So close..

Ah, the final week of school before natsuyatsumi (Summer vacation). The most memorable moment was what happened today, but of course, everything that happens here is memorable. My class threw me a surprise farewell party. I sort of knew it was coming, but to see them start writing “Farewell Party for Anna” up on the blackboard.. it still hit me as hard as it would have if it was a surprise, even more so because I knew it was going to come.. I cried on Mai’s shoulder who was on my left.. And then Wakana called me over, and told me “ないていいよ。” So, lawl, what did I do? I cried of course.

And then everyone asked what was wrong, and I could help but half laugh and half cry at Wakana’s answer. I gunna really miss everyone..

Drinks were passed around, and so were snacks and then after that, we all “かんぱい！-ed.” And drank our drinks and ate our snacks. I didn’t eat mines because we had lunch just before, so I was still full.

After that, we played a game of Musical Chairs, but of course, they have a different name for it.. We got five girls, three guys, and my homeroom teacher to play, I was included in one of the five girls. And as we played, we walked around the circle of chairs, and when the music stopped, of course we all scrambled to sit down. I won in the end, but I had a feeling that Hirono, the person who was controlling the music, was timing it so that the music stopped when I was near the chair, so I didn’t really win..

Haha, after that, I got messages from my classmates, sort of. So, Tomohito was the “representative” of the boys, and since everyone was sitting in a circle, me and him were facing each other right in the middle of the circle. It took him a while to start talking, and it was super embarrassing just standing there waiting for his message, which was supposed to be from the boys of the class. Lawl, Hirono started counting down from ten and then everyone got quiet and then he started with.. “はじめて。。” and then everyone started cracking up, ‘cause it was reeeaaalllyyy quiet.. “わたしは好きでした！” LOLWHUT? The whole class started cracking up, and even I couldn’t help but laugh, and then after that, he bowed, with his hand extended and was like.. “おねがいします！” and so of course I shook his hand.. lawl, that was really awkward..

After that, Hirono was the representative of the girls and she gave me her message. It seems everyone is really embarrassed to talk to me or something.. but when it’s just friends around and not classmates, they talk really freely, maybe it’s just that the whole class’s attention was on them or something.. After that, I gave them my message, in English, and I just.. started crying, like a baby.. .-. How embarrassing.. After that, Morikyo-sensei translated, and after THAT, Izumi was to give me my present, which happened to be a t-shirt and two paper things that had everyone’s message for me.

I don’t know how they planned this without me knowing.. and passing it around without me seeing.. I must be either totally oblivious to what’s happening behind me or they’re really good at being sneaky with surprises..

After that one hour period of homeroom, we had two hours of like.. food/baby development kind of thing but they had a test, so it was kind of boring. I swear, one of the teachers there hate me. She like.. gives me this really weird look every time I pass her, and even if I smile.. she just gives me a blank face.. Ahhhhhh, I don’t know, she just gives me this bad feeling.. Uh, after that, we had cleaning to do, where, as usual, I goofed around. I was like.. “ゆい！好きです！” “ひろの！好きです！” and all my other friend’s names.. lawl, wonder where I got that from? Haha, it was all in good fun, and at the end, even Takeru was like.. “Tomohito, gambatte!”

Ah, I can’t wait for tomorrow! It seems that me and my friends will be going to the park that we can see from the school. Ah, it’s so exciting! So, we’ll be going there after school.

Ah yes, I also found out that my classmates had planned out a barbeque for the 18th or 19th, but guess what? I WON’T BE HERE. WHERE OH WHERE WILL I BE? I’ll be in stupid Naha, doing some stupid YFU thing, where we are “obliged” to go. WHAT THE HECK? It’s my last week here, and I don’t even get to spend it in Miyako, no, I have to spend my weekend doing some stupid YFU thing that’s probably supposed to be “fun” but is just a big hassle to gather all the Okinawa YFU students.. like.. what the heck? ._. Seriously now?

Ugh. And then, my friends moved the barbeque to the 20th, and then I told my host parents and they were like.. Oh, no, we can’t do that! We planned snorkeling and jet skiing for you. Uh. .-. Okay. Seriously, I think I spend enough time with my host family as is. I go with Kaho to her English lessons, her violin lessons, her violin lessons.. I go with Kaito to his baby swimming lesson where I don’t even DO anything. I just sit there and watch him splash around with my host mom or dad.. and then I help my host mom with dinner.. I help my host parents with laundry, I hang the laundry I fold the laundry. Every. Single. Night. TOGETHER. WHY OH WHY can I not spend time with my friends?

Ugh. I think this is more of a rant post than anything.. So, I’m supposed to tell everyone that the 20th is impossible, even though they went through all the trouble to change it. WHAT THE HECK. ._. Ugh. I’m just having a badddd day today. Kaho’s acting up again, she won’t listen to her mom.. it’s ridiculous how that girl can treat her parents. She gives them attitude, talks to them in a voice that.. is not a voice you should talk to your parents at all.. and she even screams “いいえ！” at them.. .____.

Oh well, last week here. Trying to make the best out of it, but it’s not looking too good with two days knocked out because of stupid YFU orientation. Seriously.

Let's Play!

Ahhh, it’s been a while.. I’m quite sorry! Let’s see.. Thursday. Well, on Thursday.. let’s see.. Ah yes! I had taiku (P.E.) on Thursday. It was super fun! Guess what we played? :3 We played dodgeball! Haha, lots of shouting and shrieks and close encounters with the ball. At one point in the game.. Wakana and Misaki started aiming the ball at Shouko. She was right in the middle, Misaki was on our side of the court and Wakana was on the other side. Lawl, it was amusing to see Shouko run left and right to avoid their throws. Let me tell you, it was super hilarious, I couldn’t stop laughing after, which made me quite a target for the other girls..

Well, after that was lunch, so we went to buy our lunch and ate in our regular lunch spot, which, as always, was the classroom right next door to our homeroom class. After school, I went to watch Nanami finish her yukata. She got close, but she didn’t finish, but that day, we were joined by Akane, Jun, Takeru, Hirono, Natsumi, Miharu, and Shouta. There were a lot of people that day, but they were all there really just to hang out and talk. It was really fun on Thursday, and I started on making a bag.

Friday, we had a two hour period where we were sewing, so I finished the bag, reversible by the way, and gave it to Nanami as a birthday present! Nanami finished her yukata, and.. yeah, that was about it.. The most fun thing on Friday was making cookies, which was period five and six.

We went into a building where it was super hot, and there was like.. no air conditioning. I felt like I was in a super hot oven.. Me and Misaki paired up to make our cookies, which turned out delicious, but.. not so delicious looking. The “in the making” pictures I have, but none with me because.. lawl, who wants to see me anyways? :D Well, while we were mixing the butter into the sugar into the flour, we would trade off every three minutes.. we were beating that thing REAL good. Lawl, it would be like this.. “Misaki! スウィチ！” and then three minute later, Misaki would be “Anna, スウィチ！スウィチ！” Haha, really fun.

When we got back to class, I shared my cookies with everyone, because I wasn’t really hungry.. the sensei gave each of us two pieces of round bread, which was regular bread, and I ate one, and gave the other to my sensei who I ran into going to the school gate. Turns out, my host mom wouldn’t be coming until about six, so I had to go back to the sewing room where Nina and Misaki and Miharu were. They were “working” on their yukatas.. in truth, we were playing around with the extra felt lying around.

So, after it was like.. six, I went to the school gate where my mom came to pick me up.

Saturday.. we.. well.. let’s see.. we went shopping for Kaito’s birthday party, which was going to be a barbeque. And let’s see.. after we went shopping for his birthday party food.. Me and my host mom went obi shopping. Who knew a pretty yellow obi was so hard to find? UGH. You seriously can’t find a pre-made yellow obi unless it isn’t part of a set.. We also looked for geta, but the only pretty geta was at マルエー and it was too small for me. XD Like.. I think all Japanese women have small feet.. or all the big feet people buy the shoes when they first come out.. you can only find like.. twenty three centimeter shoes.. I’m twenty four point five centimeters, by the way.. Lawl. .-. Epic fail right there.

(JULIE. WHAT’S JOOR SHOE SIZE? :D In cm btw please! :3)

Well, after that, we went to go pick Kaho up from her ballet class and then we went to buy my seifuku ribbon, ‘cause I wanted one. The one I have now is so thin! D: I’m totally not liking it at all. So I bought myself one. :D And after that, we went back home, and we cleaned up the house to get ready for the barbeque later that night.

After that, I started working on my goodbye speech to the school ‘cause I knew I’d have to give one.. and as I was writing it in English.. I swear I started to cry. It’s so sad, I can’t believe I only have one more week of school, and two more weeks left here on this beautiful island..

So.. Sunday, I woke up at like.. nine thirty, ate breakfast and then me and my host dad went snorkeling! Kaho couldn’t go ‘cause she had some ballet or piano thing to go to, and so my host mom didn’t come either, but OMG. Snorkeling was super fun!

