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...