Meghan's Visit/Starting Finals

we had so much fun! i don't think you read my blog meghan, but if you just happen to, then THANK YOU for visiting me! it was a blast! wow I haven't used that phrase in a while...anyway...I'll go day by day....

so on Saturday, before I picked up Meghan from the airport, I went to Nagoya port with Nell and Paula. They are my official travel/port buddies after our awesome Osaka trip where we went to Osaka and Kobe ports haha. So yeah, the view was awesome! You can see in my pictures...I'll put the link at the end. so, after that I got purikura pictures with Paula in Kanayama because they have dress up pictures...then went to the airport and waited for Meghan. We had limited time because the last bus leaves at 11pm but we were taking a train to a subway to a bus so yeah. Meghan made it just in time though and after realizing she didn't have any cash she could change into yen, we got on the train. Luckily we just barely caught the last bus, so my host mom didn't have to drive and pick us up at the subway station!!

Sunday, we went to Kakuozan so I could show Meghan a pagoda and we could look at some of the shops, and even though it was the weekend, it was pretty deserted. Next, we met Joo in Osu Kannon. There's another cool temple there and LOTS of shopping. We went to the 390 yen store and an anime shop where we tried on wigs until they told us to stop lol.

The next day, Meghan came to school with me!! It must have been boring when I had my 2 and half hours of Japanese class but she had a book...and access to computers...ok so she got to meet my friends and have lunch in the cafeteria (exciting!!) then we hung out until my calligraphy class. It was our second to last class so we had to finish carving our hanko (name stamp) and do our final calligraphy (I chose the character for "love"...aww...yeah). it turned out ok, but I have no idea how she is grading us since it's a once-a-week art class. Hopefully I'll get an A? So yeah Meghan tried to do calligraphy. by the end of the class she was better!

On Tuesday, Meghan skipped school and slept in. When I got back, I hadn't had lunch but I told my host mom we would just grab some stuff at the convienient store (conbini). She was like ok...but i'll give you some tea and sweets. So she gave us all these snacks. Then she said, "I gave you too much dessert, so i made you each some udon noodles." So basically, she fed us lunch and we didn't need to go to the convienient store! Next, we went to Nagoya Castle. But we got there around 4 pm (after walking around to the other side) and it closed at 4:30! We did the quick tour, but it was still cool. Nagoya castle is less exciting inside than Inuyama castle or Himeji castle. It is more like Osaka castle on the inside with historical things and an elevator. But the outside was very cool!! (see picture above)

On Wednesday, Meghan skipped school for sleep again and when I got back, we went to Kanayama and Sakae with Nell. Before Kanayama, we went to Yaba-cho, which has a mall attached to the station. On the top floor they have restaurants and we went to an all-you-can-eat cake restaurant!! It was yummmmyy! We did marvel at how much cake the Japanese girls could put away and yet they are still soo skinny! Maybe it was there only meal of the day?? Probably not tho haha. It came with pasta too so it wasn't just like we had cake for lunch. lol. After that, it was off to Kanayama for the arcade. We took dress up pictures like what I did with Paula on Saturday. But nell was the santa girl this time, I was a high school girl, and meghan was a nurse! She didn't choose the nurse costume, but they gave her it when she chose the white dress. But it came with a syringe and everything! haha. then Nell left and Meghan and I went to Sakae where we saw the sunset from the Oasis 21 water-see-thru crazy structure haha. Meghan didn't feel like going up the TV tower, so after looking around a little in the pokemon and totoro shops, we went home. and another awesome dinner from my host mom of course!

Thursday was the other day Meghan came to school, but she came later on the bus so she wouldn't have to wait soo long for me!! We had lunch and stuff. I had to work on my powerpoint presentation, so she was probably bored but we hung out with Van in the locker room and stuff. Afterwards, I had my Japanese Culture class and we were presenting that day (hence the powerpoint) My group was about Japanese superstitions. Everyone else's presentations before us had a whole bunch of research, surveys, and statistics. Which is fine, except our powerpoint was more fun with info and pictures. We did do a survey but that info was at the end. We were a little worried, but oh well. It went fine. Then the 2 presentations after us were more like ours. So phew! After school, Meghan and i went to Nagoya station to buy our Tokyo tickets. Then returned (TADAIMA!) for some foooood.