Before we actually went into the deep end of the water, my host dad gave me some snorkeling “lessons” and after I showed him my breathing and my “Pfft” to clear the snorkel tube of water.. I took a good look down at my feet and.. I nearly screamed. FISH. TINY LITTLE CUTE FISH. O_O OMG. Why did I not notice them at first? They were swimming freely in the water and we started swimming more and more towards the corals.. and goodness, if only it was a bit more sunny, but it was beautiful!

The water was a sea green, the fishes were colorful.. I saw Nemo and Marlin swimming happily in their anemone home.. So adorable! And the bright blue fish.. They really are blue, and the other fishes were just as colorful.. Ah, so cute! I’d do anything to snorkel again! The ocean is just so beautiful.. I’d love to snorkel when the weather is more favorable though.. I’m going jet skiing on the twentieth I think..

The twenty first is when I hang out with friends, so.. Yeah, ugh, WHY DO I ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT? I keep thinking what the heck did I do all this time while I was here in Miyakojima? It’s such a short stay and.. I wish I did more things, talked to more people.. this feeling of not making the best of my experience is coming out and I can’t help but feel I didn’t do all that I could.. It’s such a helpless feeling..

Anyways, to end this on a good note, today, I’m going to Aya’s concert tonight, Miyako High School’s brass band concert. Aya is my neighbor, her brother is Ryouya, and they sometimes come over to play. I can’t wait to hear them play! Alright, so now everybody’s getting ready to go, so I gotta go too!~

かにさん！

So, lets see… Nothing much happened on Monday, I went to school like usual, and after school, I went to the sewing room with my friend Misaki to finish our yukatas together. I actually didn’t finish, and Misaki had to go to her swim class because she had missed too many days. Near the end, six o’clock, Misaki came back along with Nanami and Jun, who also swam on that day.

Tuesday! This is where things get a little more interesting.. On Tuesday, I went to school, and after school, I went to finish my yukata.. yeah, again. At around six o’clock, sensei had to head home.. and ugh, how frustrating! Only after a little bit more, and I would have been done.. Tuesday, Nanami and Jun were the only ones there to finish their yukata, and they didn’t really finish either. When I was waiting for my host mother to come pick me up, I talked with them, and then, when six twenty came rolling around (the time my host mother said she’d be there) I said my goodbyes and headed out towards the school gate to wait for her.

Today would be the day we would go to see kani-san, or crabs. Once every year, the crabs that live on the land cross the road to lay their eggs in the ocean. Sounds cool right? Well, it sounded cool to me. XD Like something from a story book. We were going to watch that! Yay. My host mom told me we’d be leaving at eight and so I had to finish eating and taking my shower by then, and when my dad came home from his cello lesson, we would go to watch the crabs lay their eggs.. or well, release their eggs into the sea.

Ugh, as usual, my host sister dragged. We didn’t actually leave the house until about eight thirty. We went to the golf course to pick up Kaho’s friend, Motoko, and then we were off, to the north point of Miyako. Since it was really dark and late, there were no cars around, and so to get there faster, my dad started driving reaaaalllyyy fast. It was really fun, but a bit scary, seeing as how roads here are so narrow.. the speed limit is forty km/h in many places on the island, but my host dad drove.. on average at about 80 km/h, we even hit 103 km/h at one point on our trip to the north point of the island!

When we got there, I made sure to spray myself with bug repellent stuff so that I wouldn’t get any new bug bites.. ugh I’m sick of it, I got three new ones the other day.. it’s terrible, but I guess I’m learning to live with it.. but I’m thinking these will scar.. D:

When we got out, I held onto Motoko’s hand because she was deathly afraid of the crabs. LAWL, did I mention, when we got there, there were crabs crossing the road? And at like.. 60 km/h my host dad managed to avoid three crabs, and then he started to slow down. They were crossing the road either to get to the ocean or to come back because they were done. Turns out, they were returning because they were done. We came late. Why? Because Kaho was being really slow. Ugh.

We went a little bit further down the road and turns out, there was a stretch of beach where there were still crabs that had not released their eggs into the sea yet, and so we stayed there. The trip down to the beach was a bit tricky, a rope was tied to a tree because it was a steep incline and the place was pretty rocky. Kind of like a small cliff? I don’t know how to describe it.. I should have taken a picture.. .-.

Well, it was easy for me, but for Kaho and Moto, the younger kids, it was quite difficult for them. So we got down there, and I managed to take a lot of pictures of crabs and I managed to get a few videos of the crabs doing their little “dance.” It’s quite interesting that they do it, but I guess it is necessary in order to release their eggs into the sea.

We stayed on the small stretch of beach for about an hour and then we returned back home. Tanabata was also on the same day, but because of the mangetsu, full moon, we couldn’t see the stars.. what a waste, will my wish of.. “東方神起に会えますように。” ever come true? Well, what a shame, it would’ve been really pretty to see the stars form a “bridge”, I’m actually referring to the story that goes along with Tanabata. I’m not too sure of the story, but when I have time to research it, I will put it up.

So, Tuesday was pretty interesting. I got to see something that only happened once every year, and so it was fun. It was also pretty cool to see my host dad going 80 km/h on a 40 km/h road.. Oh yes, did I mention? I almost stepped on a crab. It was super dark, and so Kaho and my host dad had the flash lights, and I was just wandering around, and it was pretty rocky, so I was concentrating on where Kaho was walking, and all of a sudden, Moto, who was holding my hand.. went.. “Woaaahhh!” and so I looked at my feet, saw two claws and started hopping around trying to avoid whatever was at my feet. As soon as that happened, my host dad shined the light at my feet and the large shadow of the crab appeared, confirming my fears. Lawl. That would have been bad.. stepping on a crab that could easily.. clamp me with it’s claws.. Yeah, don’t really want to think about that..

Today.. I didn’t do anything much really.. we watched Edward Scissorhands in English class, the first half of the movie anyways. I forgot, but someone told me it was a really good movie, so I guess I will see and find out if that holds true.. After school, I went to finish my yukata.. after about pinning fifteen pins in and sewing two lines on the machine.. I was done. Lawl, so I spent the rest of the time watching Nanami do her yukata, and near the end, one of my classmates, Akane, came in and started working on her yukata too.

Came home around six forty-five.. and what did I do.. eh, nothing really, ate dinner, took a shower. Got to use the internet for about twenty minutes, but I didn’t really accomplish anything.. Yeah, and now I’m about to go to bed, but blogging before I sleep so that everyone at home will be updated on my current status and what I’ve been doing for the past couple days. G’night everybody~

P.S. Shout out to Julie. Because I know she wants me to. :D

ように。。

So.. Friday. Lets start then. I woke up quite late for a school day.. and then ate breakfast with Kaho, my mother, and father, and then after that, my host dad got ready to leave for work. That morning, I would be meeting with the mayor, but the meeting time was.. nine forty-five.. I believe? So, I still had quite some time before then. I slowly ate breakfast, and after breakfast, I asked for permission to use the internet, and I got permission, so it was all good, but nobody was on! It was probably.. four in the morning in the states.. which is understandable.. I guess. Anyways..

At nine forty-five, we left the house and drove down to where the mayor was, and there was everyone else (Karen, Yeelin, and Andrea) waiting for us. They didn’t wait long, but still.. so we went up and sat in one room, and me and Andrea started talking about some things along with Karen, and then after that, we relocated to another room, where we met with the mayor and some newscast people.. and then we were asked to do a small self-introduction.. Now.. wait a minute.. LAWL This is Friday is it..? WAIT A SECOND. D: I don’t know which day is which… Friday.. I remember a big thunderstorm happening.. and then we saw a fire from the roof of the school, and black smoke was billowing everywhere.. and then.. what else.. the rain was really heavy on Friday.

Hmm.. Okay, nothing much. Saturday.. The day of the barbeque! Yay! Omgoodness, my dad brought out the and it looked so fun! BUT, why, oh why do I have to be a girl? Turns out.. THAT started on Saturday, and so I was just like.. moaning and groaning inside my head. Why did life have to be so unfair? So at around eleven o’clock, Kaito and my dad and I went to Kaito’s baby swimming session, and about halfway through, Yeelin came and we talked lots. After that, my dad drove both of us back to my house to start packing the jetski and other stuff, and me and Yeelin watched Smiling Pasta on my zune.

As we were talking, turns out, Yeelin also has THAT too, so today she wouldn’t be getting in the water. Man. What a way to start off a day, right? After we were all packed up, we headed to the beach, where me and Yeelin started to make a tower together.. which started to expand to four sand towers, and then to something connecting the towers together. It was really fun, and by ten minutes into the second tower, my legs couldn’t take it anymore, so I just sat down on the sand as I as. The sand was a bit wet, and so some water got into my pants, but all in all, it was okay. As Andrea and Karen started to arrive, we stopped building our castle thing.. and started talking to them and other stuff, but all of a sudden.. it started to rain! Oh no, it was raining! So we decided to move locations and we moved to another place, where I sat in the same car as Yeelin, and Yeelin’s host mom drove us to the other location. We got there, got out of the car.. and then ran underneath the place where there was a roof over it.

