Last Post

It's been about a month and a half since I left Japan, and this is probably my last post to this blog.

It's so strange being home. Sometimes I wonder whether or not the experience actually happened--did I just dream the entire thing? Did I really have that amazing experience? I've only got a language in my head and my souvenirs in my room to prove otherwise.

I do miss Japan. It's great to be home and all, and seeing my family is of course wonderful, but sometimes I'll look out the window and wonder if this is really where I'm supposed to be. There are corn fields on either side of me, and a skyline of mountains in my head. I'm a child of two cultures now, and as great as that is, it's also kind of disorienting at times.

I'm always going to remember Japan; I've made so many good friends, and made so many amazing memories. I definitely plan to return someday! But that's not important right now. What's important right now is moving forward, and focusing on the future. I hope that my experiences overseas will help me be successful in college as well!

However, this exchange would not have been possible without Rotary Youth Exchange. They were with me every step of the way, and I am so grateful for their support. The exchange has helped me grow in ways I never thought possible, and I hope that other kids will make the decision to go on exchange. It was probably the most important year of my life thus far.

Live long and prosper, guys. Peace out.

To Japan, with Love

It's been approximately nine months since I first landed in this beautiful country of mine. It seems like ages ago, and yet the time has been flying by so fast I can hardly believe it. There's definitely a sort of 'winding down' emotion going on--I'm making plans for the summer, I'm sending some stuff back to the house. There isn't a word in English that I can use to describe it. In Japanese I'd definitely say 'sabishi!', which I guess the closest translation is 'lonesome'. It's like sad, only more wistful. That probably sounds pretty strange, haha.

Anyway, all this talk of going home is indeed making me sad, so I'll talk about what I've been doing these past two weeks. 

About two weeks ago, I went to Kyoto with my host family and their niece, a sweet little girl named Remi. That's probably a nickname, but since I don't know her full name, I'll just stick with Remi. Kyoto was really amazing; it used to be the capital of Japan, and for a while was the home of the emperor. Because of this, there's a lot of really interesting buildings and history all over the place. We went to a temple called 'Kiyomizu', or pure water, that got us a really nice view of basically the entire city. 

Remi and I also got to ride in a rickshaw, which in Japanese is 'jinrikisha'. It's like a horse-drawn carriage, only a person pulls it instead of an animal. I was a little worried that the person who was giving us the ride would have a hard time, but it was mostly just walking around. Also, the ride was only fifteen minutes long, so that was pretty good. We also got some interesting history about the buildings around us. 

Then I went and got turned into meiko by a bunch of professional makeup artists. We rented a kimono, and I got to take a bunch of professional pictures. Here's a photo! 

The makeup was really cold, and I was having a hard time smiling, just because the lip stuff was kind of caked on. It was an interesting experience, though. 

Then we went shopping. If you ever come to Kyoto, I highly recommend you visit one of the street markets. They sell a lot of very interesting stuff, and while it's a little pricey, it's very cool. Probably because there are a lot of foreigners, but a lot of stereotypical 'Japanese' type items are being sold there. 

On the right is my host family's niece, Remi.

Then last week, I went to Osaka and then Kyoto again, because my host mom wanted to go to a tea ceremony, and then a festival. 

Here's the thing about tea ceremony: it's very interesting to watch. There's about a thousand different steps to one ceremony, and every motion, every word, is planned right down to the inflection. Even the people drinking the tea have a set role. It's a graceful art, and requires a level of patience that a lot of people simply do not have. 

That being said, because there are about a thousand different steps, there are about a thousand different ways to mess up. For example:

Before the tea ceremony began, my host mom handed me a little fan and said, go place the fan horizontally on the floor and bow in front of it before entering the room. 

I said okay, I can certainly do that. I placed the fan on the floor in front of me, and bowed. Score one for the American. 

No no no, said my host mom. Your fan is backwards. Your fan is upside down. You have failed your test.

So she didn't actually say you failed, but it was very strongly implied. 

Also, during the ceremony itself, you have to sit in a certain way, called seiza; it's where you fold your knees in front of you and tuck your feet under your butt. You've probably seen it in martial arts movies, or something along those lines. If you want to understand what I'm about to tell you, try sitting that way for more than five minutes. 

For me, after about five minutes of sitting seiza, I was starting to get an uncomfortable tingling in my toes. 

After about ten minutes, my feet were dead. 

After twenty, I was wondering if my legs were still attached and whether or not walking had been a very vivid hallucination. 

However the tea was delicious and the snacks were equally so. It was a very interesting experience of Japanese culture, so if you get the chance to watch a live tea ceremony, I recommend you do so. 

Then I went to Kyoto to watch the aomatsuri, or 'blue festival'. I'm not entirely sure what the festival was for, but it was very cool. A bunch of Shinto priests walked around decorated carts, horses, oxen and other such things. My host mom and I walked alongside the parade, and got some nice pictures. Well, my host mom got some nice pictures. My phone was out of battery and I had forgotten my camera, so I wasn't able to get any. 

Finally, I want to talk, once again, about the Japanese weather. 

A wise man once told me to pick a season to complain about, and stick with it. Well, I have picked my season. The season is called tsuyu, which means rainy season, and let me tell you something. I miss the cold. I want the cold to come back. 

