bikurishita

just an quick update about racism in japan..

yesterday a couple friends and i were at the station buying out train tickets to go to the next city over to see a movie. a japanese man comes out from no where and slaps my blonde friends arm and tells her to leave japan. he then continues to make a fuss and tell my other friend to go back to his country because foreigners don't belong in japan.

the man then went on and told the ticket takers at the station that we, foreigners shouldnt be there because, well, we're foreign.

and thats the story for yuh, racism exists!

too bad you cant pick where you were born, or how you were born!

four months!

I haven’t written on this blog in a while, I kept wanting to update with something but I’ve just been so busy living that I’ve had no time to sit down and write about everything I do all day!

This December has been a very crazy month. I moved host families and that’s a really hard thing. I’ve never experienced it before – but moving into my new host family made me really homesick for my first host family. I didn’t realize how good that family was to me until I started to live in a different situation. Because of all this, homesickness settled in. But not homesickness for Canada – homesickness for my first host family! So I started to do more things – tried to at least. I got a gym membership, hung out with friends after school. Tried to fill up my time rather than being at home all the time. It kind of worked – I’m feeling better about the whole sitch now – but the whole reason I still feel so down is that this family isn’t very Japanese. They don’t take me anywhere and don’t do anything with me. The house is small

and they don’t do many Japanese things. I just feel like there are so many other families that could be giving me a more cultural experience about Japan and Japanese life. So that is still bothering me about living here – but you also can’t forget, as an exchange student, your host family had a life before knowing you. They just can’t drop everything and make life revolve around you. That's a big thing that exchange students learn while on exchange – how life doesn’t revolve around them. But then again, there do end up being the exchange students who have amazing host families all the time who pamper them and treat them amazingly and that doesn’t end up helping them in the end. It just sucks when you have a member of your host family who you just have a complete personality difference with – but, that’s life. And its hard! And an exchange student life is no exception.

I hung out with all the other exchange students a lot this month - both Rotary and AFS. I’m writing this without internet right now and can’t remember if I told you about the other AFS exchange students of not – but there are two other kids in Kanazawa, my city. A guy from Germany and one girl from France – they're really nice, and both speak English – they’re a lot of fun. The difference between hanging out with another exchange student or students means we always go out for a meal and actually do something substanstially fun compared to hanging out with just my Japanese friends. The culture in Japan is that when you hang out with your friends from school after school or on the weekend – you go put on some makeup, go for tapioca, take pictures and go home before dinner. I love hanging out with my Japanese friends – they’re great, and it’s fun, and it’s why I came to japan – to learn Japanese from native speakers – but it’s definitley a lot of fun just hanging out with us exchange students. I speak a lot of English because I hang out with them so much – but I think that's fine. My Japanese is getting there . My host family only speaks Japanese and at school all day, I only speak Japanese. I’m trying so hard to learn this language – but it’s so very hard. You need a lot of determination to learn Japanese that’s for sure. The grammar structure is opposite from English – on top of that, any new language is hard with creating a whole new vocabulary . Plus, writing and reading Japanese

is a whole other language on top of that – the writing system, Kanji, is even difficult for native speakers! I’m trying my hardest and I can see how much I’ve improved. I mean I am able to speak and understand a majority of things now a days – but I’m still basically close to illiterate. I’m trying so hard to learn new kanji, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day for all of the stuff that I have written in my hello kitty schedule book.

Earlier in the month, a really nice woman took me and another exchange student Mari out for the day. The woman was an exchange student to America about 30 years ago! It’s always such a great time when someone takes me out for the day, and these people have definitely inspired me to host and take out the exchange students back home in Canada in the future! This lady was so nice – she took us out for a beautiful lunch, then we went and decorated chopsticks and boxes and obento’s with gold leaf paper – which is kind of a traditional thing about my city, Kanazawa. It was really interesting! The gold leaf paper is so thin and delicate, it was really difficult - and definitely gave me an appreciation for all of the beautiful pieces of artwork and plates and house decorations that are decorated with gold leaf! After all that, she took us out to a beautiful buffet dinner with her family. And by the way in Japanese, buffet is “biking” so she said, in English, “we’re going to a biking” – because she didn’t know the world buffet in English. Those thing always happen with the mix of Japanese and English, always make me laugh. But yeah – it was a great day and I’m always so appreciative of when people take out us exchange students J!

Before Christmas, I went out for dinner with my first host mom. We went out for Tempura and we had a really nice chat about all of the things causing the emotional roller coaster ride I was on this month because of all the changes with my family and everything! My first host mom is definitely someone I would consider a second mother and it’s so amazing to be able to have that. That’s definitely a cool part of being an exchange student – being able to have two or six moms or 7 host sisters and 4 dads all around the world – it’s pretty cool, and it’s definitely even better when your host families or members of your host families become people part of your real family in your heart J

The week or so of school before Christmas break was really fun. The students in my class all want to be kindergarten teachers – so we went on a trip to a University in a city near by and for two days, we just played children’s games and sang children’s songs in order to learn what children would like to do! It was a lot of fun. We also had sports day – for two days. There was volleyball, basketball, soccer, and dodge ball. It was a big tournament between all the classes in each grade – it was a lot of fun. I met a lot of new people and a lot of people I don’t ever get the chance to talk to came and talked to me. I probably took pictures with like 60 people – it was like my first day of school again, when they’re seeing a foreign girl with gold hair for the first time! It was a lot of fun, and it made me realize how much I love my school and how friendly and great everyone is J I will definitely miss these kids when I go back to Canada.

