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!

matsuri pics!

Ayaka, Me, Joanna, and Joo with the thing Ayaka caught
and gave to me for my birthday! aww!

Our group with the crazy drunk matsuri people!

Us with the Boss (left)

Joanna, me, and Nell with our matsuri headbands (facing the other way)

school and birthday weekend

so school is going pretty well. for the first few weeks the japanese students were gone, but now they are back yay! there are about 4000 japanese kids and 150 ryuugakusei (exchange students). actually i dont know the real statistics i just heard this from someone but it seems right.

i joined 2 clubs, international friendship club and movie club. intl friendship club is basically meeting every monday and thursday for lunch to talk to japanese kids and make friends:) they have some activities like this next weekend but i can't go because of the ies trip to takayama. but all the japanese people i know keep telling me takayama is really pretty so i'm excited to go there. movie club meets every friday at lunch and we talk about movies, and make them too! my friend joo is writing a script and hopefully the movie will get made with the help of joel, van, and myself!

so i've met random japanese people thru the clubs, thru other ryuugakesei, and just randomly. it's great to speak to them in japanese as well as japan-glish. they speak english so we mix it up sometimes. today, this girl named akiko who i have met maybe twice gave me a birthday present of pumpkin flavored chocolate inside a little cute plastic pumpkin!!

speaking of pumpkin flavors, they don't mess around here. there is so much pumpkin everything everywhere for halloween it's awweeesommme. i had a pumpkin shake at baskin robbins that was like drinking a pumpkin. and they have a lot of sweet potato stuff too! (which i also LOVE) i got sweet potato flavored ritz yesterday! oh yeah and did i mention they have grape flavored kit kats here???

anyway, on to the weekend. so friday i did nothing. slept early for once yay! saturday was my 21st bday woo! for lunch, my host mom and sister took me to a Beni-hana type place where they cook the food in front of you. But instead of steaks, the chef made us big slabs of tofu!! (special order!!) it was awesome and so were the veggies! (including..yes asian pumpkins...yayyy) while he was cooking, my host mom and sister gave me prezzies! 2 t-shirts, a little stuffed animal cat (black like midnight aww) and a little lipstick size case. my host mom is still amazed i don't wear any make up..maybe she is giving me subtle hints that i should lol.

so after lunch we went shopping and i was texting everyone like crazy trying to figure out what we were doing that night. we ended up meeting at sakae subway station and karaoke-ing/nomihodai-ing. (all-you-can-drink) but they brought our drinks way too slowly. And we thought it would be 16 dollars each but apparently it was per hour and since there were 10 of us we had to pay 48 dollars each??? it was weird but oh well the karaokeness was still fun. (they make you pay afterwards...rip off)

yeah so i actually made the bus on the way home. on sunday i took the subway and meitetsu train to tsushima with joanna. nell lives in tsushima with her host mom at a buddhist temple. and there was a aki matsuri (autumn festival) going on so we were there for that! it was really exciting! everyone gets dressed up in matsuri clothes and the kids were so cute! we met this guy called "the boss" who gave us all this free matsuri stuff! and let us take pictures with his town and everything! and after the festival we went to nell's house for matcha (green tea) and food and okashi (sweets). It was pretty much AWESOME! it made up for the overpriced karaoke the night before haha.

So i've got some pictures I took from karaoke and the matsuri here and i'll post some other ones above.

byeeee

UPDATE: FOUND THE PASS

no need to worry. it was at school. phew. oh i just killed a fly by throwing my notebook at it. i thought it would fly away but it didn't. haha. there are a lot of bugs here!! today we had to do speeches in class and in the front of the room there was a GIANT wasp. I was like...I am not doing my speech with that wasp there. it was me and another girl and a guy in the room (bout 20 mins b4 class) and we made the guy go kill it hehe:)
k laterrr