Friday was super awesome. Meghan and my host mom picked me up from school in my host mom's car. We went to lunch at the steak place that my host mom took me to for my birthday. But tofu steaks for me and my host mom and Meghan had a real one (MEAT EATER!!) lol. but she told me it was one of the best steaks she's had so that's good:) After that, we met Celeste, Suguru, Paula, Akiko, and Joo at You-bo Karaoke. We sang the afternoon away. John came to join us and got there just in time for Barbie Girl!! He does a good voice for Barbie. And Ken. haha. After karaoke it was like 7pm and Paula had to leave, but we all got purikura pictures together first. Then Akiko had to leave too! But the rest of us ate dinner at a spaghetti place inside Jusco. And bought some cheap alcohal to drink in the food court!! haha good times. When they kicked us out of the food court because the mall was closing, we relocated to the steps of the train station. We had some fun and interesting talks, shared some embarrassng stories, etc.

Saturday, we woke up relatively early to go to Ise Shrine. It's about an hour and half away from Nagoya so we took the Kintestsu train from Nagoya Station. Nell planned out the whole trip so meghan and I were along for the ride. Ise is a famous temple for being really old...I think. It was really cool, but sadly I didn't get all that many good pictures cuz I lost my camera for the day! We got back and Nell and I had to go to the IES Farewell dinner. Meghan went back to the house on the subway (all by herself...she's growning up so fast! haha jk) She had dinner with my host mom, which would suck cuz she doesnt speak english, but luckily my host sister was there and she does. The IES dinner was really fun! But also sad!!! Our last time seeing Satoshi-san!! It was an all-you-can-drink place, but I only had 2 because Meghan and I were traveling to Tokyo that night!!

So after the IES dinner, I met Meghan back at Nagoya station and we waited for our overnight bus to Tokyo. We didn't really plan Meghan's plane tickets all that well because we originally were going to spend the weekend in Tokyo until I realized I needed to go to the IES dinner! So, we had a few hours in Tokyo. We arrived around 5:30am Sunday morning, and as to be expected, not much was open except coffee shops. After breakfast, we set off for Harajuku and Meiji shrine. We got to Meiji shrine about 5 minutes before it opened but it was really COLD so we waited outside.....and it finally opened! We walked around there, then around Shibuya. I had a couple memories from my year and a half of growning up around that area. Like the Condomania condom guy. I remember him from when I was 10 years old. yep. So, we went from Shibuya back to Shinjuku. Shinjuku is normally the busiest station in Japan, but since it was Sunsay morning, not much was open yet. We wandered around the streets, found a safe haven from the cold in a McDonalds (which randomly had Beatles and Elvis stuff in it) and then found the red light district. It's less creepy in the day-light, but we did find host and hostess bars with lots of pictures. I was like "those are big boy bands...oh wait those boys are not in a band....ew" hahaha. After that we went back to the station for lunch (PANINI!! ..my first one in Japan) and the Meghan went on her way to the airport!

So yeah, her visit was so fun!! BUT now it's finals. This week has had little finals and an essay, and next week are my big finals. Well my biggest final is split in 4 parts on different days. One part is actually tomorrow so I better go study for that. YAY KANJI AND VOCAB!!

yeahhhhhhh k bye!

oh here are my facebook pictures hahah----CLICKKKY-----


ok now bye!!

Kakuozan Project--I'm FAMOUS!

So, in our Japanese class we had to do a project where we went to a place called Kakuozan and interview a shopkeeper. We split up into groups of 3 and chose different shops. I was with Nell and Van and we went to a tatami shop. It was pretty fun, but today we had our presentation! ahh! at least it's over now.

Oh and the reason I'm famous is that they made a newspaper article about our groups going to Kakuozan and the picture is of us! This is the picture and the article is here: CLICK!

Yes it's in Japanese. Roughly translated it means...62 Nanzan University study abroad kids went to interview shopkeepers in Kakuozan. The center at Nanzan has been doing this for 5 years. They split up into groups of 3. At the tatatmi shop, they asked questions like "how do you make tatami mats?", and "What kind of people order tatami mats?" Oh and it says we used polite language to the shopkeeper (which is a complement to us because we tried haha)

Extra Pictures from Kyoto trips! (from Facebook)

Me and Joo at Eikan-do under the Momiji!

Me and Joo at Fushimi Inari

Getting my hair done for the kimono-ness

Joo and I at a temple

IES group at Kiyomizudera!

Me, Paula, Nell, Van, and Celeste at karaoke!