Christmas was the most, different and un-meaningful Christmas I’ve ever had. My family all had work and both host sisters had school on Christmas eve day. That night we went out for, another, buffet. Had some Christmas cake and that was it. No cute family activities, no sitting around the fireplace watching family videos or watching Rudolph on TV. I recall my host sister was on the computer – he other playing with a nitendo ds, my host dad watching some American drama on television with Japanese subtitles. So my Christmas activity for the night was painting snowmen on my fingernails and toes. Christmas morning – both host parents went to work and one sister had school. Just that in itself made Christmas not Christmas. I work up and said goodbye to my host dad who was leaving for work – and then, I skyped my family back in Canada for their Christmas eve.

They sent me a huge package of gifts for Christmas to open over skype – and I did the same. So we watched each other open up gifts over skype. That technology is so amazing, to be able to talk and see someone all the way across the world and it’s as if you’re just sitting in the same room as them!

Christmas day also happened to be TWO of my exchange student friends’ 19^th birthday! So instead of it being Christmas – it basically turned into a birthday party. We went out for lunch, and karaoke for a few hours. We ate a lot of snacks – including a gianormous milk chocolate bar and then after, went out for dinner. Not to forget, took some more purikura too. Purikura is just, something you do – its just a rite of passage to take puikura pictures every time you go out!

On the 26^th, we had a Rotary Orientation. We met al of the exchange students going out from Japan on exchange next year an we saw all our friends who came to our districts last year or the year before on exchange J It was a lot of just, information sessions and talking – not quite as fun as the Rotary weekends we had in Canada.. but it was nice to hang out with everyone J

It’s now the 28^th of December 2009. It’s almost 2010! I can not believe how much time has passed, and how fast it’s gone by! I’ve lived here for four months already! It seems like I just got here last week - but then again, I can barely even remember my life before living in Japan! And I can barely remember my English.. writing this was a pain in the neck because keep forgetting how to properly word my English phrases, hah, great.

it's december already?

As I'm sitting here in my school's computer lab, bored stiff while everyone else writes tests.. I reread all of my blogs I wrote in Japan. And it's amazing how much I can see I've changed! My style, my taste and my opinions! Food I wrote about not liking, I now love. Like dango - its a japanese sweet. Japanese sweets aren't very sweet my the way, most are bland and flavoured with matcha or sweet bean. But don't be fooled, sweet beans are just sort of sweet. But yeah! and the things I didn't understand or I didn't know what they were, I know now and use them daily and can't even remember life without them! Such as the vending machines here. Before you come to Japan it's like a legend, "the amazing japanese vending machines" and for the first while I was here I thought so too, but now they've just become so common and just a part of my life!

So it's December, unbelieveable! I've moved host families.. I was really sad to leave my first host family, but I didn't feel sad until the moment my new host family came to pick me up from my old house and I had to rush off. So, obviously, my old host mom chocked up, I cried, I left, it still makes me sad to think about it! I had a great host family for my first three months :) My new hostfamily lives in an apartment, which is new for me. It's really small. I have a host mom, dad and two sisters. One sister came to Canada last year! So it's nice to already know her. The parking garage at my apartment is really cool, you park your car, and then the platform you parked it on lowers down into the ground so the next person parks on top of your car! It's pretty cool! They do this because Japan is so small and there really isn't alot of space, so they build up and down.

Christmas here isn't the same as in Canada. All my fmaily will do is eat a cake. No decorations, no music, no big dinners or parties.. I find that kind of sad and I know I will become more homesick this month - but I think I will skype home for their Christmas morning. Because by that time, Christmas will be over here.
Yeah, kind of sad. But I guess I can deal with it. It's just so different living ina culture where they don't celebrate any of the same holidays you grew up with as a kid and are a big part of your culture!

I have to get writing a speech in Japanese for my Rotary meeting.. so I should get on that.
Questions? Concerns? Holiday Wishes? Give me a comment :)

3kagetsutachimashita!

So yesterday I went to my school's BATON TWIRLING Club's recital, and it was honestly amazing. Broadway quality showmans ship! I mean they were such amazing dancers and then on top of it, trirling and throwing batons. Then they just kept bringing out more things, like hoola hoops and ribbons. They did about 10 costume changes and at the end was a colaborative dance with music from movies - starwars, pretty woman, a jackie chan movie, harry potter, titanic. I mean the way they put it together was amazing!
The school clubs here in Japan are so different than in Canada. Students here don't get homework, so clubs are everyday, and they're really intense. I think my schools baton twirling club is one of the best in the prefecture! Amazing!
At the end, everyone shouted "encore", and of course they did an encore, which with another costume change, was amazing. But the funny thing is, in Japanese, "encore" is "on-ko-re! on-ko-re!" ;)

It's getting really cold here. Houses don't have central heating, they just heat the rooms they're using. My room in my host families house gets SO cold at night! I turn on the heater so its 21* when I go to bed and I wake up and the thermometer says it's 9*. Cold. Plus I have to walk to school for 40 minutes and it has been raning everyday here, so it's freezing. Kids at my school don't wear coats, they just wear clothes under their uniforms. I weighed the shirts I was weighing yesterday, they totalled to 10lbs. My salor uniform shirt, my sweater and my long sleeved sweater underneath. Heavy, and I'm still cold! School also doesn't really have heating, so kids bring blankets to school and wear them over their legs. It's pretty unfortunate that Japanese school uniforms are so sex-ist and girls have to wear skirts all year round.