The Good and The Bad

Soooo yeah last weekend was amazing so I'll start with that and then get to the bad (yesterday and today)
On Friday night we went to a nomihodai (all you can drink) place for Nell's birthday. I didn't drink too much. Just the right amount. I did try whiskey though which I decided I do not like....anyway it was a really fun time and we met some really wasted Japanese people. They really take advantage of the all you can drink thing haha. On the way back I missed my bus by like 5 minutes, but walked home just fine:) it's actually only like 4 stops from the train station so I can easily walk. I just take the bus when I am lazy!
On Saturday 2 exciting things happened. Mamma Mia and my first baseball game! So you might be thinking Mamma Mia is not really a Japanese experience...and sure maybe not but it was basically all in Japanese and since I saw the movie this summer I already knew what was going on and could focus on what they were saying. In the theater they have to speak clearly so it is good for us to try and understand them. And I understood most of what they said so that was great! I actually got to the theater like 15minutes late cuz I walked for 40 mins trying to find the place!! ooooh well...me and my terrible sense of direction...which i got from my MAMA~
Ok so after Mamma Mia, a group of my friends and I went to a Dragons baseball game. Baseball in Japan is much different than in the states. They have so many organized cheers and little bats that they use to cheer. They had a guy on a taiko drum keeping the beat and a guy on a trumpet. They also had lots of guys waving HUGE flags! At first we were far away in section 5, but since it wasn't packed, we moved down to section 2. Nell and I decided we wanted to get even closer so we walked all the way around the feild to behind home plate. It was amazing. Too hard to describe. but awesome. After the game, Paula, Nell, Celeste, Joo, Nick, Joo's host sister, and I all went for ice cream at the mall. I ended up getting green tea (matcha) flavored bubble tea that was soooo good.
On Sunday, I went shopping at a flea market with Van, Joel, and some girls that they know who are studying abroad at a different school. The flea market was in Osu Kannon at the temple so it was really cool. And I ended up getting a really pretty purple kimono for only 10 dollars!! I had to buy the tie around it new tho so it cost 12 dollars but it is worth it!! Osu Kannon is a really cool shopping place I totally want to go back! After that we met Joo, Nick, and Greg at Sakae and they have an anime store, pokemon center, and totoro store so we went to all of those. Then for lunch we got cone-shaped pizza. It was like the shape of an ice cream cone but bread with sauce and cheese inside. VERY YUMMY!!

OK so that was all great but then yesterday I got my reading test back and I got a 3/10!! I was like this has to be wrong and it actually was. It was a 5/10 which is better but still not good! I had to talk to the professor and he explained the parts I got wrong. One of the answers I actually got right but since I didn't copy it from the reading the answer was entirely wrong! They are very strict here!!
THEN TODAY it got worse. I was all ready for my kanji test and I had studied hard and everything then I get to the classroom and a minute before the test I find out I had studied Chapter 4 kanji instead of Chapter 3!!! So I completely failed the test today...I guessed on 2 so maybe I got 1/10!! The only good thing about these small tests is that we get 4 a week every week and all together they are worth only 15% of our grade. And I've done well on the rest of them so hopefully I can do ok.
OH and if that wasn't bad enough, after having lunch at Jusco with my friends, I realized that my bus pass wasn't in my pocket!! I checked everywhere and I couldn't (can't) find it!! I might have to pay 4 dollars a day for 3 months...yes do the math...it is more than 300 dollars!! So yeah that sucked. I told my host mom and she called the bus people telling them I might have dropped it on the bus. They said if they find it they will call but oh man I hope I find it. I can walk back from school if I need to because it takes like 45mins to an hour but I don't want to walk that in the rain.....so yeah that's the bad stuff. But over all I don't feel that bad I guess....I've got tons of homework to do...oh and I'm looking forward to my 21st birthday on Saturday, but not looking forward to my speech on Friday. blech...

Oops!

haha so at dinner today my host mom and I talked for quite a while. I was feeling pretty confident in my Japanese and then....I mixed up the words for "laundry" and "graduate"! They don't even sound that much alike haha. Sotsugyo is graduate and Sentaku is laundry. At least they both start with S! haha anyway so I was doing my laundry before dinner and I wanted to say I forgot to take it out but instead I ended up saying "I forgot to graduate" haha. My host mom just looked at me a little weird and kept talking. hehe:)

Karaoke Pics!

We were (are) awesome

The Group that stayed til 5am!

Singing with Paula, Van, and Joel

Again for the non-facebooker people...aka mom and dad...