It has consistently been around seventy to eighty degrees the entire week, which okay, is actually pretty nice. However, one thing that I failed to take into account was that it is rainy season and we are next to the ocean. There is so much humidity in the air, it feels as though I'm breathing more water than oxygen. At least with the cold I could just put on a few more layers and be okay. The humidity is disgusting; it feels as though I'm going to turn into a puddle of melty human sometimes. 

I suddenly see the wisdom of my host parents buying water bottles by the dozen. 

Catching Up Pt. 3 (Final)

Alright, here's the final installment of my 'catching up' series. I'm on break right now, so I have a lot of time at the moment, luckily.

At the beginning of April, I had to say goodbye to my second host family, which was actually a little traumatic. I'd really gotten attached to these people, so you know. There was much crying, hugging and all that jazz going on. I told them, though, that if they ever decided to travel to America they should stop by my place and say hi.

Anyway, my new host family is...well, they're kind of the 'quintessential Japanese' family that you think of when you imagine traditional Japanese. The house is an enormous, old building, and it's very traditional, in that it still has tatami mats on the floors, and uses sliding doors. There's a shrine in the kitchen dedicated to the grandmother's late husband, and a monk comes in every week and prays over it. I have a host mom, a host dad, and a host grandmother, and the father is a doctor at a private hospital nearby.

In other words: they have a lot of money and it is vaguely nerve-wracking.

However they're very nice people; the host mom does things like flower-arrangement and tea ceremony, and we go to a lot of cultural performances. Just the other day I went to a Japanese puppet show, though I have to warn you: Japanese puppet shows are really morbid. Someone always dies at the end for reasons I can't really parse out because it's a cultural thing.

(Also the food is also a little horrifying, because they keep feeding me whole fish. I of course eat the whole fish, because I am a Good Exchange Student and sometimes that means dying a little on the inside for cultural experiences. But still--veeeeery Japanese.)

I don't have any pictures of my house yet, but I'll post some later.

Also just...two days ago, was it? Anyway, two days ago my brass band had it's annual concert, where we played about an hour and a half of music. The pieces were pretty difficult, but we'd worked for ages on them, so we killed it. In case anyone is wondering: yes, my host family recorded the entire thing and is planning on giving me a copy. If anyone wants to see the concert, I'm planning on posting the videos...somewhere. I'll get back to you about that later. Just to warn you, there's a lot of talking in Japanese in the third section, so you might not understand that one as well.

Catching Up Pt. 2

Alright, so now that I've gone over essentially everything that happened in February, I'll talk about what happened in March. I'm kind of excited about March, because I went to my favorite type of concert: a Japanese drumming concert, called Taiko. It was at a local temple, and was performed as a play, called "Kiyohime and Anchin". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

(My favorite group, Kodo, is actually performing in a nearby city in early June, actually, and I'll be going to see them with a few exchange student friends! I'm super excited.)

So after I expressed an interest in going to see a Taiko performance, Rotary invited me and two other exchange students to a showing at a nearby temple. The Doujo that the Taiko drummers belong to isn't actually just for drumming; it's also a traditional dance studio, and we got to see some traditional dancing as well.

Anyway, the Taiko performance was about two...I hesitate to call them lovers, because while they were in love at one point, the man, Anchin, quickly fell out of love. However the woman, Kiyohime, was still in love, and was so angry when she figured out that he didn't have feelings for her anymore that she chased him basically across the whole of Japan before killing him. And apparently she turned into a giant serpent because she was just that angry. 

You know, I kind of understand where that story is coming from, though. After all, my mom also turns into a dragon when my dad does something stupid.

(Just kidding. I'm sorry mom.)

I researched this story after I saw the performance, I have to admit, just because it's really hard to convey turning into a dragon with just props. Also there was some speaking going on, but during Japanese story telling they tend to use old terms that even the modern Japanese don't know, so I was confused. At least the drumming was VERY COOL. There is something very satisfying about watching a bunch of fit people hit drums. Here's a video--I'm crossing my fingers that it'll work, but these things so rarely do.

Anyway, after that we watched a bunch of amateur performances by elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and high schoolers. Very cute all around! This performance was also during cherry blossom time, so I got some nice pics of the temple. 

I found it very pleasing to ride through the mountains when there were sakura blossoms on the trees. Japan in the spring is the best. 

Anyway, continuing on. I got to see the semi-finals for the high school baseball league! You may be wondering, the semi-finals for the high school baseball league? Yes, that is correct. Baseball is a huge thing in Japan; there's a stadium in Osaka completely dedicated to the Spring and Summer league. The league is called 'Koshien', and I'm really disappointed that I'm missing this summer, because I really wanted to watch all of it.

Anyway, my host mom and I got to go because her coworker's child was on one of the teams, Chiben. Chiben won, and here's something I don't say often, but sometimes it's the truth: real Japan is sometimes a lot like anime Japan. Here's the story.

It was the bottom of the ninth, and the score was 0-1, with the other team in the lead. Chiben was having it's final at-bat, and here's the thing--no one actually had expected Chiben to win, because they'd been losing the entire game. 

But then one of the kids hit a huge one, and managed to get the two on base home. I think the stands literally exploded--everyone jumped to their feet and started screaming, and this guy who I'd only met that day reached out and grabbed my hand as we were all jumping and screaming. And then everyone started crying--Chiben was crying, my host mom was crying, I nearly started crying too out of solidarity. It was so much fun.

