For You

Golden Week for me was super duper fun! Me and 3 others -Mike (of Joanie), Joan, and Steve (of Crystal), drove to Gifu (7 to 8 hour drive) to balloon at an amusement park.

The last time I ballooned was with the "African Team" when I was 16. So, that's 7 years ago. My first ballooning day on this trip was pretty hectic and I ended up making a bunch of ugly balloon dogs and rabbits! ha! I got it down in one day and the rest of the time I did perfectly fine. People were saying "Wow! You're so fast! Did you have to study for this??" etc. etc. Little did they know that it just took about 10 minutes to learn and half a day of practice to make me look like a pro.

Of course, being a clown isn't all about your talent. It's more about how well you interact and carry yourself. If you're out going and friendly with people, they'll come to you.

Here's a funny story. There were these Turkish guys in the amusement park selling their Kababs and Ice-cream, etc. They were super sweet and gave us their food for free whenever we went over to say hi.
Then, one night while I was waiting in the car while the others were shopping, I saw these three foreigners come out of the store and walk towards their car. From far away, they looked like the Turkish guys (it was also dark so I couldn't tell). I thought it'd be fun to go and say hi to them without our whole clown costume and make up on.
So, I went out to say hi to them with Joan, and once we got a meter away from the car I realized that they weren't the Turkish guys, but to the contrary, they were three Indian guys with beaming smiles staring at us and waving their hands! Haha!!! Oh boy!
Joan quickly turned and made a quick get away into the store leaving me outside to face the Indian guys alone as they were already saying hello and calling me over.
I went over to say hi and they started asking the usual questions with their hilarious strong Indian accents. "Ello. Where are you from?? You are very beautiful. Where are you staying??" After a minute or so one of them started persisting that he buy a drink for me from the store. Ha! I said, "Noooo....that's quite alright. I've got to go! Thank you anyway! Good bye!" Thats when I took my leave.
Once I was in the store I find out that Joan had told Mike everything and they were both cracking up so hard! For the rest of the trip we cracked Indian jokes and spoke with indian accents just for fun. It was a good laugh.

You'd be proud of me, though, as I did the best on the team, making the most money! We all did real good and brought back lots of cash which made everyone happy. :) I'm thinking of asking for a bit of that money to buy myself a camera. It's something I've been wanting for a long time. :)

Sadly, no one brought a camera. We could have taken beautiful photos of the area as well as us in our clown costumes. Joan videoed a little on her computer, so maybe if I get my hands on it and it's worth posting then I will.