Eating Sushi and Watching Sumo on TV

That's what I was doing like 20 minutes ago and I was thinking "wow this is a very Japanese moment" haha. We went to the SUPA market today and bought some vegetarian sushi. They have 2 kinds. One has a soy thing on the outside with rice on the inside and the other is a big one with seaweed, rice, cucumber, egg, and something that is like daikon radish but isn't. (I forget the name) Oh yeah and I found out that it is ok to eat the big ones with my hands instead of chopsticks!!! But if I did that in the states it might look weird...hmmm

Jumping back to this weekend, on Friday night there was a typhoon coming so we decided to stay at the karaoke place we were at. It was 30 bucks for singing til 5am with all you can drink! (Nomihodai) So yeah that was funn! But by 3amish people got really tired. People...but not me!! I sang til the very end! For our last song we woke everyone who was sleeping up and sang "We are the champions" while putting our arms around each other and swaying. Yeah good times...but the typhoon didn't actually hit us haha...

On Saturday I had Van, Celeste, and Paula over for dinner at my host mom's house. She cooked us some great food and bought some pizza too:) The only bad thing was when Celeste accidentally ate cow intestines....but besides that a great time for all! lol. Ken chan really liked Celeste. awww cute little doggy! inuuuuu!!

Umm so yeah school and everything is good...I've gotten good scores on most of my tests. Today was late start and got on the late bus. I made it to class EXACTLY on time. (They are really strict about being late here!) Ok I might have been like 30 seconds late cuz they had already handed in the homework but it was still 10:05 on my watch so it counts. (I don't know why we don't just start at 10, but whatever...)

I'm going to go watch Part 2 of the Heroes Season 3 opener. Woooo!

Frozen Spiced Bubble Tea!!

I found bubble tea on campus! It was yummmmy! I actually ordered raspberry but they gave me the spiced (kinda cinnamon-y) flavor! hehe

Classes are going fine. We have a test every day tho which kinda sucks. We had a kanji test today and I think I did okay but not great. They take off .3 points for each tiny line you don't curve or point or do EXACTLY right so yeah they are very strict haha.

I think I am going to go for a run today...like now actually. I have basically no time to myself here haha. School, hang out with friends, home, dinner, homework, sleep, school!! So I have to run in the next half hour because dinner is at 6:30 sharp! But I'm not complaining because life is good and this weekend should be fun! Karaoke on Friday with tons of people and Saturday is my welcome party! Maybe Sunday I will have some time to myself lol. Eh who wants to be alone anyway. I am having too much fun:)

cyyyyaaaa

More pictures from Kanazawa

At dinner!

Tea ceremony!

Paula and me at breakfast:)

At the garden!

In our yukatas on our way to the onsen!

Van attacks Celeste!

At the Ninja Temple

My roomies!

I stole these off facebook for those who don't have it and can't look at pictures that I am tagged in!!

Kanazawa Weekend!!!