It didn’t help, it started raining here too, and so instead, Shimoji-san, Karen’s host parents, decided that it would be okay for everyone to come over, so we did, and we started the barbeque, and it was super fun. There were a lot of bugs though.. and bugs really give me a disgusting feeling.. like.. I really don’t like th bugs here on this island, maybe it’s just because I’ve gotten quite a couple bites from them, and I can’t stand them either.. Karen was my hero. She stepped in and started winding a small piece of tap around two fingers and started slapping the bugs and sticking them onto the tape. She and Minami, her host sister, happened to collect a lot of bugs. Ugh. Let me tell you.. there were a lot of bugs.

Afterwards, Yeelin’s host sisters wanted to play with my hair, so I let them, and the very end, I asked Yeelin to make my hair into a dango, and she makes it so pretty! I’m so glad she made my hair into a bun last because it was really neat and my hair didn’t get into my face that much anymore..

So we ended the barbeque and then Karen suggested we hang out tomorrow, which would now be today. I said it was fine, and then Karen told me she’d call later about the details. I went back home and then took a shower and then fell asleep.

Sunday, I woke up, helped make breakfast (pancakes), and then Kaho left for ballet school. I finished my designed for the shirt my dad asked me to make and then afterwards, my host dad, host mom, and host brother Kaito, and I went to Shima-T to get my picture of the design printed on the shirt. Turns out, color is okay and that the shop owner would be doing the color for me. I hope it turns out okay.. It’s a pretty nice design, so I hope he doesn’t screw anything up..

After that, I went to go buy some Takoyaki, but the store was closed, so we headed to the Jinja, or shrine. There, I rang the bell, bowed twice, clapped my hands twice and then bowed again making me wish. It was actually pretty fun, especially tossing the ten yen into the small place. My host dad got change for his five hundred yen and then we each put one hundred yen into the omikuji place. I got mine, and turns out, I got the best fortune. My omikuji I wil keep with me and use it to study! Afterwards, my host parents drove to Max-Valu, the big one, and then we ate food at Mister Donuts.

There, I met up with Karen, Yeelin, and Andrea and then we walked first, to the hyaku yen store, and I bought some things. After that, we dropped by gameland to take some purikura, and then after that, I went to the bookstore while Minami and Misato, Karen’s host sisters, were decorating or purikura pictures. Yeeling and Karen and Andrea came along with me, and I decided to buy a haircut magazine for my brother. For myself, I bought myself volume twenty-four of Hitman Reborn, and I will also use that to study Japanese. Turns out, twenty-four is the chapter I left off on when I was back in the states too, so yeah! But it isn’t the latest book out.. Oh well.

After the book store, we walked into the video/music store where me and Andrea fangirled over the 東方神起 CDs, especially the new single “Stand by U” I took a picture with the CDs.. which I will post up later. XD We looked at some movies and some dramas and some anime. We talked a lot about anime that we watched and how graphic some of them got in regards to violence.. like Claymore.. :<

After we were done with that, Karen’s mom drove all of us back to Karen’s house and then I got to write my wish and hang it on their tree sort of thing! My wish was.. “東方神起に会えますように。” Yeah.. Andrea’s wish was that she would get into NYU and Karen’s wish would be that her Japanese improved.

After writing our wishes down, we watched Ponyo. Omgosh, cutest movie ever! I just LOVE Ponyo. By the time we finished the movie, it was about.. six thirty.. or.. wait, it was about.. seven? I don’t remember.. and then my mom drove us back home. On the way back, I remembered my forgotten magazine, manga, and hyaku yen items, and called Karen’s house so that she would bring the items tomorrow. Hopefully she won’t forget, but I don’t think she will, Karen’s quite responsible.

Anyways, we got back, I helped with dinner and after that, we hung our own bamboo tree up and I got to write my wish.. I got two wishes this time, so I again, wished.. “東方神起に会えますように。” and I also wished.. “ファすとチェあーをゲットする！” My host dad’s diving friends came over and we talked and they also made wishes and we hung them up on the tree. After they went back home, I went to go take my shower and then get ready for school tomorrow. So that was my weekend. I’m kind of sad that the rain ruined the barbeque, but it was fun nonetheless. The food was great, but there were a lot of flies around..

Anyways, tomorrow I’m going to finish making my yukata! Yay! Well, goodnight everybody. :3

かみなり

Yes, yes, you guys get to see my now fat and ugly face talk to you. D: I swear, I seriously got fatter. .-. And to be honest.. my host mom's cooking.. isn't that good. ;_; Or maybe it's just the food here. I dunno.. D:

Oh yes, I forgot to add.. During Shouji, or cleaning, we saw black smoke, and since we clean on the top floor of the school, we ran out to the fenced roof thing and watched as fire came out of something.. it was quite far away, but the black smoke was billowing and it was obviously caught on fire. Really scary thunder and lightening.. SUPER loud. Omg, you guys won't believe how loud the thunder can get there..

The Inevitable Mistake

So, today, I went to meet the mayor in the morning.. I also got a chance to talk to the new student who would be studying abroad also. Lawl, I think she gets to experience natsumatsuri.. which is the day after I leave. D: WTH. Anways.. back to the mayor thing.. Well, basically, what we had to do was do a self-introduction, in Japanese of course. Lets just say.. everyone’s Japanese is way better than mine. They actually had classes where they learned the language, unlike me where I am only self-taught sort of..

So, Shogoro-sensei asked us to introduce ourselves giving our name, where we were from, and the reason for why we were here in Miyako as students studying abroad. Yeeling went first, and was flawless, what do you expect from someone who had been here three months? Nothing less of course. She’s an awesome person to talk to. Anyways, next came Andrew, the new transfer student, went by flawless as well, then Karen, then finally… me. It.. went something like this.. :

“ 私のなまえはアンナです。
カルフォルニアからきました。
にほんのぶんかを…”

So, at this point.. I was like.. oh crap. And then I remembered my speech that I made.. so I was like.. “お…おしえたい…?” and then.. lawl, the mayor looked at me a bit funny and confused and a little amused all at the same time. And then Yeeling and Andrew and my host mom corrected me, telling me it was “なりたい” Ahhh, how embarrassing. After that, every time someone said something, Shogoro-sensei offered to translate.. it was so embarrassinggg… ahhh

Well, anyways, after that, I went to school, where I found my class deserted.. so I decided to take pictures.. of myself being bored. XD And my class too. I found out that they were at the sea.. and so when Morikyou-sensei (my homeroom teacher) came back with Hirono and Misaki, we drove back to the ocean, where we were to cheer our school on for a rowboat competition sort of thing. We won second, and started walking back to the school. Goodness gracious. Miyako citizens really judge distance by how far it walks.. because I asked Misaki how far the beach was and she told me it was sort of far. We drove there in three minutes. Lawl, walking back though, was an entirely different story. Took about fifteen to twenty minutes of straight walking. Maybe a little bit more. It was hot. D:

After that, we arrived at school,, ate our lunch. Oh. Yes. Did I forget to tell you? I forgot my camera. D: So I have no pictures from the rowboat competition thing.. Anyways, we got back, and then went to class. I did nothing really.. just sat there and stared off into space. Shouji, or clean up time started, and I headed to where I usually headed, with Hirono to the bathrooms where we messed around. I snapped a picture of myself in the boy’s bathroom, which gave my friends a laugh.

And lawl, I had a small water fight kind of thing with my shouji friends. Hirono and Jun have a small water squirter, that holds about.. less than a handful of water, but it squirts pretty far. So we were battling it out and Hirono gave me her squirter and guess what I did with it? Squirted it at her when she least expected it. XD All the guys got a laugh out of it, but I was so scared of Hirono’s revenge plan. Turns out.. she didn’t have one. it was all okay! Hurrah! And then Takeru squirted me while I was rejoicing in her sportsmanship. D:< So after that, when we were walking back to class, Takeru handed me his small squirter.. or well, Jun’s, while we were walking back, I looked straight ahead while he was talking with me, and lawl, squirted him. HAHA. REVENGE TIIMMEEE. :D

Anyways, it was all fun today during school, especially the small water fights we get into at times. So childish, but trust me, it’s very fun.

Lately, I’ve been coming home and swinging my small host brother to sleep. I swing for a while and then sing him the only Vietnamese song I know.. and apparently, it makes him really sleepy. So at like.. eight, before dinner, I’m swinging away and he’s right up against my chest, and I hold him so he doesn’t fall off, and sing. :> The tricky part is getting him into my parent’s room so that he can sleep for a long time. I have to get up, hold him in a position where he won’t wake up, open the door, tell my parents he’s asleep and then head towards my parent’s room, where I put him down on the bed..

Oh yes, yesterday, after school, I went to Basketball club, and from four-thirty to seven o’clock, we had practice. Today, I went to brass band, where I practiced on the violin that Kudaka-sensei borrowed from Miyako-koko. So, as you can probably guess, I switch clubs, so Basketball and Brass Band is every other day.

Oh yes. Someone. Please tell me.. How many kilograms is equal to one pound? I think I totally gained some weight.. ugh.. as if I weren’t already fat enough.