Time seems to be flying by so quickly. It's almost been 3 months! I change host families on MONDAY! I can't believe how fast time has gone by. I've been at school here for 3 months too, it does not seem like it's been that long! They're starting to put up holiday lights in the streets here and I can't believe it's almost Christmas either! Time is flying by,　but I'm really enjoying it here :) In theory wish time wouldn't seem to go by so fast (but I wish it would go even faster when I'm sitting in Japanese math class. hah)

Well, It's time for lunch now. and yes, it's 1:00. They eat really late here, probably because of all the clubs that go on after school, this is the middle of the day for those students whi go home at 6 or so. It's such a difference from BT and having second lunch, 9:37am ;) Let me tell you, Japanese school is COMPLETELY different than Canadian school. I think kids here would die if they tried to do the work we did in highschool. Here, no homework. Tests once a month. And the work they're doing here as grade 11 is work we did in grade 9. Maybe it's just my school, it being a school for the 'less smart kids' but it's completely different. But needless to say I'm having a blast here and I absolutely love it! I was invited back for my grade's graduation in 2011! How sweet :) Apparently Japanese graduation, they have to wear their school uniform - and it's not that big of a deal at all. ぜんぜんちがうね！

Thanks for reading! I will upsate again once I've moved host families and have new adventures to tell :)

hey thereeee

So, its been awhile. my apologies!

I've done lots in the past month, so let me try to summarize it..

Sandy, Jared and I have found the top floor of the local department building, called the Diawa. And it’s a childrens floor on the roof! But it also has an amazing view of the city and the sunsets too. It’s never busy, there’s usually one kid and their parent or the random businessperson getting a few moments of quiet up there. It’s really nice!

I received a package from my mom in Canada this month too! It was HUGE. Filled with host family gifts, and the clothes and the random things I forgot – like the lens cap to my camera etc. It also had things I can’t get here, like Canadian toothpaste(Japanese toothpaste tastes kind of funky, and I don’t find it cleans very well), and candy! There’s a good selection of candy here in Japan but you know, there’s nothing like the candy you used to eat as a child to make you feel better!

I went out for sushi again with my host grandparents (they take me out to really nice restaurants almost every weekend). I absolutely love sushi! It’s amazing and delicious. But Japan takes so many fish out of the ocean, and I’m sure not all of it gets eaten. Japan basically just rapes the ocean, kind of sad.. but I’m ashamed to say that Japanese fish is delicious! Sushi bars are really cool. You can take the sushi from the convayer belt goingaround the room, or you can send in an order to the sushi chefs who make it right infront of your eyes. The plates are all different colours to tell you what the price of the dish is you’re getting. By the end of the meal, you end up having 20 or 30 dishes infront of your table.

Then when you get ready to pay, they come by with a scanning gun and they run it over the plates and it totals the cost. Pretty cool, eh!

I went to my friend Yoshi and Masa’s house for a barbeque for exchange students. Yoshi came to Canada last year on exchange, and Masa went to Australia. Therefore they both know English. They invited their Japanese friends so the day was filled with eating and playing Texas Hold’em in Japanese while it RAINED the whole time. Kind of a bummer about that, but it was fun.

I visited Gifu Prefecture (I live in Ishikawa Prefecture), to see the “Supa Rinda”, meaning super forest highway – or something to that effect. It's a long highway winding through the mountains and the beautiful trees in Gifu. We were a little late to see all the leaves all red and orange. They had already mostly fallen, but it was still really beautiful to see the mountains and everything!

There’s no such thing as Halloween in Japanese culture so I stayed in on Halloween night, and did nothing. But I did a little presentation on Halloween and brought my macbook to do a little slideshow. I brought them all candy and we had a Halloween party, probably their first and only. Then at lunch, all of my friends were just amazingly awestruck at photobooth on the macbook and we had a photo session for half an hour! I have some hilarious videos of it too. It was a lot of fun ;)

The candy I brought them was Japanese. I went to the grocery store to buy some and encountered “ramune” flavoured kitkats. That’s a type of Japanese pop, it’s delicious. The kitkats ended up being blue, and the most delicious thing I have ever tasted! Turns out in Japan, they come out with new flavours of kitkats every month! I guess last month was ramune and this month, I saw sweet potato in the store. I’m yet to try them, but that’s a really cool idea that they have so many flavours!

I take Japanese lessons at the local international centre, but I was in Level 1 and it was way too easy. I mean, the very basics of Japanese that I learned months ago. So I moved up to level2, but now it’s way too hard. They go by textbooks, so in level two they expect you know everything in level one already. So its as if to say I’m trying to build a house of Japanese language and I’ve got the basement floor and I’m trying to build the second story but theres half of the support beams missing and the house just, can’t be build. Get what I’m saying? It sucks. So I’m temporarily quitting lessons, and I am going to keep studying myself at school like I do everyday and just keep practicing with everyone here (because NO ONE speaks English here). Then try another place for lessons maybe next week. Wish me luck? Japanese is the hardest language ever. Well not ever, but it’s pretty difficult. Its basically teaching yourself to speak backwards grammatically and write in a secret code of symbols – but you’ve got to follow rules, its not like you’re the one making it up.

