Bowling, the universal language

I had the opportunity to go bowling with folks from the Environmental Studies building. We occupied 6 lanes, with 4 people in each lane. The lanes were assigned randomly by drawing letters/numbers from a bag. Communication is limited, but the folks there were pretty good with English. I believe everyone was a student.

People kept saying "ooshi" while bowling. I learned a new word today :-) ooshi means "close/ close call." That is definitely something expressed a lot in English when bowling also. Despite my limited Japanese vocabulary, it is pretty easy to tell what people are saying (to me or each other) when bowling b/c the ideas/feelings are pretty universal. The exaggerated body language, that is typical of bowling, also helps. 

I had a pretty good first game, an okay second game (score decreased by 10pts), and a not-so-awesome third game (score decreased by another 40 points). My arm is tired :-) but my heart is full.

Near the end of the evening, I spotted a triad of giant bowling pins with holes in them. I went to check them out and found them to be costumes! :-) I'm also a big fan of the Hello Kitty bowling ball... and the fact that it was 11 lbs...