Anyways, Saturday is the barbeque thing, so I can’t wait to jetski and.. snorkel, and do lots of other fun things with my host family and the other YFU studentttss. I’m totally excited, and oh, have I mentioned? Bugs don’t bite me anymore. Hurrah. I have become immune to them, just like you said, Jimmy.

Taira Middle School

So, yesterday.. I went to 平良中学 and was placed in the third year, third class. In that class was Ogawa Moe, who I had already met before, so it wasn’t that weird for me to be all alone in that class. I had a lot of fun! First was a suuppeerr long assembly in the morning, where most of the time.. I just sat there, doing nothing.. After a while, I was called up in front of the whole school, to make a speech.. like a self introduction. Haha, it was Jitsugyo-koko all over again. The introduction was short and then I sat back down.

After that, I saw Moe going back to class, and the English teacher I was with told me that she would be leading me to my classroom. Score! So, I was totally happy that I could hang with Moe, because she’s just an awesome kid.. and she totally kicks butt at violin. Super prooo. Well, first period was math, and I had already learned it and so I just filled out the rest of the paper and I talked to Moe and Hikari, another girl for most of first period, but then, there were self introductions because the homeroom teacher wanted everyone to practice their English. The kids were so adorable, they stumbled over “Hi, my name is ____. I like ___” It was so cute. xD

Well, after math was a two hour long period of English, and between math and English was a fifteen minute break. Some girls came over and we talked about some things, and I showed them where California was in America. English started and Jeff, the ALT who was working at the school was actually running the lesson, so there was no confusion in communication at all.

The first part we passed around a basketball when music was playing, and after the music stopped, whoever had the ball was supposed to do a self introduction. So, it actually landed on me the last time the ball went around.. which was funny, but anyways, I introduced myself again, in English, told them my name, my favorite food, and my favorite band, -coughTohoshinkicough-. XD Then, we played battle ships with English.. the A,B,C part was the first part of the sentence and then the 1,2,3 was the second part, and you would read a whole sentence to try to hit the other side’s ship. I played with Hikari and won.

After the first hour, we had a short break and Jeff stepped outside along with the English teacher for about ten minutes. When they came back, we all formed five groups and then we started playing Jeopardy. The categories were.. Food, People, Musicians, America, and Japan. Guess which category my group chose? America of course. XD The questions were pretty easy too, so when we got to the twenty-five point question, Jeff wouldn’t let the kids choose it, he told us to pick another category. Our group still won in the end because we stole a couple questions from the other groups.

After English.. we had lunch. Oh yes, lunch was quite.. different. We actually all ate food together. Like.. the school provided lunch, and the kids would bring the lunch to the class and start serving it out. That day was chicken with this daikon stir fry and milk and lychee jelly, topping it all off with a plate of rice. There was natto miso but I opted not to eat that because I hate natto.. Ugh, worse thing on earth next to gyoya. XD

After lunch, we had shouji.. and I helped Moe clean the hall. After we were done cleaning, we stood outside on this short open hall where the breeze felt reaaally nice. And then we saw Jeff come and he started talking to me. It was really funny cause all the kids just sat on the side gaping at our conversation, amazed that we were super fluent in English. Of course! Jeff was from Oregon and he had done a homestay in Tokyo for about a year when he was in college, he also hasn’t been back to the states in three years. We talked about a ton of things like studying abroad and what it’s like.. what Miyako was like, and how it was for me so far. When the short period for shouji was over, I headed back to class and did.. nothing. Haha, I went to sleep, sorta, but I didn’t really because that would have been rude to the teacher, so I nodded off in my seat.

At three-fifty, the English teacher came back and took the class picture with me in it, and I will upload it as soon as I can. At around four, we walked down into the teachers room to meet the principal who wasn’t there at the assembly that morning and then went outside where my dad was waiting for me. We drove back home and there, I waited for Shimoji-san, Karen’s host mom to pick me up. My host family would be going to Naha for the weekend for Kaho’s piano competition, so during that time I would be staying with the Shimojis.

She came to pick me up, I said goodbye and soon after, I arrived at Karen’s house. We hung out for a bit and then went to Max-Valu.. the huge one, where I saw my classmate Takeru at Mister Donuts. We went to Max-Valu to shop for groceries and also to fill up on water. After that, we came back home and ate and then I took a shower and then did Sudoku until I fell asleep. That was my Saturday. Oh yes, I also learned that Michael Jackson passed away that morning.. I was hearing Michael Jackson all day at school, but I had no idea what they were talking about, and it wasn’t until Karen told me that I understood. I think that was the first time I actually learned something that had happened on that same day..

Today, I woke up at about nine and then ate breakfast, watched some t.v. and then got ready to go to the beach. We went.. EVERYWHERE today. Shimoji-san drove us to like.. all the beaches on the east side of the island. I only knew like three of the beaches names though. My favorite would have to be Sunayama beach, Or Sand Mountain.. Omg. It has a little cave thingy.. well, I have pictures I’ll share later, but it’s a beautiful beach, it’s small, but not too small, and the water is so clear and blue.. Just gorgeous.

At three, we headed to the Miyako airport where we would be welcoming a new YFU student who would be staying in Miyako for six weeks. No fair, she gets to experience Natsumatsuri.. Which happens the day after me and Karen leave. Ugh, I haattee that. I totally want to go with my new friends from school.. and I’m sad that I can’t go to school on Monday because they have testing the whole day, so I can’t wait until Tuesday, so that I can go back to school. After we got home from welcoming the new student, Me and Minami, Karen’s host sister, slept in the tatami room, with the cooler and fan going. I woke up like.. half an hour later because it was so cold! And then turned both off. I woke up again when Minami’s mom came in to turn the cooler back on, and then went back to sleep. And then woke up ‘cause it was cold, and threw a sitting pillow over my legs and one over my arms.. and then I saw Minami wake up and grab some blankets. She threw one over me and then had one for herself. After that.. I slept pretty good. We didn’t wake up until about nine, and we went to sleep around.. five I think. It was a reaaallly good nap. After we woke up, it was time to get ready for dinner, and after that, we just watched tv. Nothing much.

Alright, well, I have tons of pictures of beautiful beaches and clear blue water, but I can’t post them up.. When I have time, I’ll definitely try to blog more though. I feel bad for using their electricity as it is to juice my laptop.. I go back to my host family tomorrow night at eight, so we’ll probably have time to go to Max-Valu to see Takeru at Mister Donuts again.. Like I mentioned earlier, he works there part-time, and so I hope to wish him good luck on the test on Monday, which would be from morning until afternoon.. I don’t think I could take that.. so much testing.. Anyways, good night everyone! Oh lol, I thought this post would be so much longer than the rest.. but I guess not. Oh well. Goodnight. :<

ぱんつ！

Ah, it’s been awhile.. So, on Monday, the 22nd, I went to school. At lunch, it was pretty interesting. Haha, I had my camera whipped out and I was taking pictures of my friends. They all seem really shy in front of the camera and I can’t really get a proper picture of them. They cover their faces before I get a chance to snap a shot! It’s so unfair, I really want pictures of them so that I can remember them when I go back! Well, anyways, as I was saying… we were at the library, and I was taking pictures.. I decided to record them.. Hirono and Misaki started running around. And what did I do? I chased them of course. In the library. As quiet as I could. Which was kind of hard.. I have the video, and I’ll upload it when I have the chance to, but you might get a bit dizzy from it..

Well, after that, I we went to class, and I was bored, so I drew faces on my fingers and then I started drawing smiley faces one everyone’s pointer finger.. and then I pressed fingers together.. and.. “ちゅう！” All my friends now will forever remember me by that.. ‘cause I practically drew fingers on everyone in my class and did that.. Haha, they kept saying “Gag, gag.” Which is slang for joke.. I’ve learned quiet a few slang words since I’ve been here.. it’s pretty interesting how Miyako-hogen is quite different from mainland Japanese.

Other notable things on Monday.. I went to a calligraphy class.. and practiced writing my name in katakana and hiragana.. both were really hard, but sensei made it seem so easy when she did it.. and as a present, she wrote me the word 夢 or “Dream” It’s reaallyyy pretty, and I totally love the fact that I get to keep it. Also on Monday.. Haha.. really windy, and skirts blowing up everywhere with lots of “Kyaa!~” going around. XD My Misaki’s skirt went up and I went.. “今日のパンツは。。。” And then my friend Nina went.. “ピンク！” Haha, I made fun of Misaki the whole day after that..

Tuesday.. there was a national holiday, “やすみ” I think.. so no school, but there was work, so my host dad did go to work on Tuesday. But, that day, I woke up at around.. ten.. and then I went to Kaito’s baby swimming class at eleven o’clock, with Kaho and my host mom, and we waited until it was over, which was for about an hour. After his swim classes, we returned home and we had lunch, which was Okinawa’s noodle soup kind of thing.. it was really good! At two o’clock, Motoko’s mother came over and picked us up to go to the pool. We headed to Karen’s house and picked her and her host sister up and headed to the pool!