Anyway, so like I said in the last post--I had my aikido black belt test last week, and I passed! I am now a certified black belt! (Haha that reminds me--the other day in aikido I was paired up with this one friend of mine. And in aikido, you're trying to make people unbalance and fall over, essentially. So what I did was I pointed at his chest and said, "What's that?" When he looked down, I flicked his nose and pushed him over. Being a black belt really just gives you license to be eccentric.)

Language Learning

You know, I'm kind of in the mood to write, so I'm just going to make a short blog post about some experiences I've had with learning language. I've...packed a lot of language experience into the last seventh months, so I think I have a pretty broad view of it. My opinion is of course flawed, but I thought the perspective might be interesting.

One thing that I've really come to understand when learning a language, is the power of persistence and the grace to accept that you need to give up.

This is a very contradictory statement, and I'm aware of it. However it's true, and I'll explain why.

To learn a language, you need to be persistent; there is no substitute for an unrelenting drive. You can try to learn a language for years and years and never get a step farther if you don't practice. I remember when I was a kid, I used to go online and try and teach myself Russian or some other language, but I always got discouraged and gave up before I even tried. If I'd just pushed myself harder and practiced every day, instead of expecting to immediately be awesome at it, maybe by now I'd know two or even three languages.

However, on the other hand, you also need to know when to give up. I'm not saying give up on a language, or something silly like that. I'm just saying, there are somethings you're not going to understand at first, no matter how much you try at it. When I first started Japanese, there were some phrases that I would see and then spend hours looking up. I asked my Japanese friends, I asked my friends who were also learning Japanese. I looked it up in the dictionary, and online, where the results of my inquiries were mostly useless.

At a certain point in time, you need to accept that some expressions just aren't going to come to you until you have experience. I spend about a month looking up the phrase 'otoite', and then eventually learned that it doesn't really have an English equivalent, and there are just a lot of random things it relates to. It honestly still confuses me, but it's better than it was a month ago.

And that brings me round to my final point in language learning: there just isn't a substitute for complete language immersion. There just isn't. I've had a bit of an odd experience with learning Japanese; I would say that the first three months of my exchange I wasn't really immersed. My first host father was Canadian, so I spoke a lot of English at home, and because there were three Aussie exchange students at the school, I was pretty close with them and didn't have many Japanese friends. I was still speaking Japanese, but I would place the level of intensity right around a difficult college class, and not actually being in another country.

After I changed host families, and after the Australians returned--that's when my Japanese started to get really good. Which brings me around to the point that: if you are attempting to learn another language, I highly recommend that you watch movies in your chosen language. Read books. Get as much actual language exposure as you can, and if possible, travel to a country that speaks the language you're trying to learn. I know if you've tried to learn a language before, you've heard that about six billion times, but it's the truth.

Catching Up, Pt. 1

Okay guys, so I actually have a good reason not to have been posting ,besides the whole 'I was extremely busy' thing. I just recently moved in with a new host family, and they're...a little technology challenged, so I've been waiting almost a month to get my internet up. Sorry for the wait.

Because of this, though, I'll be doing a blog post a week, to catch up with all the stuff I missed. Forgive me if my English seems a little weird, as Japanese has started invading my brain and stealing my usual literary prowess. I shudder to think at the grades I'll be getting in my English class next year.

Anyway, to start: back in late February, I went with my host family to see a temple in Kyoto. I really wish I'd blogged about this earlier, just because the stuff in it was sooo cool. Here's the thing about this temple: right next to it there's the house of an old political leader, and most people can't go and look inside, just because it's considered a World Heritage Site. HOWEVER. Because the nephew of my host mom is a monk, we got a special VIP tour inside the house!! Along with some very, very interesting information.

This temple itself is called the Hongwan-ji Temple, and it is one of the many World Heritage sights in Japan (here's the thing about Japan, though--you could go a block away from your house in any direction and find a World Heritage sight). It's been considered one of the main schools of Buddhism for the last five hundred years, and is known as 'Nishi', which translates to West in English.

The house of the Political leader is directly next to it, and doesn't appear as impressive if one were to look at it. However it's got some really neat stuff, for example: as you walk along the wooden floor boards, you'll notice that there's an odd chirping noise. This is deliberate, because the floor was built so that the nails rub together whenever you step on them. Why is this useful?

Well in ancient Japan, people had a tendency to try an assassinate each other. An assassins job is made a lot more difficult if the floor they're walking on makes a sound every time one steps on it. This of course probably led to the whole legend of ninja walking on rooftops--because this 'Nightingale floor', as it is called, was built to prevent them from getting in the normal way.

Another interesting fact--the main visiting area is built like a hall, in that it's a wide, spacious area with pillars on either side, leading to the base of a tatami floor raised ever so slightly from the ground. I wish I could've taken a picture to give you a better image, but alas, pictures were not allowed. Anyway, when the political leader was visited, he did not actually sit facing his visitors; instead he sat to the right of them, perpendicular to the other person. I'm not sure if this had some sort of ritualistic meaning, but there you have it.

(I decided my explanation was too confusing, so I drew a picture)

However, right next to where the political leader would sit, there is a wall. However it is not, in fact, a wall, but a door, and sitting behind this door would be a retainer of samurai, ready to intervene in case someone decided that today was a good day to kill a leader. This led me to the conclusion that it was very hard to kill people who did not want to be killed in Japan.