Woo! So our IES group went to Kanazawa for the weekend and it was really fun! It is a 4 hour bus ride from Nagoya station to Kanazawa. It is basicallty driving across the whole island to the other beach. We stopped a couple times at different rest stops along the way. At Japanese rest stops they have giant lines for the basthroom and most of the toilets are squatty pottys so I wait for the western toilets. There is also a really funny sign that explains how to not use the western toilet. It is in my pictures but basically it shows in pictures to not sit on the toilet backwards to put your feet in the bowl hahaha. Yeah so anywayyy on to Kanazawa.
We stopped at this giant fish market for lunch. I took tons of pictures but had fruit for lunch cuz I dont eat fish! After the fish market we went to a Ninja temple! Well it is called that but no real ninjas lived there. The reason it has that name is because it has secret passages and hidden staircases and stuff! We got a tour around it but weren`t allowed to take pictures inside. Still, it was really cool!!
After that, we went to a gold leaf factory. Everything had gold in it including the sake and ice cream!! They told us that 90% of the gold leaf in Japan comes from Kanazawa. So then we went upstairs and got to make our own silver and gold leaf boxes! I changed my mind like 10 times but finally went with a shape design. We put tape on the box then they put some glue on it and we stuck the gold and silver onto the box. They then put the seal on it and let it dry then pulled the tape off! Some people`s designs were so cool! After that we went to the gift shop
When we first got to the hotel they explained the onsens (hot springs) and told us there were 3. One of them is for girls and guys together and I was like hmmm...no I dont think I want to get naked in front of a whole bunch of guys....so anyway we went to our rooms and I shared a room with Celeste, Paula, Natalia, Nell, and Natalia. We totally got the biggest room! We were like screaming about how awesome it was and most likely freaking out the Japanese people staying there hahaha. We had a bigger room because there were 6 of us!
So anyway we went down to dinner in a huge tatami room and I sat in the vegetarian section! this time they had an awesome tofu and vegetable soup. Anyway we ate a lot. Then we went to the onsen!! Everyone in my room wanted to go to the co-ed one so I was like...hm ok! And changed into my yukata (see picture). When we got there the onsen lady was crazy and kept making sure we knew how to wear the little green towel (we werent actually naked with the guys haha) it was like a snap on towel. I heard from one of the guys that the lady told him he was wearing it wrong so she ripped it off him and he was like WHAT? haha excuse me I`m naked!! So yeah the onsen was REALLY hot but very relaxing. My cheeks turned red tho lol. Afterward we changed and hung out in the guys room and watched Hard Gay which is too weird/funny to describe.
In the morning we had breakfast at 8 in the same room we had dinner in. It was nice and we went in our yukatas because we didnt want to change haha. They are like Japanese pajamas but I wore it over my real pajamas. After breakfast and being locked out of the room for a bit, I bought an omiyage (gift) for my host family then we left at 10am. It took an hour to get back into town because our hotel was up in the mountains (so pretty!) When we got to town we went to a beautiful garden that is one of the best in Japan! i took tons of pictures there too! After the garden we got to make our own okashi sweet candies which was cool! We then took the 4 hour bus ride back and my host mom gave me some a noodle soup for dinner and more okashi for dessert!!!
Check out all the pictures HERE!

MORE PHOTOS!!!

yay!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2077925&l=21992&id=7307196

Yatta!! I did it!

Yayyy! I tested into the higher Japanese class!! Yesterday was the first day of classes and I went to Japanese 300 (3rd level) because I originally tested into that class. It was too easy and at the end we took a test. After class, there was a Coffee Hour party that my friends and I went to but mostly to get the free food haha. They were playing ice breaker games but I left to find out how I did and yay! I did ok! I talked to the Dean lady and she said it was chotto abunai...(kinda dangerous) for me to go into the higher level but she let me and I was like wooooo!!
Today we had the first real language classes (I am now in 400 level). They go on for a long time but they split us into groups. I was in the D group (groups A-E, not my grade lol). We had 5 short classes of Japanese including a vocab class, writing, reading, speaking, and one i wasnt really sure cuz we kinda combined all of those together haha. Everything was in Japanese and it seems about my level so yay! And I thought the book would be the same but it is different woo!
I have my Japanese Culture class in an hour so I am just in the student center. My friends and I went to lunch at the cheaper cafeteria today hehe! There are like 5 i swear....so many places to eat! I had curry udon (noodle soup with curry in it yay!) And an anpan dumpling for dessert (sweet red bean paste inside) oooh it was awesome!
So anyway, here are some random things I have observed about Japan so far....
-They are very good drivers, they have tiny cars, and when people park they ALWAYS back into the spots so they can just pull out after. (oh and they drive on the opposite side of the road too!)
-When they do their laundry they don`t have dryers so they hang up everything including underwear ahh!
-The shows on TV are mostly about food! Japanese people love food haha. And they do this super zoom in close up thing that shows all the grease but they think it looks yummy...
-I get to have TEA ALL THE TIME!
-My host mom asked me if I was getting pimples cuz I am stressed out and homesick but I am neither of those things haha. Its just reeeeally hot and humid here. Not good for my face!
-The other day my host mom gave me apple pie for breakfast! Apparently she saw me...big American girl...and thought hmm she must want some apple pie....lol
Sooo that is it for now!! cyaaaa <3

Shumatsu, getsuyobi (Weekend, Monday)