Me, Paula, Celeste, and Nell at dinner

Van, Paula, Erika, Bethany, and Me at Kiyomizudera

Nell and Me on the rickshaw!

My Two Kyoto Trips

So yeah for two weekends in a row I went to Kyoto. Kyoto is probably the second most famous city in Japan besides Tokyo. It's known for really old and pretty temples, as well as the changing leaves in fall and the sakura flowers in spring. My first trip there was with IES. Our bus first went to Sanjusangendo which has 1001 buddhist statues!! 1000 of them were the same and the 1 is a giant one in the middle. it was awesome but we couldn't take any pictures!!
Next we went to Kiyomizudera, one of the most famous temples in Kyoto. It's on a hill, so it has a great view of the changing leaves, as well as Kyoto tower and the city. At Kiyomizudera, For example, there is the famous deck, where people used to jump off and if you didn't die from the fall, then you were lucky and you'd live a long life. Yeah, I didn't attempt that one. haha!
Inside Kiyomizudera, there is a temple especially dedicated to lovers, and inside there are the "love stones." If you can touch one with your left hand and then walk across to the other one with your eyes closed and touch it with your right hand successfully, then you will be with your lover forever or you will find true love or something like that. But if you fail, you will not find true love. So, yeah I didn't want to try that one, but a lot of people in my group did and most were successful haha. After that, there was the long life water, where if you drink of it, you will live a long life. The line for it was also long, so I skipped that one too. Outside the temple, there are many shops (with TONS of free samples!) so we stopped around there for some shopping, then got back on the bus.
We got to our hotel, chose our roommates (Paula, Nell, Celeste, and me) put our yukatas on, and went down to dinner. When I got there I found my "Vegitalian" dinner in the vegetarian section hehe. Hey at least they attempted to spell it right! We had a lot of tofu and veggies, but the tofu was really good because Kyoto is also famous for their tofu! I know, what are they not famous for? Actually haha another thing Kyoto is famous for is geishas. We got to see an apprentice geisha dance (apprentice geishas are called "maiko"). She was really good and only 15 years old! So yeah after her a geiko danced (geishas are called geiko now I guess) And after they were done, we got to take pictures with them and then talk to them! They were really nice. After dinner, we decided to go drinking with Satoshi-san, our IES director. But instead we decided to drink AND karaoke! hehe. It was really fun!
We started out the next day by painting fans. Mine was pretty ugly, but oh well. I think Kyoto is also famous for fans haha. Then we went to Arashiyama. This place is next to a beautiful river and has a giant bamboo forest in it. It is also VERY touristy like Kiyomizudera. We wandered around the bamboo forest and on our way to the meeting point we saw all these boats with people on them dancing and playing music it was so cool!! Next we went on rickshaw rides through Arashiyama. I went with Nell and it was really fun!! More than I thought haha. The guy who was pulling us was soo nice! So after that we had time for shopping, we got crepes, climbed the hill for a good view, then left! It seemed soo short! Luckily I went back the next weekend!

The pictures from the first weekend are right HERE CLICK HERE!!

My second trip was with my friend Joo. Her host family is originally from Kyoto so they took us around. Her host mom is so exceedingly nice. She paid for all our meals (believe me we tried to pay. I even put money down and she like threw it back at me!) and she took time off work to show us around Kyoto!
So we got there Friday night on the shinkansen (bullet train) which is FREAKISHLY fast!! haha. It only took us 30mins to get there. scary. (normal trains take like 2 hours haha) When we got there we went to dinner with Joo's host mom's co-workers who were pretty drunk when we got there. It is common in Japan to go to dinner and get drunk with your boss and co-workers. In fact, if you don't it's probably rude. Anyway, so yeah we got offered a lot of beer and wine. I don't like wine and Joo doesn't like beer so we kept switching hahaha. But we didn't get drunk like them! We were staying in a tiny little house that is Joo's host mom's friend's second house. haha. it was cool tho!
The next day, Joo's other host grandma (the one who doesn't live in Nagoya) dressed us up in kimonos! Oh and Joo's host mom took us to get our hair done and paid for it too! So yeah I wore a blue kimono and Joo wore a peachish/pink one. We walked around Kyoto in them! I couldn't fit in women's shoes so I wore man shoes around hahaha. We went to temples and Joo's host brother's high school which was kinda awkward cuz it's an all boys school and we were walking around in our kimonos! Apparently, his friends made fun of him after we left lol. Oh yeah that night we went to dinner at a really expensive restaurant with the family. It was a tofu restaurant and the food was soo yummyyy!!
On Sunday, (wearing normal clothes) we visited Eikan-do, which has awesome momiji (changing maple leaves) and took tons of pictures hehe. We also went to Kinkaku-ji (golden temple) and Fushimi-Inari which has rows of TONS of toori gates. You have to see the pictures to fully appreciate them so go HERE!! CLICK IT!! hehehe. yep those were my experiences in Kyoto. Amazingness! I loved every minute of it!