Last of all, in this house there were pieces of carved wood hanging from the ceiling, placed between the massive pillars as decoration. Here's the thing: these giant slices of wood are really intricately carved, and depict beautiful scenes of nature or something of the sort. These giant slices of wood are also one piece of wood. Which means some person slaved away for hours on a tree to make it perfect. That takes dedication, people. If you ever come to Japan and see decorative wood hangings from the ceiling, chances are that it's one piece.

After that, we got to go to a movie park, and I got to sit on a horse and look cool. All in a days work.

Also, just to let you know, on Sunday I will be taking my black belt test for Aikido. Wish me luck!

Hiroshima and Marching Band

Hello everyone! I hope your winter is going well. Mine is hovering right around the 35-40 degree range, which makes me very happy. Mild winters are awesome.

First of all, before I continue, I'd like to thank my American Rotary for generously sending me a care package! Probably the best thing about it was the massive bag of chocolate, haha. Just kidding. The best thing I got were all the letters from the Elementary School kids! They're so adorable! I'm in the process of writing back--my host father even took one and decided to write his own response, so one lucky kid gets post from him.

Also, if any Rotary people back home are reading this--would it be okay for me to send some stuff back for the kids? Like some Japanese candy or something? I think they'd enjoy it a lot, especially since Japanese candy is tasty.

Also thank you to my own parents, for sending my giant sweaters to me--they're doing a great job at keeping the cold out.

Alright, now what have I been doing for the past month or so?

I'm actually going to talk about marching band first, because that'll take a shorter time.

So anyway: just yesterday, the brass band and I went to Amagasaki in Hyogo Prefecture to do our marching show! It was so awesome. I'd like to say I got a lot of pictures, but unfortunately cameras weren't allowed. Still though, it was so cool! The thing about Japanese marching is that you don't watch from above, so formations and stuff aren't so important. What's important is timing and sound, and let me tell you, these kids had it in spades.

Even an elementary school performed, and I was just about ready to give the color guard an Oscar. They reenacted some sort of gladiator thing, and the girl playing the gladiator looked very, very anguished. What a day.

Our group played Disney, but old school Disney, like the Seven Dwarves and When You Wish Upon a Star. We didn't do nearly as well as the other groups (I'd like to blame it on the 3.5 mile marathon we had to run the day before), but it was still a lot of fun. The drum line from this one school killed. And another group was entirely drum line, which also killed. All the schools killed. 

Alright, what else?

Well, like I said earlier, I went to Hiroshima with the other Rotary Exchange kids from my district. Actually it was a trip to Miyajima AND Hiroshima, for reasons I'm not entirely certain about.

So first we went to Miyajima by ferry, which I got some pretty cool pictures from.

I call this one boat aesthetic. I got many pictures of the boat aesthetic. Why? Me from a few weeks ago knows, but I sure don't.

Japan is so pretty. It's kind of hard to take a bad picture here, to tell you the truth.

After we landed, we walked around a little bit. Now I didn't realize that this was a thing, but apparently you can take pictures of and with deer on Miyajima. It was pretty interesting to watch. The photographer had about five deer hanging around him at any one time, and he'd occasionally give them a few snacks to placate their rabid hunger. What he'd do is he'd give the deer a few snacks right next to the photography area, and then run away really quickly before the deer got tired of chewing and take the picture. 

Pictured from top to bottom, left to right: Two parents I don't remember the names of (I'm very sorry), Chalita from Thailand, me, Mr. Mizusaki, Allison from America, Kaja (pronounced 'Kaya') from Germany, Yurna from Indonesia, and Misaki from America. 

Oh deer!

Heh. Also, see that red construct in the background? Apparently that's a pretty neat piece of history. I don't remember that piece of history right now since I don't have the pamphlet, but it still looks pretty cool. 

That's a really heavy backpack, by the way. In case you were wondering. 

Have some more pictures, just because!

After we finished taking pictures with the deer, we headed over to a shrine on the island. A little thing to know about shrines: at the entrance, there's a place where you wash your hands, for ritual purposes. You have to splash water on your hands in a special order, and at the end you can optionally wash out your mouth as well. 

I decided to give the mouth washing thing a try, but in the end wasn't sure whether or not to spit the water out. I ended up carrying it in my mouth for about ten minutes afterwards, just smiling and nodding at anyone who tried to talk to me. That was a bit embarrassing. 

But we got to look around the shrine, which made up for it. 

I wish I'd used a filter to make the red pop more, but too little too late and all.

Le squad. I'd like to turn your attention to my very comfortable green sweatpants. I was perhaps the strangest looking one there, but you can bet I was the warmest.

After that we ate lunch in Miyajima, and then headed back to go to Hiroshima.

Now here's the thing about Hiroshima: I'm not going to talk about it too much. I don't think what I say is going to do it any justice. If you get the chance to go to Japan, make sure Hiroshima is on your destination list. 

Hiroshima is a beautiful city; it's every picture a modern city, with streets that look like they were paved in the last year, and tall buildings everywhere. The people are young and vibrant, and the roads are bustling with cars and traffic. 

It's a beautiful city. And yet, there is something off about it.

One thing you come to notice about Japan: for all that it's a highly modernized, advanced country, there are touches of traditional Japan everywhere. If you know where to look, you can find traces of an era that isn't quite yet bygone.

As a fellow exchange student said: "Everything looks new."