Hey! So everything is still great! On Friday I hung out at school for a while with my friends (still orientation time) then went home for a dinner with my host mom. After dinner I met Joanna and Phil at the train staion in Sakae (one of the good shopping and hanging out areas) So we looked around and didnt see any karaoke but we decided to go to a bar. Since we are all 20 it is weird for us to be able to just go into a bar and get a drink! We talked to the bartender in Japanese and decided to get Shoju because it is popular here. I didnt like it that much tho! Joanna and I wanted something sweeter so we opted for lychee liquer with grapefruit juice and it was pretty good. The bartender didnt speak English so it was a good chance to practice our Japanese too!
On Saturday my host mom took me to JUSCO the giant department store that has everything..kinda like Walmart and Fred Meyer combined haha. It is like 6 stories tall tho lol. We went there so I could get an electronic English-Japanese dictionary. We found one with a HUGE discount! It is worth 300 bucks but it was on sale and the display model so I got it for 180 bucks instead! RAKI NE! (my host mom thinks i am lucky haha) For dinner we went to a Chinese restaurant and they ran into some friends so they came back to our house and had some drinks and talked. They were really funny!! Apprently they are coming to my Welcome Party on the 20th. My host mom says I can bring 3 friends too...hard to decide who.
On Sunday we went to the ward office so I could get my alien registration (yep! I am an alien from Roswell!) and my Japanese national health insurance. (required) Then we went to a really nice Japanese restaurant to have lunch. I had miso noodles and then matcha and mochi for dessert! Oishiii! It is kind of hard to find totally vegetarian food here but I can mostly pick out the meat haha. We went shopping and my host mom bought me a cute necklace with a purple flower on it! yay!
Monday I signed up for classes. I am taking the language course, Japanese Culture, Calligraphy, and Japanese Writing (mostly Kanji practice ahh) We have the language class every day (starting tomorrow) and the other classes once a week. I am also considering joining the basketball club team and the movie club! And maybe the International Friendship club too hehehe.
After school on Monday, Paula, Van, Celeste, Nell, Joel, and some guy I forgot his name..went to Sakae to get phones. Well I already have a phone so I just went for fun and to get lunch and stuff. Nobody had the right forms unfortunately but we had a good time hanging out. What is weird about getting phones here as a foriegner is that you need your passport, alien registration card, student id, and a whole bunch of other forms just to get a phone! And parent permission if you are under 20!! Luckily I got a phone early haha.
Ok well the bookstore is open now so I am going to stop by there to get my calligraphy kit. Classes start tomorrow ahh! And we have another test so I will hopefully do well and move up to a higher language class! gotta go study! cyaaaaa!

PICTURES!!

These are from my IES Orientation in Inuyama. I will put up Nagoya pics later so yeah..Enjoy!!:) (You don`t need to have facebook to see them)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2077102&l=aac76&id=7307196

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Kimono

Heyyyy!!!! OMG I am sooo loving Japan!!!! Our last couple of days in Inuyama were great. I don`t think I mentioned that we stayed in a traditional ryokan (Japanese inn) so we got to sleep on futons on the tatami mats! It was really cool. Our last full day we had a lot of free time so me and a few other people went to a MONKEY PARK!! It was this place that combined an amusement park with a monkey zoo! It was really awesome! totemo ii!!! We went on the giant ferris wheel and looked at the view and then we saw soo many monkeys! The park had over 600 rare monkeys! We saw tons of baboons, lemurs, chimps, etc. Even a gorilla!! And while we were looking at the gorilla he tryed to punch me in the face!!!! Luckily there was glass between him and me hahahaha!
So the next day we left Inuyama for Nagoya where we will live and go to school. Everyone on the bus was very excited to meet their host families including me!! Very excited/nervous! When we got to Nanzan Daigaku (University) we all sat in a room and they called our names one by one to go meet our families. We all clapped as each name was called!
I went to meet my host mom who is soooo sweet. She is about 70 years old and lives with her husband and 40 year old daughter (that is common in Japan if their child isn`t married and sometimes if they are!) Anyway, my host mother is very thin and wears a lot of make up so she was suprised to find out that I don`t wear any! She called me kirei! (pretty:) She also can`t pronounce my name so she calls me "Kei`chan" (chan is what you put after girls` names)
And they have a cute little dog named Ken chan so it`s smiliar to what she calls me! Ken chan is totemo ureshiii!! (very happy) He is always jumping on my legs and licking me haha. I`m more used to cats so it is a little weird haha. But very cute! The host dad doesnt really talk to me but he is nice. The host daughter (Yukimi) speaks English pretty well so she clears up confusion between me and my host mom. But she speaks to me in Japanese which is good!!
So we got the results of our placement tests today and I got into a lower Japanese class than I wanted, but they said we can take another test to go into a higher class so I am going to do that! Apparently we have 3 hours of Japanese class a day, 4 days a week! It is a very intense course and counts for 8 credits. I am hoping to also take a literature class and an art class but we sign up next week so I will find out then!
I have met some really nice friends here so I am having a good time! Everyone is really nice! There isn`t internet at my house so I am using it at school. I will bring my pìctures on a thumb drive tomorrow and upload them so everyone can see!! Miss and love you to my friends and family!!!!
--Kei chan
けいちゃん　（ケイトリン）