Long Weekend/Obama-happiness

Soooo yeah for the long weekend we (Nell, Paula and I) decided to go to Osaka, Himeji, Kobe, and Nara. In that order yeah. We had last Thurs, Fri, and this Mon off so we had plenty of time! And it was really fun! Osaka is the 2nd biggest city in Japan, so some aspects are a little like Tokyo, but it also is way more west so it has a Kansai (that's the area) feel to it. And apprantly their accent and way of speaking is different but luckily they didn't use that with us!

So our first two days, we stayed in Osaka and hung out. The first day was mostly temples, Osaka castle, and historical stuff, to the bay for sunset, then for the night time we went to the awesome Dotonbori area which is very...flashy. But super fun! We ate dinner there and looked around a lot. The second day we went to the North part of Osaka and saw the giant building called the Osaka Sky Tower. We went up to the top floor and it was cool! We also went to a mall with a ferris wheel in it. Oh we rode a ferris wheel the night before:) So yeah we also went to Dotonbori again and Shinsaibashi as well. We got the famous Okonomiyaki. They even had a cheese one so I could eat it too! Here are my Osaka pictures --> CLICK <-- Our third day was Himeji and Kobe. In Himeji there is basically the castle and that's the best part so that's all we really saw. It is said to be the most beautiful castles in Japan. It is also one of the oldest. (I think). So we toured around there and had lunch in Himeji, then headed to Kobe on the train. We started in the Europe town of Kobe first which is really cool because it was started by the European settlers in Japan. They have a house for every European country! Anyway, after they we went to the Port of Kobe which has an amusement park/boarwalk type place where we hung out and took pictures, then stayed for nightfall and saw the beautiful lights around the port. For dinner we went to Chinatown which is also really cool. Since Nell is Chinese she told us the good stuff to get. haha. And the food was really cheap there! Kobe is definitely an international city. We took the train back to Osaka for the night, then traveled to Nara for our last day. Nara is famous for being one of the old capitals and it has an amazing park which has lots of deer wandering around and beatiful temples. Apparently back when Nara was the capital of Japan, they saw deer as sacred creatures so they were not hurt and I guess that is still the tradition today. So in the park there are deer everywhere! It was really cool! Ok so here are the Himeji/Kobe/Nara pictures! >>CLICK<<

Ok and as for the election, we were watching CNN in the office at school! It was really fun!! And we were so excited!!! GO OBAMA! So happy:) There were a whole bunch of Americans in the office and we were all cheering for Obama haha.

Ooh also this weekend we are going on our last IES field trip! And it is to Kyoto! It will be super exciting! We get to meet some geishas-in-training haha. Ok it just started raining outside and I have a kanji test tomorrow. Unrelated but whatever. CYAA

PS: I found out yesterday that there is a city in Japan called Obama! hahahaa

LOTS to Update!!

Ok it's only been 16 days but a LOT happens every day here so yeah there is much to sayy!! So, first of all, the IES trip to Shirakawa and Takayama was really fun!! We went to a traditional japanese village and saw some cool old houses, then went to the forest and went on a little tour/hike around there. We learned about the plants and stuff that the villagers used to use. It was really cool! They had a plant for toothpicks and it smelled really good! And one that smelled like mint too! So, after the forest we went to the hotel and had dinner and changed into our yukatas for the hot springs! So nice and relaxing but very HOT! The next day we went to an old government building and they had this place to torture crimnals! Scary but cool. After that we walked around and saw a pagoda and painted ceramic plates, and went to another famous village before going home. It was great! The pictures from that trip are...HERE and HERE so check those out!