Let me know if anyone out there is even reading this, I’d love to hear some feedback.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

亜朱里

ps。I forgot to mention I visited Kyoto with my host mom and host grandma! It was pretty cool. We only visited a small village and some gardens, but it was good to be able to travel again!

Speaking of travelling, my school trip in March (all of the second years go on a trip) is to Kyuushu! The other trip is to Tokyo, but I guess my homeroom teacher picked Kyuushu for me, so that is where I will be going for 5 days in March with my school J

I'm no good at coming up with titles..

So, I can't remember everything I've done in the past couple weeks. But I can't believe it's dawning on two months being here! Time has gone so fast.
My Japanese is coming along. I'm studying kanjii everyday and I can actually hold up conversations now.
I got my hair permed straight - perhaps to fit in with the Japanese. Or perhaps because now my hair is perfectly straight even in the rain. Which today, it is raning. And we have exams at school for two hours in the morning. of course I don't have to write them but, I'm stuck in the lab chilling on facebook and updating by blog. There's nothing else I can do really.
The last two weeks have been fun though. I'm taking cooking class every Saturday with my highschool. It's fun. We've made a lot of fish and legitimate Japanese food. School is really fun. I don't ever actually do work, but I study Japanese. Speaking of Japanese, I started lessons. They put me in level one but it is WAY too easy. I took a test for level 2 but it was too hard. So I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. Considering I'm able to talk to people in real life, I'm sure I can catch on to level 2. So I might move up a level, but I will let you know.
Last weekend was the Kinshou school festival. My school festival was small and fun, but this one was designed to be a department store! It was so big and so much to buy - lots of Japanese food. After, I went to dinner at the Takematsu's house. Their son Yuki came to Canada two years ago, and their other son is going to USA or Canada next year.
In Japan, girls wear their school uniforms all the time - to look cute.
Because you can't wear makeup or hair extensions at school, they pile on the fake-ness on the weekends. In Japan, its legit to look like you have two black eyes of sparkly eyeshadow and eyeliner.
The culture here is so different. Customer service is outstanding. I mean the way they treated me when I was getting my hair done was incredible! Even when you're just at the grocery store, they're so helpful and polite. North America should definitley take a lesson from that.
Also, highschool students aren't allowed to have jobs here. You're also not allowed to drive a car or motorbike until you're out of highschool - or you will get expelled from school. It legit happened to a kid in my class. Thats why there are so many bucycles in Japan. Plus, its just way easier to get around on a bike. I have a bus pass, so I take the bus. But Busses are so expensive! I'm not complaining, because they're clean and always on time and really good - and you can get anywhere on the bus. But, they are always packed to the brim. Good luck ever getting a seat if yo udon't get on at the first stop.

Anyway,
I don't really have much more to say.
Questions? Concerns? Anything?
Lemme know :)

catch up

There’s been seven new photo albums of Japan of pictures I’ve taken since the last update on this blog, lots has happened!

On September 19^th, I went to the geisha district in Kanazawa with my host otosan(father). He bought me a beautiful pair of chopsticks with kimono fabric in them. The geisha district has a lot of gift stores, tea houses and the houses

surrounding it are very old. Not to mention you can go there to see the geishas.

We also went to the Kanazawa 21^st Century At Museum too – it was interesting. A lot of unique exhibits and stuff, but small and much different compared to the art galleries I’ve seen in Ontario.

On September 20^th, I went to Gakoyama and Takoyama with my host mother, and another exchange sudent and her host family. Her host dad treated us to lots of museums and treats from the area. In gokoyama, the traditional old houses are the kind with the straw roofs and such. It was really quite beautiful, but I can’t even imagine how cold you would be living in it!

For the next two days of Silver weekend (which was a 5 day weekend for holidays in September) I went to Universal Osaka with my host mom and sister.

It was a lot of fun! We took the bullet train there and back, which took about two and a half hours. Universal was really neat, but SO busy. Never go to an amusement park in Japan during national holidays. The thing is that there were so few rides there (one roller coaster, the rest all just shows and indoor 3D rides), plus there were so many people. The lines were long and if you’ve ever been to Universal Orlando – this will be a let down for you. I had a ton of fun and it was amazing to go, but Florida won in the comparison battle, sadly. The funniest thing I found though was that in Florida, the “ET” ride is amazing – you take ET home in the basket of your bicycle and you fly him home, its really cool. In Japan – I waited two hours to watch a clip of

Stephen Spielburg talk about the significance of ET with a deep male Japanese voice-over, walk into a room where ET’s spaceship lets out some smoke, then walk into the final room where ET says “sayonara tomodachi” (meaning goodbye friends) and then get pressured to buy a 1600yen picture of myself with ET.. ahhaahah all we could do was laugh.