We got there.. and the pool was full of little kids.. and it was really shallow.. and you couldn’t really swim in it.. BUT! Upside was, there was a slide. Haha, I don’t think I got pictures.. I’m really bad at remember to take pictures.. Ugh, it’s terrible, I wish I remembered to take pictures more.. Then everyone could see, but I kind of don’t like to see the world behind the camera’s lens if you know what I mean.. So me and Karen went on the slide.. I almost crashed into her a couple times because she always went first.. The times it almost happened was really funny, because she would be like… “Anna, Anna, stop! Stop!” And I would be like.. “Uh, whut?” and try to slow down. XD

We left the pool at around four thirty because Motoko had violin lessons. So, Motoko’s mother drove us back to my house where Karen used our internet to log onto facebook, to get her friend’s information because facebook is blocked at her house. Motoko ended up not going to her violin lesson and then Amano-sensei, Kaho and Motoko’s violin teacher called our house and told them that both of them needed to come. Lawl, they totally got in trouble for skipping..

Well, after that.. We didn’t really do anything after that.. Wednesday! I went to school, but.. there wasn’t really anything new.. all they did was study from their tests, which was really boring because I couldn’t do anything except watch them.. Oh yes, science is always pretty interesting.. Izumi and this other dude always seem to have a water fight in science class. I told you these guys don’t really care about learning.. Lawl, they would use the faucets to get some water and then throw it at each other.. And the guy usually ends up soaked at the end of the period. That day, Izumi had missed, and actually threw water at Jun, which ended up making his whole desk wet, his papers, his notebook, etc.

Then school ended and I went back home, where I did.. nothing really. XD Fast forward to tomorrow, which is.. actually today.

Well, I went to school, but everyone had tests until about 1:25 p.m., so I had to wait for my classmates to finish their tests before going up to the classroom to go out and play. I.. did nothing in the library. I played my nds.. and slept. Lawl. Oh, Shogoro-san, my Area Representative told me that tomorrow, I will need to go to 平良中学 instead of going to my regular school, so it’s something different. And then.. after school..

Me and my friends went to the convenience to buy lunch, and we went to a nearby spot to eat. I had already eaten my lunch at the library, so I bought just a drink, “Calpis” which is a really yummy drink here. I think.. it’s sweet water.. It looks kind of like watery milk.. Haha. XD And then.. began the long walking.. Me and Misaki were looking at Misaki’s phone for pictures of JaeJoong.. Haha, I love JaeJoong and she loves Yoochun.. XD But we mainly looked at JaeJoong pictures because she knows how much I love him. After that.. we passed by Book Box.. and we kept walking.. apparently, we were going to the very large Max Valu which had a Mister Donuts.. I didn’t get to try their donuts, but all my friends think it’s delicious.. I guess we’ll see about that.. I think on Friday, tomorrow, we’ll be going to Max Valu.. maybe I’ll see my classmate Takeru, who works there sometimes.. Haha, I’ll try to snag a picture of him in his work clothes. XD

It was suuppeerr hot. After we went to Max Valu and bought some drinks, we went to Game Land, where there was Purikura.. I did two, but only got pictures of one.. I’ll need to ask for the other pictures later.. but for now, I’ll try to get pictures of the ones I do have. It’s so tiny though. D: After that, we walked back to Book Box, where we waited until about six ten for my mother to come pick me up. My friend Misaki knew an employee and we asked her if there were any posters of Tohoshinki at the store, and she said she’d look. I think if there is, she’s going to give it to Misaki, who will give it to me! Yay, Tohoshinki posterrrr. :> That would totally make me really happy to have a poster of them!

After my mother came to pick me up she drove me to where Kaho had her English lessons and I met Greg, who runs a small private English class kind of thing.. and we played games in English with Kaho. Greg is actually Canadian, so he has a bit of an accent, but his English makes it seem like I’m not in Japan, and gives me a bit of a break from translating things in my head and having to respond back in Japanese. It’s all really tiring, but it’s a really nice thing to be thrusted into this situation.. it forces me to learn..

After that, me and Kaho walked to Obaa-san’s house where we met up with my mother and then we drove back home. We arrived back around.. maybe seven-thirty? And then at seven-fifty.. Omg, I quickly hopped into the bath and took a shower as fast as I could because Tohoshink would be on at 8.. Ugh, I totally did not want to miss it! So I got in, got out at around seven fifty-eight and then grabbed my camera. Haha, the first fifteen minutes I recorded with my camera.. which turned out to be okay ish.. I kept moving the camera around though.. and then it was time to eat, so my dad recorded it for me.. and I’ll get it later. Haha, I totally want a copy of it.. Can’t you tell I love Tohoshinki? Especially JaeJoong..

So now, it’s after dinner, and I can’t watch the recorded show because my host sister has to practice violin and piano.. ugh, I wish she would hurry up so I can watch the show! But I have plenty of time to type this up and get everyone updated on what’s been going on. Oh yes, the other night I got a chance to watch the last episode of Atashinchi no Danshi which was airing.. and so I can now say I watched a drama! It was totally epic.. not really, I couldn’t really understand what was going on.. XD So I stopped watching it and just went to bed, but now I really want to watch Tohoshinkiiiiii. :< Okay. I think she’s done. I’ll blog the next chance I get to, which will probably be soon.. See ya’ll latterr~

Party Time

Okay, so… so many things have happened over the past week, and I’ve just been too tired to blog about it. Sorry guys! Well, on Monday, when I went to the farm, I actually got a couple of bug bites.. that got worse as the week went on. My host dad wanted me to go to the hospital and talked to me about it on Thursday, but we talked it over and decided to head to Shogoro’s house, my area representative. His wife gave my host dad aloe, and we started applying it on my bug bites, and the redness is almost gone now. So, no need to go to the hospital at all! Hurrah. Ugh, but I keep getting new bug bites and it really sucks.

Well, in other news.. after the first day of school, I made friends quickly, and now I know a lot of my classmates names. It’s a lot easier to remember than I thought. My schedule is pretty fun, and I’m excited I have cool classmates wherever I go. I’ve taken some pretty interesting classes, including a nursing/development kind of class, where we took turns holding a baby doll.. that weighed as much as a baby did.. and we also put on this thing that made us look pregnant. Haha, a lot of my classmates complained that it was heavy.. but.. it was only like eight kilograms. Not that bad. I was jumping around with it on until the teacher yelled at another kid. So I stopped. Haha. XD I’m also sewing a yukata in class, and so I totally want to get it finished by the end of next week. I’m super excited and can’t wait for school tomorrow!

On Wednesday.. one of my host parents friends happened to find a uniform I could borrow, and so now, I have a seifuku! It’s so cute! I just wish my hair was shorter.. it’s so hard to manage.. but I must persevere for the sake of cancer patients everywhere! And it would symbolize four years of my life/high school, and would be persevere for the sake of cancer patients everywhere! And it would symbolize four years of my life/high school, and would be pretty cool just to see it cut off.. Yeah..

Anyways, the weekend was actually really fun! Friday started off with school, where I started making my seifuku, it was a pretty chill day at school, but one of my friends Hirono wasn’t there because she was getting ready for a volleyball tournament for after school that day. She came to eat lunch with us but then she had to go back afterwards. After school, I went home around four forty-five and started practicing violin. My host dad had suggested a small ensemble for Friday night because some friends of his were coming over for a small party. I practiced Eine Kleine and Kanon in D and then my host sister was off to her violin lesson. After about half an hour, my host dad had a cello lesson at our house and more people joined in. After the lesson, more people came.. and we set up the house so that there was a large table for food. The kids were in one corner while the adults were eating, etc. We played Jenga, Trump, and ate lots of snacks.

I learned how to play Edelwiess on the cello Friday night, so I can’t wait to get back and impress everyone with my mad cello skills! XD Cello is actually pretty hard though, because my pinky finger really isn’t used to such thick strings, and the cello string is extremely thick and it hurt pushing it down.. But I must endure! I went to sleep pretty late Friday night, but it was alright because everyone woke up late.. sort of. On Saturday, by the time I woke up, my host dad had already left for work and Kaho and Motoko, Kaho’s friend was already playing MarioKart on the Wii. Everyone had also eaten breakfast. It was alright though, I didn’t miss much.

So.. On Saturday.. Oh yes, we drove Kaho to her ballet lesson and then we went for Kaito’s baby swimming thing. It was for an hour, but during that time, I was talking to my host mom’s friend, who actually did an exchange in Seattle for a year, so her English was good enough that I could understand what she wanted to talk about. She also had a three month old baby that was just adorable! His name is Jin, and he’s just.. so cute. I wish I had taken I picture of him.. sadly I didn’t. Well, after the hour was over, we went to pick Kaho up from her ballet lessons and then we went to meet up with my host grandma. We ate lunch together at a restaurant named “Joyfull”.. notice the typo. :< Lawl, I was secretly laughing in my head. Well, after lunch, we came back home and.. I fell asleep.. I didn’t wake up until like.. six, and at seven, we were having a barbeque at the Ogawa’s house, a family that was over for Friday night.

