anything, so I will assume it was that instead. Kind of a relief!
Tonight Casey and I went to Shakey's, an all-you-can-eat pizza place in Kyoto. It was well worth the hour train ride and 20 minute wait in line to get there! They had a few strange types of pizza (something with squid, which Casey said was "interesting", and a few others with corn and random ingredients that I can't remember at the moment). I had salad, two types of pasta, jello, 2 types of pizza, and then 4 pieces of dessert pizza. Sad, right? It was really good! Casey and I just kept going back for more. For once, I think I actually held my weight at a buffet. I can't really do that well in America. But yeah, it was definitely the best pizza I have had while in Japan. Glad we heard about that place from the REUs!
Other than that, we came back to our apartment, opened our Christmas Eve gifts from Casey's parents (we get pajamas each year and then wear them when opening our 'Santa' gifts), and now we may or may not watch an episode of Family Guy before we go to bed. I'll write again tomorrow and include pictures. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

-Ashley