But Osaka was SO busy, I didn’t get to spend much time there but we had Okonomiyaki when we were there (people describe it as a Japanese pancake, but its really not. It’s like a meal – in the SHAPE of a pancake). Its one of the famous foods in Osaka, so that was legit. Universal and Osaka was a lot of fun, I’m glad I went J

In Japan, “purikura” is really popular. Its basically an interative photobooth that smooths out the colour so it makes you look way prettier than you actually are. Then you get the copies printed out really small, cut them up, and share them or put them in a book (Japanese girls here have books filled with PAGES and PAGES of these teeny stickers, its crazy!) Btw, I can’t remember if I wrote about this or not on account I can’t check because I don’t have internet at this temporary host house so I’m just writing this on word and will copy it later – not like anyone cares or anything. Okay, Back to the story. Yeah, well as of now I’ve done it times. It’s actually a lot of fun and tacky- but cute J

Hanging out with the other exchange students in Kanazawa has been fun as well. (and will continue to be aswell, I just worded that wrong). The usual activities are karaoke, getting something to eat, purikura, and the occasional jumping photo. The other day Jared, Nick and I took 40 jumping pictures because there is nothing else to do in Kanazawa. T’was fun.

On Wednesday, myself and the other exchange students headed off to Shinminato, Toyama for a Rotary weekend type thing. The first night was a Rotary meeting, with some speeches in Japanese and a lot of food. We were also sent to host families – my family was absolutely aborable and their house was huge! They spoke no English but the girl I was with (sharnelle from Australia) speaks Japanese very very well.. so she spoke.. But I find that living with people who don’t speak any Englsih forces you to learn Japanese faster and better. I kind of wish my host families woud have spoken little English.. but it is what it is.

The second day consisted of a boat ride, and the matsuri festival in Shinminato. We went during the day and watched, then the afternoon - we got to join in and help push the floats! Jared, Michael and I were pushing a float together with a bunch of Japanese guys – but they were being fools and would attempt to repeat everything in broken English even though we could understand the Japanese they were telling us.. It was a lot of fun. We then went and met the mayor of Imizu city, and we got a picture in the Toyama newspaper for it. Then we departed and went back to our host families for dinner. My host mom made wonderful food, the biggest breakfast I’ve had yet in Japan and a big delicious dinner that night! Not to mention a pear for desert. I feel like I have scurvy because of the MAJOR lack of fruits and veggies I’m getting here. Maybe Japanese people are so small because they didn’t get all the vitamins they needed from the fruit when they were still growing ;)

Anyway. We all returned to the festival that night – and there was so much food to buy. I only bought a matcha crepe but it was delicious. There was everything from ‘pancake balls’ – I forget the Japanese name, to ‘octopus’ something – I also forget the Japanese name. The floats were all lit up with lanterns and the festival continued, it was gorgeous!

The final day of our little trip, we got to make pottery. Everyone made plates and cups but I made a teapot and matching teeny cup.

We then went to the shopping centre. Clothes here are amazing, but so expensive! The only thing I ended up buying was lunch and a ‘rilakkuma’ bus pass holder. (rilakkuma is a popular cartoon bear here). On the train ride back, our entertainment came from me finishing the rubick’s cube twice in the time a Japanese boy finished it once when he was showing off to his friends. Go Canadian brains.

When we returned back to Kanazawa station off the train, I was encountered by two guys who had a note from my host mom saying they were in Toyama for the rest of the weekend because my host dads dad (aka my host grandfather) died and they had to stay for the funeral. So now I am at my host uncles house for the rest of the weekend. I have a 22 year old host brother, and a mother and father. My host parents don’t speak English – but I find it good because I have even learned a lot just from one day and night here, though my host brother speaks some Englsih that he learned back in highschool.

Today, instead of karate class, I had cooking class. It was fun – we made sushi and dainfuku – which is a Japanese sweet.

It was difficult though, but delicious in the end. Desserts here are flavoured with matcha or sweet beans usually. Dainfuki is a rice paste covering over sweet beans in ball form. I’m missing the rich, chocolatey desserts back in Canada that we can get! Sweet beans don’t cut it all the time, though matcha ice cream is my favourite thing in the world as of now.

Today my host brother and father took me out all around kanazawa, I saw things I never saw before! It was great. I saw many new foods and places to shop and historical things too. It was a good day.

Okay, after this 1387 word essay you should be all caught up with my life in Japan.

yikes.

Wow I haven't written anying on here in a while.

A lot has happened, but I will just do a quick summary for now.

I went to Osaka with my family a couple weeks ago. We went to Universal Studios Japan - which was SO busy.

I was in Shin-Minato with Rotary for the past three days. We helped push the floats in the Matsuri festival, met the mayor of Imizu, stayed with host families, went to the festival at night time, did pottery. It was a lot of fun.

I feel like I'm not giving you the right idea about any of this stuff because of my lack of detail..

so keep checking back. I promise I will write something a little more detailed about all the events in the past three weeks :)

亜朱里

its been a month!

I can't believe it's been a month! Time has gone by so fast.

School is still fun, but very boring at times. I draw a lot, and its funny because so does everyone else. I do it because I can't understand, but they make bracelets and draw disney characters for eachother all day long!

Im starting to pick up the language much more, and people are noticing. I've got a LONG way to go, but I start lessons in October so that should help.

School on Saturday is so weird for me. I mean, it's friday and Im here, about to go to bed early because I'm exhausted from the first 5 days of school this week.