I got ready for the barbeque and I had promised the night before that I would play with Ogawa-san’s daughters on the violin, because all four of them play violin. So, we got to his house and my host dad started barbequing the steak and vegetables and it was all very delicious. Especially the mushrooms, they were so good! I especially loved Miyako’s beef because it was super tender.. And I’ve also grown to love the Japanese drink Calpis. Lawl, it sounds like something else when they read the name.. but, it’s delicious none the less. I met Ogawa san’s daughters, but I only remember like.. two names.. Ayane and Moe.. I think.. Ayane is the oldest, and her birthday is actually tomorrow! She’s turning sixteen tomorrow, so she’s about a year younger than me. His other daughters were 13, 10, and 8 I think.. I don’t really remember..

After we ate and drank a couple things, I went inside and started playing Othello, which is super easy on a board game because it actually makes sense. On Brandon’s iPhone.. I didn’t understand how the chips were being flipped at all.. Lawl, I think I lost too.. Oh well. After the game, my host mom ask everyone to set up and so we did, and it turned out.. there were seven violins out! Haha, there were like.. three or four stands, seven violins, one piano, and one cello, and we busted out playing Kanon. I wish I had it recorded, but sadly, my host dad only took pictures of us playing, and didn’t record us.

After that, I played Spring, Summer, and Autumn with Ayane and Moe on the violin. It sounded really nice, but I got lost on some parts because I had never seen the music before, but man, they were really good! I’m so jealous, I wish I had taken violin lessons before, but oh well, I just gotta practice harder! I asked for the sheet music and we went to go get the music printed for me, so I could try to practice the songs..

Yeah, and then I got home around midnight, or well, I got home exactly at midnight, so I went to sleep right away and then in the morning I got a phone call from my parents, and then we were off to Kaho’s piano competition sorta thing. We left the house at ten thirty and signed in and Kaho changed. When I went to sit down to watch Kaho’s duet, I saw Irin, the other transfer student who came to Miyako about three months ago, and we sat down together and talked about how school was like for us so far, and what we had planned. After her duet with another girl, we went back home to eat lunch and then headed back to the music building around one fifteen. Motoko was there, she’s just such an adorable kid.. Well, I sat next to Motoko until she was called up to accept an award. After that, I watched kids go up to the piano and play.. Kaho was the last of her group.. but the tempo she took for her song.. way too slow in my opinion.. the other kids were playing it really fast, but the tempo she took it at.. made it sound like she didn’t really practice or know what she was doing..

Well, whatever, after that, we went back home and got ready to go to the beach! We went to Maeyama beach.. I think.. and we swam in the ocean for two hours and then when we got back, it was about seven. I took a shower with my host sister, got out and watched a little tv and then it was about eight, so we ate dinner together as a family. After dinner, I played with Kaito for a little bit and then started getting ready for bed. At around nine, I went up to my room, and here I am, typing out this blog of my weekend! I’m super pumped to finish my yukata tomorrow!

Alright, well, here’s to hoping no more bugs think I smell yummy and that tomorrow comes here quicker. Good night everyone~

First Day of School

Ah, so this morning, I woke up at six-thirty to get ready for school. Went downstairs to brush my teeth and hair and to eat breakfast. My host mother had prepared my bento for today, and so I packed that into my bag and then after we finished eating, we discussed what would happen, or what we were about to do. So, I got to the school and was herded to the teachers room. There, I was asked to do a self-introduction in front of.. many teachers..

Yeah, my heart was really doki doki during that moment, but I’m okay now. Haha, it’s really interesting, Japanese school. After the self-introduction in front of the teachers, me and Karen were asked to make a short self-introduction of ourselves to the student body. A student body of 500 students.. omg.. so many kids. Yeah, after that speech, I went to sit down with my class.

So, after the dude in the middle stopped talking, the teachers had a uniform check, and I went to grab my bag. My homeroom teacher pointed me to a girl who would show me the way to class. Eventually her friends caught up and they kept pushing each other to introduce themselves to me. They’re all super cute, and I’m really glad they were picked to guide me to my class. So yeah, the first period was self-study for the upcoming tests, and I didn’t do anything.. I talked to a girl named Haruka, who was trying really hard to talk to me and practice her English. She’s super pretty, and really outgoing, it seems. After that, we went to the nojo, farm. It was.. quite interesting. One of the sensei’s gave me a tour of the farm, showing me the pigs, the cows, the horses, and the goats. My favorite was the goats because there were some really small ones, and they’re just so adorable! Yeah, so after we finished the tour, we sat around and did nothing until the sensei called us over and we drove to the farmer’s market.. sorta thing where my classmates helped unload the van of bananas the students had picked earlier. I helped by carrying the bananas to where they were supposed to be and even put on a price tag .

After that, our sensei just drove us back to the school, where it was time for lunch. Yay! Yay! I was so hungry, you have no idea. So after that, I ate lunch with my new friends and I just had a ton of fun with them. After lunch was math, and then after math was this sorta calligraphy.. not really kind of thing. It was very very interesting. My new friends are super cool and I’m getting sleepy, so I’ll end this here. Good night~

It's actually June 20, and I know I haven't been blogging recently about my homestay. I've been coming home really tired, and so this one is especially short. I have tons of pictures I want to share with everyone, but I don't want to be using the computer for a long time, so I will save the pictures until after I come back, I hope what I blog is enough though.

Recently, I've been down in the dumps because I've been having to deal with bug bites.. and look terrible. But after slapping on some aloe for a night, it's gotten better, so there's no need to go to a doctor or anything. Alright, I think that should be it. I'll try to contact everyone later!

The Weekend

Okay, so, I’ve spent a whooolleee day at my host parent’s house. They’re really nice, and I’m ‘specially loving my little host brother, whose birthday is actually in one week! Well, after me and Karen got to Miyako’s airport, we met with our host parents and.. split. I went back to my host family, and I spoke.. really bad Japanese to them.. but they kept saying “Jyozu!” Which was really funny, because my Japanese is terrible. Haha, well, after that, their neighbor came to visit and I found out.. I’d be only going to school for two weeks.. what the heck? Dude. I just got really bummed out, and really sleepy after that.

After our neighbor left, my host sister and I went to take a bath. Lawl. Together. She just started taking off her clothes and I was like.. What do I do? What do I do? I was freaking out inside, but like.. she’s only eight, so I figured.. Eh, what the heck. And we washed our hair and rinsed ourselves off and got into the ofuro. Omg, that thing is so hot, but sooo nice. After you get out too, it feels really good. Haha, my sister, Kaho, is so adorable. She plays violin, piano, and she does ballet too!

Well, after that, I went to sleep and woke up around.. ten? My sister came to wake me up. We ate breakfast and then I got a visit from Karen! And another host student.. Irin? And Karen’s host sister Minami. So, they came by and they convinced my host dad to let me go explore Miyako for a bit, he agreed, asking that I be home by.. three, because Kaho gets home from ballet at that time. So, I was off to Karen’s house!

After arriving at Karen’s house I got a short tour and we all chilled in Karen’s room. We flipped through some magazines and talked about some actors.. and about Miura Haruma(?) Who is the main actor in the movie Koizora. He’s super cute btw. And it turns out, Minami has tons of pictures of him on her keitai (cellphone) and she showed all of us. That time we spent together just made me feel like I bonded more with Karen, Minami, and Irin. Oh yes, Irin also convinced my host dad to let me hang out with her after school tomorrow, which will be super exciting.. given that it doesn’t rain.. I had lunch at the Shimoji’s and we had soumen. Suupperrr good! Soumen is like.. cold noodles. Like.. well, I don’t really know how to describe it..

So we left, and then on our way to see my new school, (I won’t be going to Miyako High btw, I’ll be going to another high school.. for only two weeks. What the heck. D:), me, Irin, Karen, and Minami went to Purikura! It was tons of fun, I really want to take more. Like.. posing is really hard though. XD The fun part is decorating though. <3

Anyways, after that I returned back to my host family and we went grocery shopping. At dinner time, I actually made dessert. It’s my favorite Vietnamese dessert, and even though it was really spontaneous, I did okay. I had told them about a tofu dessert that I loved to eat, and so they wanted to try, and they bought ginger to make it. Haha, I really love my host family, they’re just so awesome. Yeah, so after I finished making it, our neighbors came over and we ate it together, along with a Japanese bean dessert which tasted like another Chinese dessert that I had. Then, I went to sleep!

Yeah, Sunday wasn’t very interesting, but I’m going to school tomorrow!

The Wait

So, yesterday, I went out to.. KARAOKE! Haha, it was extremely fun, we had about fourteen people in our room. I picked out the song “A Whole New World” and got everyone to sing a long, getting into the karaoke-ing mood. We only had the room for about an hour, and after that, we had to split the costs. It was about.. nine dollars each person, but some people were retarded and didn’t have exact change, which made it really confusing.. Okay, well, anyways, after that, I went to buy my host sister, who’s eight a hello kitty cup. YFU totally screwed up my host family info. My host sister is eight and my host brother is like.. eleven months old. Well, anyways, after I bought her the cup, I went back to the hotel room and started wrapping the gifts for my family.