And then you see it: an old, blackened building in the center of the city. It's the kind of place that would've looked impressive years ago, but now is soundly dwarfed by skyscrapers. That is all that is left of old Japan in Hiroshima, the "Genbaku Dome". It's a peace memorial dedicated to the memory of all that was destroyed from the nuclear bomb during World War II. 

Seriously, see it for yourself. Go to the museum, take the audio guide with you. I can guarantee that if you weren't against nuclear weapons beforehand, you will be. Of all the things that have existed in this great big beautiful world, the nuclear bomb should not have been one of them. 

Tokyo and goodbyes

Hello everyone! I hope the weather's been lovely, wherever you may be. Snow came very recently in Japan, which is pretty fun, but I'm sure that the novelty will wear off pretty soon. Luckily it's just a dinky little ground layer that'll melt as soon as the sun hits it right.

As promised, today I'll talk about my trip to Tokyo, which was amazing! Except for the bus rides. Those were pretty....not amazing.

The day before we arrived in Tokyo, the other Australians and I all met in Wakayama city, at the bus station. It was close to around 8:50 at night, so we were all still pretty energetic. Then we took an 8 hour bus ride, and after that everyone was significantly less energetic. I'm pretty sure that Jaida didn't sleep at all, so by the time 6:50 in the morning rolled around, she was wrecked. It's not that the seats were uncomfortable; they were just not at all conducive to sleep. I personally got around four hours.

The nerds have arrived.

Our guide took us to go buy some coffee, though, and that seemed to tide us over for the rest of the day. 

First stop was the tallest building in Tokyo, SkyTree! Actually four years before, SkyTree wasn't the tallest; that title was original claimed by Tokyo Tower. I think SkyTree was finished around three years ago, and is around 600 meters tall. Usually lines are pretty long, but our guide, Tom, got us reservations beforehand, so we were able to bypass that. 

 

Just a side note--Ronen, the boy in the middle, brought his skateboard because he wanted to skate in Tokyo. He did a few tricks near SkyTree and got yelled at. Heh.

The view was really nice, though we didn't go to the top. That would've required more money and a wait in a really long line. I think that the viewing deck was alright, though. It was certainly tall enough for me. 

Fujisan~

A view straight down--yikes!

After SkyTree, we were joined by Tom's family, his nephew, and his nephew's friend, who was an exchange student from Vietnam. Our party grew to be the size of ten, which started to get really difficult to keep track of, especially in the middle of Tokyo, when the crowds are enormous. There were times when the only thing that kept me from getting lost was the sight of Jaida's bright orange hair. You have to go there to really understand how tightly packed everything is in Tokyo. Anyway, the next thing we did was take a boat to Shibuya! And let me tell you, just the boat itself was worth the trip, because that thing looked so cool. 

I'm not sure why it was designed this way, but whatever. It was neat.

From left to right: Fuum (I'm not sure if that's how her name is spelled, but that's what it sounded like, so apologies), Jaida, and me. 

The Rainbow bridge. Which does in fact turn into a "Rainbow" Bridge at night. I didn't get to see it though. 

Too fabulous.

At Shibuya, we did some shopping, and also got to see the giant robot that was built there! Apparently there's some famous anime called Gundam, which is where the robot comes from. I'll probably see it at some point. Is it just me, or do a lot of anime utilize giant robots?

After we saw the giant robot, Ronen and Dimitri were dying to go to the anime store in Harajuku, so we caught a train over. Harajuku's enormous, and Tom told us that it's considered to have some of the best shopping in Tokyo. I can believe it. 

Ronen and Luffy, at the anime store. Best friends for life.

Looking back on this trip, we fit so much into one day. I have the strong desire to stop using literary terminology like, "Then,", "Next", and "After". 

Anyway, next we headed over to Shinjuku, where the shopping was still...okay, but less classy and more very strange. Tom let us loose on a famous shopping street, and I wandered for an hour, and some of the stuff I saw was really farfetched. I ended up buying a tuna salad sandwich crepe, because it looked awesome. When everyone else saw my street crepe, they all wanted street crepes too, and filled them with things like chocolate and cheesecake and stuff. (I did end up buying a second crepe, filled with chocolate cake).

Then Ronen decided that he really wanted to go skating in Tokyo, so we all found a skate park and hung out there for a while. At that point it was getting pretty late, so Tom's family decided to go back home. Here's a picture of us, Tom, his two boys, Yuuka, and Fuum. 

Eugh, bad lighting. 

Also at this point, our lack of sleep caught up with us, so we decided to head back to the bus station. It was about that time, anyway. We thanked Tom and said our goodbyes, and then left Tokyo. 

On another eight hour bus ride (which Jaida again slept through none of), but that's neither here nor there.

My opinion of Tokyo: it is enormous. It's so huge, I don't think there is any possible way to visit everything in one day. This being said: thanks to our excellent guide, we saw quite a bit, and the parts we did see were amazing. It's a bustling, beautiful city, and way cleaner than I expected; I highly recommend that anyone who wants to should visit. 

Just...do yourselves a favor and don't take the bus. 

This post is also titled 'goodbyes' because, a week ago, the Australians finally left for home. I was very sad of course (don't tell them), and will miss them dearly. I was lucky to have such awesome friends for the first four months of my stay! 

Jaida, Ronen and Dimitri, if any of you are reading this: I'm glad you all made it back safely. Come visit America when you have the time. 