People here shave their eyebrows, by the way. They're usually just short and spiky and they get them tattooed on or they use make-up. Different..

Another thing is the amount of socks here is cool. There are stores entirely devoted to just socks! You can get socks with anything on them, it's cool!

I had my rotary welcome party on Wednesday. It was cute, I met 3 more of my host families. One wasn't there though. The food was good, I actually love fish. Its hard to make a good impression on the Rotarians though when your Japanese is so bad.. ugh..

This week coming up is holidays, and im going to Osaka UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN with my host family! How cool is that :) I will take many pictures/compare it to Florida.

The food I've had this week has been great. I had Tempura last week, SO GOOD. I tried yakisoba yesterday, yum. Japanese food is great! Even sweet potato ice cream is great :) But fruits and vegetables here are super expensive. I mean 158Y for an apple is crazy.

Anyway questions? Anything? Leave me a comment! I don't know if anyone is really interested in my blog anyway! hahah

亜朱里　<-- my kanjii name!

the next stop is ko-rin-bo

So I've been in Japan for three weeks now.

What has happened in the past week or so? Not too much.

School everyday, which is still fun because everyone wants to talk to me. But its still boring, because I can't understand much yet. So I sit there and draw or practice Japanese writing for like 3 hours at a time. Also, I can't remember if I already said this but in Japanese highschool the teachers move to different classes and the students stay in the same room, and eat lunch there and everything. It reminds me a bit of Canadian elementary school.

I started my 'Saturday" school, and I decided to take karate. So I went to the class, and considering I've done karate for 11 years, it was horribly easy. I think I'm going to switch out and take cooking for my school on Saturday instead, and maybe sign up for a "musakashii" (that means difficult) karate class.

Karaoke is the main activity of teenagers here. I've been four times now. And yesterday, it was for four hours with my two Japanese friends who went on exchange last year, and an exchange student from Australia. 3.5 hours were Japanese. Can I do karaoke in Japanese yet? No. It was not fun. For them? Tons of fun. I can't wait to actually be able to read Japanese at a normal speed.

Another thing that's all the rage here is "purikura". Its basically an interactive photobooth with green-screen technology where you get to edit the photos really cute-ly and add backgrounds and stuff. Then you get a copy of the 6 pictures, with 4 copies of each picture. aka its VERY small, and each person gets a copy of each picture. It's fun, I like it. Girls at school have photoooks just filled with millions of the little puri pictures. As of right now, I have 12. 6 of those are seen above.

I have my Rotary welcome party this week, and we have school holidays from the 19th onwards for a week. And my host family is taking me to Osaka to go to Universal Studios Japan! How wicked is that? I'm exited. Then the next week I have a weekend, thing, with the other exchange students. That should be plenty of fun as well.

Now I'm off to laze around and watch Japanese tv that I can't understand.

亜

朱

里

Japanese High School

So I started school on Tuesday, and its been a lot of fun!

On the first day, it was SO hot (its been SO hot every day actually. people bring towels around with them in japan to wipe off their sweat). I had to do a speech in front of all the teachers first thing, and I was so hot. It just wasn't pretty.

When I first walked into my class, there was a nice little sign on my desk, "welcome to yugakkan ashleigh!"

and a plus giraffe and some pens. It was from a couple of really nice girls, Gami and Lisa. From the moment I walked into school that day, EVERYONE stared at me. All day, all I got was people staring at me or people coming up to me saying something in bad English and when I would reply they said "kawaii!" That means cute. The culture in Japan has some obsession with being "kawaii". I was told I was kawaii only about 238 times on my first day, its only because i'm pretty different looking. My hair being the main thing too. People touch my hair all the time..

So my first was was a lot of fun, despite being stared at all day. But walking home? Well, see, in Kanazawa there's barely any foreigners. Seeing a foreign girl in a Japanes

e uniform causes people to turn their heads. Some guy actually stuck his head completely out of his car window to look at me, even after he was way down the street. That's h

ow much I stick out when wearing my uniform.. But I like the uniform, it looks like "sailor moon". If you say that to people here, they say no, because they don't like sailor moon, or something to that effect.

My first 3 days of school were really fun, everyone in my class is very friendly and helpful. Another thing is that EVERYONE wants to take a picture with me! Its the same with the other exchange students too in their schools. I'm starting to learn more Japanese. It's really hard because NO one speaks English. My homeroom teacher does, but no one in my class does! So there's a lot of miscommunication. But it's fun, and I'm starting to get it. For the past two weeks, Japanese basically just sounds like background noise because I can't understand any of it. It's a really hard language, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

But I think I'm starting to get it. I start Japanese lessons in October.

Anyway. Today was my school festival(it happens tomorrow too, despite tom

orrow being Saturday). It was SO hot out, so obviously, everyone had towels to wipe off their ridiculous amounts of sweat. You know what Japanese people are so small? They sweat out half their body weight everyday here because it's so humid.

SO anyway. We spent all of yesterday preparing for the festival. Meaning we sat outside in the 30* heat all day in our uniforms making signs and stuff. But today was fun, but hot.