First 2 Days!

Ooook so I finally got internet on my own computer yayy! One of the IES kids is broadcasting a wireless signal and there are like ten of us huddled around in this little room all using his wireless!! Anyway, on to what I've been up to!! So when I first got off the plane I was soooo tired and we had to meet some of the IES people to go to the hotel. I was all gross and sweaty and dead tired so i don't think I made a greeaat first impression but it's all good.
So after I had my much deserved rest, our first day we had breakfast at the hotel and I quickly bought a phone in the lobby (that was discounted for IES ppl). It came with a free keychain and I picked the pink bunny:) Next we went on a walk in the rain to the train station. So far the weather here has been...sticky. It's hot and humid and uuuuuhh yeah rainy. So after learning about the trains and subways and stuff (which is uber complicated btw) we took the bus to Inuyama.
Our orientation has been pretty intense. We have 3 hours of Japanese classes a day and I got put into the most difficult group! I kind of understand what the teacher is saying which is good, but I don't know enough kanji which is not good!!!
We have been exploring the town of Inuyama in the last 2 days. Today we got to go to the castle! I took tons of pictures so I'll put them up later!! I also explored on my 10k run this morning (The Human Race) but I got totally turned around! I eventually found my way back to the hotel even though I was like half an hour late for breakfast!!
As far as food goes, it's been a little difficult to find vegetarian food but it's not that bad. The orientation leader asked if we had any dietary restrictions and so I told him I'm a vegetarian. He was like...beef? no. chicken? no. pork? no. fish? no. So I thought it was all covered but when we got to dinner last night my plate was full of SHRIMP! and I mean tons! tempura shrimp, giant lobster looking stuff...all over the place. But today I clarified to him and when we went on the boat to watch cormorant fishing (which is kinda cool but kinda weird) I got lots of tofu and fruit and stuff yay!! so everything is goood:)
looove
kaitlyn

Just got here!!

ok my plane landed a while ago, but we took the train from the airport and i was so tired i took a 3 hour nap once i got to my room and had an awesome hot shower haha. so yeah we dont have anything planned for tonight. I am just going to sleep! I was really hungry after my nap tho so I went to a 7-11 type store and bought some instant noodles! I used my mom`s trick of taking the dried shrimp and stuff off the top and it wasn`t that bad! ok well I didn`t sleep on the flight soo time for bed!
Night night!
PS- I watched Kung Fu Panda on the plane! hi-ya!! hehehe

Leaving tomorrow morning!!

Hey so this is where I'll blog for the next 4 months about what's going on in Nagoya!! So far I know that I am staying with a host family for sure. They are the Asano family. The dad's name is Toshiyuki, the mom's name is Tomiko and the daughter's name is Yukimi. They are 71, 64, and 40 years old. This should be interesting!
When I get there I have an IES (my program) field trip/orientation in Inuyama. I've never heard of this place but apparently there is a castle there! I'll take lots of pictures. After the IES orientation I have to take a Japanese placement test and then go through the school's orientation. My first day of classes is...September 8th!
We have lots of field trips and things planned for the semester so it should be fun. I don't know my classes yet...should find out in orientation!
Erin and I are leaving for the airport at 5:30 in the morning tomorrow yay!! (My flight is at 8:30 and the airport is far away..trying to avoid rush hour)
My next post will be from Japan sooo...yeah..wish me luck! hehe:)
~Kaitlyn