(I was going to talk about my Hiroshima trip too, but that would've taken too long I think. I'll post about Hiroshima in the next week or so.)

Why moths and I do not get along, and Japanese shougatsu

Hello everyone! I know it's been two weeks since my last update, which is not all that bad from last time. Things have been really, really busy, so I'm actually going to split this post into two and post the second one next week.

Alright, so first things first: I actually visited my first onsen two days before I moved to my new home and forgot to post about it. I think it's actually a bigger deal than most people would think, just because I was fretting about it for so long. The reason? Well, if you haven't heard of Japanese onsen, I will now tell you: everyone is butt naked. Me and my delicate Western modesty was very, very nervous to experience this.

The thing is that it's really hard to be self-conscious when everyone else in the room is naked too. It seems like everyone's got this sort of 'I don't see you you don't see me' mentality; somehow the Japanese have perfected talking to people without looking away from the face. This mentality was also helped when I removed my glasses, because I am almost blind without them, so I couldn't see what I was looking at anyway. I'm...sure I must've freaked out some of the Japanese, though, because I have a tendency to accidentally stare when I'm trying to figure out who or what I'm looking at.

Anyway, the actual onsen was really, really nice. The water is kept at a steady 42 degrees Celsius, and the water though the water isn't all that deep, it means you can stretch out on the ground. There's an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, and the outdoor pool is awesome, especially in the summer. Usually there's a pretty nice view nearby, and the air is nice and cool, so you're not baking on all sides at once. Very relaxing.

Obviously I did not take any pictures.

Anyway, next: Japanese New Years, or as I said in the title, Japanese Shougatsu with my new host family.

On December 31st, or 'omisoka', I helped my mom make some of the 'osechi ryori', or the food that we all eat on New Years. I'm not entirely sure what kind of food I worked with, only that one of them was carrot. The other one was a Japanese renkon, sort of a radish like thing, and a konyaku, which when you say it properly sounds like 'cognac'. The konyaku and carrot were pretty easy, but I completely messed up the renkon. Kudos to the host mom, who came up and cleaned up the mess I made.

We did not stay up till twelve, or at least I didn't; I have become attached to my sleep as of late, and went to bed at ten. The next morning I woke up, and for brunch we got to have the osechi ryori!

Here's a picture of the table with the shrine in the background. 

There's the actual food. 

Close-up of the food, by Tadahimi

(Tadahimi is my host brother, by the way.)

The food was awesome, as I'm sure you're all able to see from the picture. The fish we ate is sea bream, but the way, which I've never had but was pretty awesome. 

Here's a pic of the family on Shougatsu!

Left to right: Dad, me, Mom, Tadahimi, Kouji. Not the most flattering picture, thanks Kouji.

Anyway, since Kouji only came for Shougatsu, he actually left a few days after this. But not before we went to Kobe! 

China town in Kobe!

As you can see, my mom is much more fashionable than I.

We went shopping in Kobe, and had lots of food. Not a lot of sightseeing, but the food was great and the shopping was not too bad. 

873And finally, I have a story to tell all of you, which should be pretty funny.

So I was in brass band on a Thursday, the Thursday before school started. It was the end of the day, so we were all cleaning up, and I was basically just hanging around waiting for people to tell me to do something. So I'm standing there, and suddenly I notice this moth flying around above my head, about the size of my fist. I'm talking ENORMOUS. 

Me being me, I just give it a wary look and forget about it. 

A minute later, I am aware of something large and black flying at my face. After the moment, I acknowledge it was the moth. In the moment it looked like the spawn of all things dark and unholy was flying at me. I did what any sane martial artist would do and did a controlled fall backwards, right to the floor. 

I think there was one girl who acted concerned about me. The others were just laughing. 

But this was not the end of the moth. Oh no. 

Ten minutes later, I'm standing with the saxophones, checking my phone to see what time it is. And all the sudden something starts MOVING INSIDE MY COAT. 

I immediately yanked off my coat. Japanese has fled me. I have begun growling very loudly in English, and all are confused. 

Then my SHIRT STARTS MOVING. 

INSIDE MY SHIRT. 

I was about two seconds from tearing off my shirt before the moth finally flew out. But somehow, that moth stayed in there for ten minutes before I finally noticed it. I also accidentally taught the Japanese some new swear words, which they gleefully repeated for minutes afterwards, on a completely separate note. 

Anyway, the next post will be in a week, and it'll be about the trip to Tokyo I took! Look forward to it, and don't let any moths fly into your shirt!

(One thing I will mention. It is cold right now. Not as cold as Sycamore, but you know what? I ride to school everyday in a skirt. On a bike. Why don't the Japanese believe in pants?)

Kanji with Gracia pt. 2, Stress release, and New Homes

So many of you may be wondering, "What on earth happened to Gracia? Why is she not blogging??"

Well first of all, I had exams, and was studying Japanese like crazy. In the end I got a 66 on my test, though it was only the second highest score. But see, I knew Dimitri would get a better kanji score than me (I'm not salty about it. Not at all). My grammar is still better. I am mostly satisfied with that.

But anyway, I figured I would share another kanji lesson, just because now that I'm learning the written language it's actually...kind of funny. You may not find it as funny as I do, but that's okay. You can just come along for the ride. This lesson will be featuring my tablet, which my parents so kindly sent over.

Okay, so time for....