My class was making waffles. Other classes made floats or yakisoba or hot dogs or pancakes. Today was my day off so I got to have fun while the other half of my class sold the waffles. But the waffles were like, packages and store bought and were flat and round like a pancake. I still refuse to actually call them waffles. But anyway. Japanese people seem to really like haunted houses, so two of the classes made a haunted house. There was also karaoke in the gym and there was "couple feeling" which in the real world basically means speed dating without the speed. So my friends took me there, and dropped me off, despite my "i dont understand what this is" - in japanese of course - I went to the room where I was greeted with a HOORAH! from a group of like 15 cocky japanese guys. So it was just me and a bunch of guys. The first question they asked in their broken English? "whats your type" ahaha, and every answer of mine was responded with a HOORAH from everyone. Quite entertaining to be so popular..

I think I really like Japanese school. It could just be that the people at this particular school are really friendly and nice and helpful. But the school has a lot of school spirit and its really fun to be at. Of course, real lessons haven't started yet, but the few classes we've had, everyone really tries to include me even though I can't fully understand everything. For example, to the right you will see a note from history class. What does it say? No idea! But the teacher told me to "koh pee" it anyway.

Some interesting things I've found out about Japan this week is that 1) there are no garbage cans on the streets. But when there are, there are 4 or so beside eachother, all for different things! I can never tell which is which..

2) Washrooms at my school have no soap nor hand dryers. Odd.

3) Japanese people can not speak English what so ever (its like Canadians speaking Japanese), so I really think more people should come here to teach English.

4) Karaoke is a way of life here. I've done it three times in the past three days. I went once with the other exchange students (again, if you're reading this, hi!) and then I went with my friend Ayumi who came to my district in Canada last year, and then today we had it at the school festival. Crazy!

5) It's SO humid here, you wouldn't even believe.

6) I have school, on Saturday!

Thats it for this week.

Ps. I've been here two weeks as of tomorrow! Its seemed like much longer though..

アシュリ <-- my name in katakana, its written on my uniforms too!

honey love closet

The past two days havent had super exciting events, but I guess there are some things worth telling.

Yesterday I went to my new school to get fitted for uniforms. So basically, I walk into the school and there's about 800 medals and trophies hanging in the cases. Uhm, legendary?

So I get into the room, and my host sister Mayuka was translating and helping me out, and there was also the rotarian who drove us there and then the admins from the school. My teacher seems so sweet and nice! She was very helpful and gave me a tour of the school and everything. But fitting my uniforms, oh my gosh..

So basically the uniforms in Japan have uniform shoes,

because you have to take your shoes off when you enter a building. So they were fitting me for my shoe size. Yeah, size 9 Canadian doesn't even exist in Japan. They have to special order my shoes for me.. Another thing is that Japanese uniforms are VERY expensive. For a girl, for one article of each item of uniform is about $800 in total. I'm very glad my Rotary club is paying for that!

Then they gave me a sheet with the classes I will be taking. I guess I didn't get to pick - because in Japan they start school in April, so I'm joining a class that already sta

rted. Also, in Japan you study with the same kids in your class for everything. An

d school on Saturday, (optional for me) but one

can take japanese tea ceremony or cooking or things like that. I don't know what I will take, but I get to decide next week. Japanese cooking might be nice, then at least I will have a useable skill..

Today I went out with my host mom to look for cell phones. "takaii" means expensive. I don't know what phone I will get yet, but hopefully one that doesn't cost me Y70, 000! The technology here is really cool. Watching hd tv on your cell? possible.

I met up with some other exchange students in Kanazawa at

Kanazawa station today - Jared, Sandy and Michael (if you're reading this, hey :)! ) The station itself has such cool architecture! and the fountain at the from spells out "welcome" and the time in little water fountains. Twas neat.

Right next to the station is a 7 story

shopping mall. Can you say heaven? The fashion here is INCREDIBLE. Clothes were absolutely gorgeous, but very very expensive. So when people here see that you have a lot of clothes, they think you are rich - but its only because clothes here cost an arm and a leg for nice stuff. But I don't think I will be able to help myself, Japan fashion is just way too cool! Plus, everyday I have to walk through a fashion district of Kanazawa to get to school.. so Im pretty sure I'm going to buy a lot.

Jared, myself and Michael took the bus (which by the way, you are supposed to be quiet on. and its rude to have your cell on loud or to talk loud on the bus) to Korinbo (basically the centre point of downtown) and we went restaurant hunting and found a delightful little soba noodle restaurant, which was basically sooo oiishi. (remember what that means? delicious!) Then we went for a green tea donut at 'mister donut'. I'm absolutely loving Japan. The food and the culture - just everything about it! Green tea flavoured everything also isn't too shabby!

We all went our separate ways to go home, so I took the bus home by myself for the first time. Plus it was dark - so I almost got off on the wrong stop, which would have been a disaster because the stop I have to get off at was about 6 stops after that. Plus it was raining, in the middle of no where and my Japanese isn't very good yet! Its just that the kanjii symbol (the complicated chinese characters you see meshed with japanese characters) for my stop matched the other stop too..

Its very very hot here I find. I'm looking forward to Autumn, so it won't be quite so hot! I'm also looking forward to school on Tuesday and meeting the rest of the exchange students on Sunday.

Questions? Concerns? Anything? Drop me comment :)

ps. daily ridiculous english on a japanese article of clothing:

Three thousand yen for socks?! no way!