So next came Van's halloween party. Yes it was early for Halloween but it was the best weekend to have it. We went shopping at Tokyu Hands, which we found out is a really cool store for art supplies! Anyway, so I bought frog eyes that go on my head. I couldn't find a good costume for the dorm party the next weekend but I decided just to get the froggy one. Some of the costumes were literally 100 dollars!! SO yeah we (Celeste, Greg, Joel, Paula, Kirsten, and I) went to Van's halloween party. He has a host family and their house is really big!! He has one host brother, but they invited a whole BUNCH of kids from his school. They were SOOO cute. Especially the girls:) They wanted to play balloon volleyball with us so we were like SURE!! haha. Also we played a game where they came up and said "Trick or Treat" and then we asked them a question and if they got it right we gave them candy:) But with their accents it sounds like "Toriku oa Torito" hehehe. We had lots of fun!
Also that weekend, Nell, Natalia, Josh, Nell's friend, and I all went to a festival near the Ozone train station. But like a 20 min walk. Anyway it was really cool too! There was a group of men and a group of women who carried their festival things around town. It's kinda hard to describe, but here are pictures from the Halloween party and the festival-> CLICK

Oh yeah and we finally went to cold stone! I got the mixture called Green Tea Party. And they sang when they made our ice creams:)

Oh and I took my midterms and got them back! I got a 81% which isn't great but not bad either....but they are giving me a speaking tutor to help me speak better:)

So, this weekend my parents came!!! They got here on Thursday and left today (Sunday). On Thursday I met them at the airport and we went to dinner at the hotel but it was after 9pm so the restaurants were closed and we went to the bar. Mostly had french fries and salad for dinner but that's ok:) On Friday I met them after school and went to Sakae. We met up with Greg, Joo, and Bethany who were killing time before the dorm party. We hung out for a while at Starbucks, then I took them to my school. It was about when the dorm party was starting so we saw lots of people in their costumes. So, the parentals went to their hotel on the subway and I took the bus home to change into my frog costume (I decided to wear the same costume as Van's party but with a skirt, cuter shoes, and make up on haha). I ended up getting to the party an hour late but still was there for 2 hours. The drinks were weak but some people brought their own stuff! Most of my friends dressed up and I took tons of pictures!!
On Saturday, we met up around 10am at Nagoya station with Celeste and Nell to go to Inuyama (where IES orientation was) to see the Autumn Festival there. We ended up getting their at 11, right after the parade ended but we still saw the floats and some of the puppet shows. Then I went with my parents to the castle (oldest in Japan!) and the view was still awesome! (not that I thought it would change haha) After that we went back to Nagoya and my parents came to my house to see my room and meet my host family and everything. There was a lot of gift giving, translating,...etc. Then we went to dinner at a Vienamese restaurant. Really fun!! After saying goodbye to the host family we went to Jusco to play arcade games and get purikura (sticky pictures!) Saturday night (last night) I slept at their hotel and then today they left at 11:30am. We went to Dennys before they left. Apparently a Japanese company owns Dennys (and 7-11!) but they had a lot of Japanese breakfast. I never feel like rice for breakfast...anyway yeah I had french toast and eggs woo! SO now I'm back and my host family's house and avoiding hw! My host mom says we are doing some sort of BBQ of tofu or something for dinner. Not sure...anyway yeah I better go. Good for you if you actually read all that. Oh! here are pictures from this weekend!! ->CLICK<-

Sad Story/Cold Stone/Going to Takayama

So after dinner tonight my host mom and I were talking about various things and I even told a whole story in Japanese that made sense lol. But there was a thing on the news about earthquake safety and I asked my host mom when her worst earthquake was. She told me it was when she was little, but the worst was not that earthquake. Apparently when she was 18 years old, a giant typhoon hit Japan. She said in her house the water went up past her waist. But that's not the worst part. She told me a lot of her friends didn't make it through the storm. The story reminded me of Katrina so I compared it to that and she asked me if I was there then and I said no, but I went a year afterward and it was still terrible. Aw sadness

On to happier things, they are opening a Cold Stone Ice Cream place in Sakae (one of the cool places to go here) this weekend and my new Japanese friend Akiko (who gave me the pumpkin chocolate) wants to go with me and Paula sometime next week. I think we decided Tuesday. I'm excited! Yay Japanese Cold Stone! I wonder how it will be different.

Oh and the reason we can't go this weekend is because we have another IES field trip. This time we are going to Shirakawa and Takayama. I think they are near each other. I keep hearing good things about Takayama so I'm excited even tho I have to wake up at 7am on a Saturday to go there lol.

I'll write about the trip when I get back! And I'll probably have loads of pictures!! YaY!