I packed everything and headed to bed at around eleven o’clock. At about three-thirty, I woke up and noticed the sky getting lighter. The sun was rising! But, oh no, where was Karen, my roommate? All the lights in the room were still on because I had left them on hoping that Karen would come back to turn them off, but I woke up around three and apparently, her sheets were untouched and she hadn’t returned to our room. I stayed up till about five because I couldn’t go back to sleep. Well, after I fell.. kind of asleep, I woke up at six because of the alarm and turned it off, going back to sleep. I woke up around.. seven.. nine? And then rushed to the bathroom, to get ready to eat. The meeting time was at eight, and I didn’t want to be late!

Headed downstairs and went to eat at Jyurin, the coffee shop downstairs, and then I went back up. Apparently, the meeting time was eight fourty-five.. and so I had about.. well, nothing to do for about an hour. Ugh. How boring. After that, we all met downstairs, and I checked out, turning my key card back in. I sat down.. and realized I had left my toothbrush and my toothpaste back in the room! Oh no! BUT, luckily, Karen hadn’t come down yet¸ meaning she had not checked out yet. I caught her while she was adding her luggage to the pile of Blue tags.

I raced upstairs, grabbed my toothpaste and toothbrush and double checked our room and then headed back downstairs. The guy with an Australian accent seemed really stressed, and it was all really chaotic. After we got everything sorted out, we headed onto the bus towards Haneda airport. Got off at Haneda airport and we were in the airport getting our boarding passes etc. Karen and I were heading to Miyakojima, so we weren’t going to be alone. The YFU Japan staff who was helping us get to our flights was so adorable! I got a picture of her. I swear, she’s so freaking cute, she’s what you expect of a Japanese girl. XD

Anyways, after that, me and Karen boarded our plane with little to no trouble at all, and we were headed to Naha after take-off. The plane ride was.. boring. It was going to be two hours long, and god, did those two hours stretch.. and stretch. During this time, I just kept thinking about my host family and what they would look like, and how I would greet them. And then.. me and Karen find out the plane won’t land until 2:50.. our freaking plane to Miyakojima departs at 2:55. It made me really impatient, because the plane experienced so much turbulence in the last twenty minutes of the flight.. We landed at 2:55, but by that time the plane had already departed. Ugh. That sucks. We just missed our stupid flight.

So, we went to the baggage area and we talked to the people.. with some confusing looks, and some very poorly spoken Japanese on our part, and some English on ANA’s staff’s part, we were scheduled on the next flight to Miyakojima.. which isn’t going to depart until 5:45. Imagine that. God, so, after we found that out, we had to call our Area Representative and tell them our flight was moved to a later time, so that they could contact our host family.

And now, I just found out that our flight would be delayed, and we’re actually departing at 6:05 now. Ahhhgg, I hate this guys. I really do. But by the time I put this up, I’d probably be at my host family’s house. So, me and Karen are tired, sleepy, hungry but have no appetites.. and I have a piercing headache. I hope we can get to our host families house soon because I feel really sick. Alright, this is just really frustrating and I just needed to vent. :< I’ll talk to everyone later probably. Bye~

Narita Airport and Tokyo

So yesterday, we finally arrived in the Narita Tokyo Airport and the minute I got off the plane, I immediately noticed just how heavy and damp the air was. It was really humid! The weather was about.. seventy degrees Fahrenheit, but dangit, humidity makes it feel so much more hotter. On the plane, I was sitting next to a really nice lady who happened to be returning home from a year studying abroad in Nevada. She actually helped me with my speech a little, advising me when I should pause and when I shouldn’t. The flight was quite long, and they didn’t really feed us a lot. It was really cramped, which I probably mentioned in my earlier post. I should be able to have my blog entries up by tonight, so yeah..

So, I got into Tokyo, and we walked through to our baggage claim, went through customs and then we were directed to stay in an area by YFU Japan staff. It. Was. Terribly hot. Yeah, just standing around in the weather was unbearable. We got split up into buses and were driven from Narita to Tokyo, the bus ride was great, and I got a lot of pictures, especially of Tokyo Tower, gorgeous tower. Driving to our hotel, I got to see a lot of Tokyo, and the city is absolutely amazing. Tall sky scrapers, very crowded, cars driving on the left side of the rode.. Yeah. There is a lot of Japanese written on buildings, cars, everywhere!



Ah, I just got back from our meeting with YFU Japan’s Chairperson. I think his name was Mr. Owakara.. Well, he gave us a really short speech and after that, we took lots of pictures. I really wanted a picture of him.. Oh well. Well, after that we had lunch at the YFU office.. and oh my goodness, their pudding is so delicious! I didn’t take a picture, I should have, but oh man, it was all really pretty. They also had fruits out, and the fruits were so sweet! There was watermelon, honeydew, melon, pineapple, strawberry, and a piece of pineapple, and it was arranged in a really cute way. Ah, I wish I took pictures, they tasted exactly how they look. Soo good.



After we ate, we had about an hour of free time, so me and a group of friends walked around in Tokyo. During our walk, we walked across a bridge that went across the street, and some vending machines, along with with a small shrine. Ah, it was really fun! The small park that we came across was absolutely beautiful, and lots and lots of foliage. It really felt like you were away from the hustle and bustle of the city, really quiet and peaceful. I got to take a lot of pictures, but man, I really felt like a foreigner, taking a picture of every little thing. Haha, well, it was quite interesting. While we were out, a lot of people were eating their lunch, and Japan just has a lot of people in business suits walking around! It’s so hot though, I don’t understand how they can wear all those layers.. or maybe it’s just a really lightweight fabric.. Oh, just saw four men in suits walk by.. Yeah, as you can see, they’re everywhere!


Outside entrance of the shrine.


A tree outside of the shrine.


Here, you wash your hands and rinse your mouth with the water and then you enter the shrine. You're supposed to "cleanse" yourself. :>


Inside entrance into the shrine; after cleansing ourselves we went through here.

Well, now that I’ve talked about what happened just now, I’ll talk about earlier this morning. Earlier, we met up with some members of the U.S. Embassy here in Japan, and they talked about what they did as part of the Foreign Services. They talked about their section and highly encouraged us to try for it, or it was what was implied anyways. I did my speech, messed up like twice.. but apparently they were impressed because the other two girls who did their speech didn’t do it in Japanese. Oh my goodness, so scary. Well, I’ll actually type my speech here, because I went through so much pain and agony to memorize it.
おはようござます。
YFUとおきなわへいわしょうがくきんをいただいたがくせいのだいひょうとして、わたくしはアメリカたいしかんにかんしゃのきもちをもしあけたいとおもいます。
わたくしたちとってこれわ、とってもりっぱなけいけんになるとおもいます。
このりゅがくで日本のぶんかをおしえていただくだけでわなく、アメリカのぶんかもおしえたいとおもいます。
このりゅがくはわたくしたちのしょうがいわすれないけいけんになるでしょう。
たいしかんのみなさまにたいへんかんしゃしております。
ありがとうございました。

So, to break it down, basically: On behalf of YFU and Okinawa Scholarship recipients, I would like to thank the U.S. Embassy. This is a great opportunity for us. The reason for us going to Japan is not only to learn a new culture, but to teach others of American culture as well. This is something we will never forget. To the U.S. Embassy of Japan, I give my thanks. Thank you very much.

Yeah, memorized all that on the plane ride to Japan, and rehearsed over and over again. I can’t believe I still messed up my speech though.. Ah, I’m so glad I got to walk around Tokyo a bit, it’s such a beautiful city, but man, is it hot! Well, I guess that’s it..

Oh yes! Goodness, vending machines! I even saw a vending machine for cigarettes.. but, that's not the point! While we were out walking around Tokyo, I saw a vending machine with this advertisement:



and I was totally wondering why the guy in the ad looked so familiar. And then it hit me. He's the actor for L in the Death Note movies. He looks so strange being kind of tan, but it's actually cool that I recognized him!

Oh yes, I never mentioned the hotel I'm staying at. I'm staying at the Keio Hotel in Tokyo and the view from my room is absolutely gorgeous. I can see Tokyo Tower from my room. Haha, well yesterday when we checked in, the YFU Japan staff gave us obento and we brought it up to our room to drink. The hotel is really nice, the minute we walked in.. everything seemed so shiny and sparkly!


Obento.


Tokyo Tower from my window. (Zoomed up a lot!) I lied. It's just a random radio tower. XD GAIJIN POWER AT WORK. Dx


Japanese toilets have lots of options.. The butt spray is especially really funny. Haha, I actually tried it and it really tickles. XD

Airplane/Aiport!

So, I’m on the airplane! Yay. It’s really crowded, but it’s awesome because I’m really close to the window (second seat in), and I saw the plane take off, which was really cool. It was super loud at first, but now I’m used the noise, it’s background noise now. I think it’s been about two to three hours since the plane took off? So, about nine to eight more hours on this plane, and then we’ll be out. We already had our snack and lunch/dinner, so we won’t be having food for a while. I hope this plane ride will pass quickly; I’m ready to meet my host family and start going to school. It’s hard to believe that only a couple of days ago I was at school taking my finals. I feel so far away now..