We're going to start with something simple, just because whenever I think about this it makes me laugh. Kanji is so literal that sometimes it really amuses me, even though it probably shouldn't. I get that kanji is supposed to be literal, but something about it is just...yeah. IDK, you might not agree.

Okay you say, now what am I looking at? I'll tell you what you're looking at. First of all, please, please do yourself a favor and follow the stroke order. It's so important in this culture, and I know that sometimes it's a hassle, but save yourself the time and do it right.

Now that that's out of the way: you're looking at the kanji for 岩, or "iwa", which translates to "rock formation. You're also looking at the kanji for 出、or "de", which translates to "at the". Now, Iwade is actually the name of my city. So what did does my cities name translate to? At the rock.

So, that was pretty easy. Now let's take a look at the next one. 

You may have noticed that I very helpfully changed colors with (almost) every stroke. I did this for a reason. Please use stroke order.

Now here you're looking at 小、or 'ko', which sometimes is actually 'chi', depending on what's next to it. It translates to small. The other one, 雨, 'ame', translates to rain. So now, if you guess the meaning to be, 'small rain', you'd be right. Congratulations, you have now learned two kanji combinations.

Of course, not all kanji are so literal. For example, when you put the kanji 来 (konme, rice)　together with the kanji 国　(kuni, country) you get America. But I digress. There is something I recently discovered, however, that I thought was pretty hysterical. 

So, everyone knows the nickname for Japan, right? Land of the rising sun? Well I'm about to tell you exactly where that name came from. 

This is the Japanese name for Japan, 'nihon'. Now, here's thing thing： 日 usually reads 'nichi' and means day, and 本 usually reads 'hon' and translates to 'book'. HOWEVER. I was taking a look through my kanji workbook, and noticed something unusual. The first kanji can also be read as 'hi', and sometimes means sun. The second kanji, read the same way, can also translate to origin. 

Japan literally named their country sun origin. 

You may not think this is so hysterical. But to me, this is kind of like naming your giant lizard--I dunno--Godzilla. Oh wait, they did.

And last, kanji that doesn't translate to English, because it's cool:

I never actually learned the stroke order for this kanji, so....you know. Ah! I got it. You have a new homework assignment, everyone, and I expect it to be completed quickly!!!!!! Look up the stroke order for 'yuugen'! (and tell me when you have the results, haha). Anyway, this means 'subtle and profound'. Sort of. There was a longwinded explanation that sounded pretty neat, but it boils down to 'subtle and profound'. 

Kanji with Gracia is finished!

Anyway, moving on. Now it's time to talk about the stuff I've been doing which, sadly, wasn't much. Something that was pretty cool, though, was that I went to Universal Studios Japan with the other Rotary Exchange girls. It was really fun! Apparently the Christmas tree has more lights than any other Christmas tree on earth. And honestly, I can believe it. I didn't get any pictures, which I'm sorely regretting, but just imagine a giant tree almost as bright as the sun. You're probably pretty close. 

We got to ride a lot of cool rides, but I liked the Harry Potter ride the best. I liked it even more because I got to ride it twice, because the first time it stopped in the middle. Hah. Haha. The other girls liked the rides, though I think some of them really hadn't been on roller coasters before. Pretty brave of them. 

Also, I got to make mochi, which is basically rice that's been pounded into a paste. It's...very stress relieving. I have a video, but unfortunately my phone is being very uncooperative, so I can't add it right now. We made (and ate--yum!) the mochi after the other exchange students and I did a speech about exchange. I actually ended up in the paper, which was pretty awesome. Here're some pictures!

Finished mochi, with some bean...stuff. I think? On it. Very delish.

Tei and I rockin' the uniforms. 

Man, I cannot tell you how good it felt to bet the ever loving stuffing out of that rice. 

Alright, lastly....

Today I moved to a new home!

As much as I liked my old home, today I had to move to a new one, in Iwade (previously I was living in Wakayama, and the commute to school was about an hour every day). The new room is a bit smaller than the old one, but just as functional, and it's pretty cute. I'll edit this post tomorrow with some pictures, but it's pretty late now so I want to wrap this up. The host mom is really nice, and for the first time in my life I've got an older brother (twenty eight years old). The host father is also pretty cool, and we all had a nice conversation together during dinner. 

I think I'm really going to like it here.

Anyway, hopefully I'll add some pictures tomorrow, so just be patient! Later!

Happy 30th anniversary, Iwade Rotary club!

Hey, so I decided that because I'll be studying for exams all next week (Yikes!) I'd make a blog post now, even though it's a little short.

The main topic is going to be about Iwade Rotary Club's thirtieth anniversary! So what exactly does this entail?

Well, first it means a long, long band concert in which the brass band played a lot of music. We played stuff like a Deep Purple Medley (and I do indeed mean the old American band. I really liked the arrangement of Burn.) momokuro (I have no idea what that means, but it sounded really cool) and other various Japanese tunes that I didn't know. We finished it off with a concert with the Iwade middle school bands. We played Aladdin and generally had a grand old time.

Immediately after, some Rotary people took me to a kimono shop to get fitted. And wasn't that an experience. I have never felt so decadent in my life, wearing about thirty pounds of heavy silk. It was incredible, and walking was very difficult because I had about fifty percent less room to move in. Also, the shoes were about six sizes too small, so walking anywhere made me feel like I was going to fall over.

Aaaand I'm complaining. It was still gorgeous, and the most expensive thing I think I've ever worn. Here are some lovely pictures. Look at the detail on this thing!

Exquisite, is it not?

But OH MY GOODNESS, I had to eat dinner with this thing on.

Let  me repeat: I had to EAT DINNER with this kimono on.

I thought I was going to die. I must have covered my lap with about six inches of napkins. That was the most stressful thing I've ever done, EVER.

Speaking of, the food was quite delicious. I was very pleased with the selection. I was also tricked into eating some super spicy Japanese herb, but that's neither here nor there.

I had a job at this event, though; I would stand there and look pretty. No, just kidding, that was only one of my jobs. My actual job was to carry a tray to the president of the Rotary Club and stand there so he could take the awards and stuff that were sitting on it. I did not fail, thankfully. I think. I didn't fall, so I guess that's the best I can hope for.

Other than that, it's been business as usual. Brass band still practices, I still rib the Australians (we played this Japanese board game the other day. HAHA. HAH. I nearly won, but then I got sent back to the end. And then Dimitri got first, and then Ronen got second, until it was just Jaida and I. But there was this one square that we kept landing on that sent us back to the same point in the game. I eventually made it, but she didn't. Now she has to write an essay in Japanese about her weekend.) I found out my last host family (I will be having three, instead of the two that I'd originally assume), and the last family seems like very nice people.

Sayonara!

Error in Posting

Hello everyone. You all must be very surprised--three blog posts so close together! However this is not actually a blog post. It's an apology. Because see, the last blog post I made, some things made the final draft that I'd definitely intended not to put in. So I'd like to apologize profusely for my hastily edited post. Please enjoy your day, and I'm sorry again for the confusion!

Speechy speechy, and the Playground Movie Star

It must seem strange that I'm posting so soon after the first one, doesn't it? Well, I have a reason for that. Today I actually don't have anything planned until six, and it's almost five. No one's home. so I'm just hanging around doing nothing. I figured it was a good enough time to make a blog post as any.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the birthday wishes! Special shoutout to the parents, Liz Denius, Marilyn Sands and Ella Rose for the birthday gifts. I had a blast on my birthday in Japan; I went to a sushi round table, where there's this sushi conveyor belt, and on it pieces of delicious fish scroll by, just waiting to be picked up. I had six plates, which is apparently very little; my host mom had ten or so. She's amazing. Here are some pictures and short videos of what it was like.

My meal.

Short video of the little conveyor belt above the automatic one. Here, you ordered your food from a little screen, and the little conveyor belt brings it right next to you. Really cool.

The unagi sushi I ate (and loved), and a bowl of soup next to it. Super tasty.

And here's a video of the automatic conveyor belt!

Pretty rad, right?

So you may be curious about the title of the blog post, as you probably should be. I'll start with the first one, speechy speechy, because that has become a big part of my life here in Japan. 

Apparently when you're a Japanese exchange student, your only purpose is to write many, many speeches in Japanese. To give you an example of how many I've said so far: in the last two weeks I have given three speeches. One was at a Rotary meeting, one was a presentation on America to a bunch of high school students, and the last was at an elementary school. But I'll be getting back to that later. 

See, the thing about speeches (I call them 'speechy' in my head, because the Japanese don't use plural, and they use katakana for the spelling, so it ends up sounding like speechy) is that I can't speak Japanese all that well yet. I'm not being modest. I'm getting a lot better at comprehension, but my speaking skills are still pretty poor. This of course means that when I first write my speeches, they're pretty simple. They're basic Japanese, all of which I can understand, and easy to read. 

Then of course I have to ask my sensei or my host mom for help. 

They usually take one look at my speeches and go, 'No'. Just no. Then they take my speeches from me, so lovingly crafted, and completely rewrite them until suddenly I have no idea what I'm saying. 

It's getting better. But it's still really difficult. For those of you who want to become foreign exchange student in Japan, be prepared to stutter your way through a ton of speeches every month. 

Now I'll go back to the elementary school, which is the second part of the post title. 

So Thursday and Friday I and the other exchange students went to an elementary school to give a speech to an English class. Thursday where the fifth graders, and Friday were the sixth graders. Here's what my first day looked like. 

Twelve o'clock, get driven to the school. Meet with the principal, and have about fifteen minutes of awkward, stilted conversation before getting sent up to the classrooms. Meet the small children. Have lunch with the small children. 

Now these kids, when they first saw us, didn't think we spoke Japanese at all. So they were speaking a little English to us, and running away and giggling every time we responded. The first time I said, "Sumimasen, nansai desu ka?" (excuse me, how old are you), I think my table rioted. One little boy screamed, "NIHONGO SHABBERERU!!!!" (SHE SPEAKS JAPANESE) really loudly. After that we managed to communicate a little better. 

After that, we went to the playground to play dodgeball. 

I won't bore you with the details of the dodgeball game, but something really cute happened during it. A bunch of little kids--and I'm talking TINY CHILDREN, I think they must have been first or second years--ran up to the us and said, "SAINKUDASAI!!" (Please sign!!). Then they gave us their notebooks. I think I must've signed at least thirty notebooks that first day. I didn't mind, though, because they were so adorable. My goodness. 

Then we gave our presentations. It went much the same the next day. It was really fun, and we got out of school early, so I'm counting those two days as my best memories of Japan so far. Here are some pictures!