Well, I’ve gotten about.. half of my speech down, and like, the guy behind me just won’t let me move my chair back.. He keeps pushing my chair back up.. that’s so not cool, can’t he understand that I want to relax? Damn economy class seats. Anyways, turbulence on planes are kind of scary.. the plane shakes around and like.. it’s no fun at all, especially when you’re about 30,000 feet(?) in the air and there’s nothing but water and water for miles on end. I’m currently listening to Sung Si Kyung singing “I Believe I Can Fly.” He amazingly has a very soothing voice, and his English sounds flawless when he sings. It’s the song I listen to when I’m feeling stressed out or down. (I listened to this song when I sat down to type my long post only hours ago. (June 10 in the U.S.; June 11 in Japan).

When the captain let us unbuckle our seat beats it felt like all the YFU students were getting up and moving around, and I thought it was really rude to the other people who were sitting on the plane. But, now they’re all sitting together.. which makes me feel kind of sad that I didn’t take the chance to move. I really should be memorizing my speech, but it just so long..

So apparently the plane is going 520 mph and the altitude is 33,000 ft. I’m trying to stay awake because I want to get on Tokyo time as soon as possible, and right now, it is… 6:05 AM in Tokyo, so I’m going to crash at maybe.. nine tonight? The forms on the airplane are so confusing.. I really need someone to help me fill it out, but I’m not sitting next to anyone I know.. Ugh, it’s not that bad, but I think too much stress would like make me really upset and make me start crying.. even though that’s not really a good thing..

I can’t wait to wrap my host parent’s gifts and stuff.. it’s going to be so much fun to see what they think of the gifts I got them.. and I want to see what kind of host brother I have. The YFU paper said I had only one host sibling, but when I called my host mom, she mentioned two names, not one, one boy name and one girl name, and I got nothing for the little girl.. I really want to clear up who’s in my host family so I can buy the last family member a gift. Ugh, I really want to sleep, but I think that’d just throw me off. I really want to sit Mabs, Jess, and Anna, but I don’t want to frustrate the other people around the plane.. Yeah..

SJSU PDO

So, I’m in the airport right now, reporting to you on my Word Document.. I’ll find a later time to upload this onto the internet.. somehow. Anyways. For the past.. three days, I’ve been staying at SJSU attending Japan’s Pre-Departure Orientation. So, the first day, I got really mad at my parents when they were dropping me off. I like.. took my passport out of my little neck/money holder thing and then my mom was all like.. “PUT IT ON, PUT IT ON.” Uh. No. I don’t want to put it on. But then she started calling me all these names in front of everyone. Doesn’t she understand that she’s embarrassing me? It made me really pissed off. I still haven’t gotten over that.. So stupid. Anyways, after I checked in with YFU, I went to get my dorms assigned to me. As I was going up to the second floor (Girls floor) I had to lug my large suitcase up the flight of stairs and some kind girls offered to pull up my ginormous suitcase.. I just gave them my carry on and carried my suitcase up myself. After I settled in, I went downstairs, got lunch, hung out a bit. The first day wasn’t very exciting.. We got into our kumis(groups) and then we did some stuff. I honestly don’t remember. This is PINK kumi (<3):

On the left, holding the pink flag is my friend Anna, who hails from Wisconsin, she's really funny, and her laugh is just the most adorable thing ever. To the right of me would be my new friend Jess, who's the most artistic person I know!

So, at night, I met my second roomie Lily, and my third roomie Jess. They’re both really awesome people who have been the most greatest and understanding roomies ever. It honestly, must have been fate that they were assigned my roomies. Haha, Jess and me just talk about.. stuff all night while Lily is the responsible one out of the three of us. I had a blast sharing my room with them. The second day.. a really busy day.. I woke up and had breakfast with my kumi (Pink kumi btw) and then we went out to the lawn in front of the dorms and did some radio exercises. Then we went into our classes to discuss our homestay experience and I was placed in an intermediate Japanese class. I learned a lot, like how to say “I come from ____. This is a gift, please accept it.” and etc. Well, after my language class we did current Japanese news and then had lunch. Bafa Bafa was a fun activity and then we did Japanese High Schools and what they were like. A break and then another Japanese class. Shortly after the Japanese class, we discussed Culture Shock, oh and Jimmy who won the Okinawa Peace Scholarship last year visited. Apparently, he also had Pato-Sensei, who was the sensei of my kumi, last year. After that, Dinner, and our cultural workshops. I signed up for Yukata try-on and also for J-Dorama/J-Pop. The yukata I tried on was gorgeous! I took pictures, which I will upload later. Then after that, free­-time and then we went to sleep.

Yesterday, I woke up at seven and went to eat breakfast, then do radio exercises and we had our Japanese class. Then we learned Japanese etiquette and had a break. We played Barnga which was the most frustrating game ever. So, basically, it was a card game that we were to play, which eight tables and four people. Each table got a set of instructions on how to play the game. The winners moved up a table, losers moved down a table. BUT, there was a twist to this. The rules given to each table was actually different. People were expected to adjust, some tables, Aces were the highest while others they were the lowest, some tables trump cards were spades and others were diamonds, etc. Lunch happened after and then Japanese class. We had a Not with Me! Session that talked about personal space and stuff. Then we had an alumni/gender specific alumni panel. We had departure info and then free time for packing. After that, we went down to learn a Japanese Bon dance and then we had to make up a dance for our own kumis. I only have the other kumis’ dances, but it was all good. We actually won second places and was the second group to get our obento. They were delicious! I didn’t finish because it was so large, but I really did want to keep eating. So yummy, I swear.

So, I may not have mentioned this, but between all the activities YFU set up, I actually made a lot of cool friends. Jess, my roomie is an amazing artist and we hung out and drew a lot. She has inspired me to start a manga, or well, create a character at least. And I also met a girl named Mary-Anne Bowen, Mabs for short. Haha, I also met a girl named Anna who’s as great as I am. We had a blast drawing together, it’s all so fun to hang with them. A lot of the time I hung with Jess because we really have similar interests while reading manga and she’s just a really great person to talk to.

Last night was terrible. I got a call from my parents and they were all like.. “Oh, you’re staying in Tokyo for a week because they want to isolate foreigners coming into Japan for that length of time.” Okay. One. They make it sound like I’m really going to be staying in the freaking hostel for a week when it was only a possibility. It really made me distressed when I was talking to my dad because he kept insisting that I contact them every day—insisting is not a good word to use. It was more like.. forceful threatening. It really made me upset that my parents couldn’t understand my predicament and what kind of circumstances I would be under. Yeah, well, after that, I was called down by one of the YFU staff staying at the dorms. He told me that I was selected as a representative member of the Okinawa Peace Scholars. What a big honor! I never imagined I would be picked. I get to present a plaque to the U.S. Embassy in Japan and thank them for letting me go on this trip. In addition to that I have to make a speech. This is the thing I’m most scared of.. I hope I do well.

This morning, I woke up at six and got ready with my luggage, went through all the steps for checking out of the dorms and then went to have my speech that I worked on the night before translated. Now I have to remember the speech, I’m so scared. Got on the bus, tried to memorize my speech.. right now, I have like.. one sentence memorized. I hope that I do well, I’m so scared.. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do if I mess up in front of a lot of people. Auuugghhh. Yeah, well we got to the airport, and I checked in my luggage. Guess what? My luggage was 51.8 lbs. 51.8 pounds. Goodness gracious! The lady let me go through anyways, and I was so glad for that, she didn’t even say anything! I’m so happy that she let me pass through.

Well, after that, I went to get my stuff scanned and like. Holy crap. I forgot shampoo was liquid. And I had stuck it onto my carry-on. So I had to run back out and tell the YFU staff about it. It was all a big mess, I got really upset and had to get out of line and go back out and then after giving them my shampoo I went to get back in line, which got longer already. God, at this point, I felt really upset, stressed out, felt like crying. I went through the scanner things had to go through the electric scan thing and then I walked off to my gate. I almost forgot my carry-on. What the heck. At this point my day was terrible, and it was only like.. maybe 9:30 A.M. Terrible. Disaster. I was just really upset! Yeah, so I walked to gate 99 where we were supposed to be for our airplane and then met up with Jess, Anna, and Mabs.

And then I decided I would want to type up my blog here and post it later. After maybe.. two paragraphs..? Pato-sensei called me over and OMG. A girl named Nicole had not checked in and my shampoo is with her now! I’m so happy that I won’t be all dirty and stinky and smelly at my hotel. I’m so glad Nicole had checked in at a later time, I’m so thankful for being here.. And well, I’m just getting ready to board my plane. This must be a really long post.. but it covers a lot! I can’t possibly explain the kind of feelings that I’ve been experiencing but I can try to convey my frustration, my irritation, my excitement, my stress. Alright, well, I guess that’s it, unless I think of something else. Time to memorize my speech.