Today was nice! I visited the Sea of Japan in Fukoi prefecture with my host mom and Mayuka. It was breathtaking! The road up to the sea had a bunch of little shops which sold things from trinkets for your cellphone (fyi, everyone has a trinket on the strap of their cellphone .. from hello kitty to a plastic vegetable), to squid on a stick!

When we got to the sea, we took a boat ride around the shore. I understood none of the tour though, considering I know no Japanese. But the sea was "kireii" which means beautiful.

Then we went to a Japanese noodle bar in F

ukoi. It was "oishii" which means delicious. I had "tempura soba".. but I couldn't eat it all, it was huge! They serve you cold green tea with every meal I have

come to conclude.. green tea is called "ocha".

After that we went to a big mall, called "the lovely partner".. awkard name..

There were a lot of shops from a grocery store to stationary to clothing. There were a few shops with beautiful clothing, but way too expensive for my budget in the first week of coming here. My host mom told me I had to buy a "bento" box, for my lunches every day. So we went around the mall looking for one. I basically bought the most childish thing ever, consisting of a box with chopsticks ad matching bag. the design? It's like, a cartoon rabbit called miffy and it's orange and probably made for three year olds. But that's okay.. I guess..

The amount of Hello Kitty things in every store still amazes me. There's EVERYTHING Hello Kitty, personally I'm not into it but I mean, it's surprising that they can make so much with the same character.

Another thing I noticed about Japan is that everything you buy is wrapped up in a bad with a sticker and given to you like a little gift. I really appreciate it! But I'm disliking when the lovely casheirs / service people give me my purchase all wrapped up beautifully, say something in Japanese and I have to stare at them like a loser because I have no idea what they said.. I can't wait for Japanese to become less 'noise' and more 'language'!

Tomorrow I am going to my school and buying my uniforms and setting up my classes! I'm pretty excited about the uniforms, only because they look super Japanese and sailor-moon like. I will for sure upload a picture when I get mine.

For now? Oyasui Nasai! (which means good night!)

アシレエ

PS. I absolutely love the English on products here..

Clothing has English saying, and they seldom make sense. Mayuka's boyfriend wore a shirt the other day that said "will show you how to dead" and a shirt today in a store said "long skirt holiday trip". Plus, look at these pictures..

"Whenever you use as you like in favourite colours"

"Lets keep our town beautiful. Therefore, it is important to keep our hearts beautiful first of all"

There's more, but that's just making the Japanese look stupid.. and I would feel bad.

Kenrokuen Gardens

Yesterday, my host sister Mayuka took me to see Kenrokuen Gardens, which is one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. And it is conveniently located in my city! And my oh MY it was gorgeous! We walked around for a few hours, and I was just in awe and taking pictures of everything. It is said you have to see Kenrokuen in every season. Spring for the 'sakura' or, cherry blossoms. Winter for the snow. Autumn for the coloured leaves. I am excited to go back, it was abcolutely breathtaking! I have more pictures on my facebook, (a LOT more.. like 50), so go check those out. It was absolutely beautiful there!

Kenrokuen Gardens is very close to Kanzawa Castle, so we went to visit that too! It was incredible as well, nothing like the Castles in North America or Europe!

We got there and there was a festival going on called 'Japan Tent' where there are tents with different food from different countries. I find it funny that there was no Canada because.. well.. Canadian food can not be described ;)

After our visit to the Castle we walked back to the bus station but stopped in a little dessert store on the way. I don't know what it was called, but I got some .. white balls on a stick covered with Matcha.. Apparently it's very good, but I just must not have the taste buds of a Japanese person yet.. I couldn't eat it all..

The bus station I have to go to everyday to get to school and whatnot is right in the downtown of Kanazawa, right in front of the big department store. So Mayuka and I went in yesterday, man it was big! I guess I don't live in a small city, because what small city has a Louis Vuitton all the way to Gucci store in it's downtown? Kanazawa reminds me of Toronto, totally. I forgot some stuff at home, like makeup, so we went to a store called 'Plaza' in the department store, and I was looking at makeup. Holy Crap are things expensive here! I mean, ¥1,200 is A LOT for one tube of mascara, and not even a good brand either! I ended up spending ¥2,100 on an eyelash curler and mascara.. that's $24.00 Canadian, for two things that should have been worth only $10. Maybe it was just my choice of store..

I am still very jetlagged. I fell asleep last night at 6 and got up this morning at 7:30! haha

Today my host mom and Mayuka are taking me to Fukui prefecture to go see the Sea of Japan! I am excited and will update you whenever possibleeee.

Leave me comments also, because then I know if people actually care ;)

アシリアンエ

A little exploration

Today was my second full day in Japan.

I went off to explore my neighborhood by myself this afternoon. I found a huge temple / shrine two houses down. Pretty epic, you don't see that often in Canada.

The houses are so amazing here. I mean they differ between amazigly unique modern architecture to traditional-what-you-would-expect-in-Japan houses. I also went to the convenience store down the street, and the amount of coffee drinks is incredible. I mean they have about 20 different kinds of mocha latte drinks etc etc, it's crazy!

I also did a tour of kanazawa city with my host sister, Mayuka and her boyfriend. Downtown kanazawa reminds me a bit of Toronto, just smaller. There were tons of shops I would like to go to soon.. everything looks so inviting and different! Especially clothing stores ;)

An update on that fruit we bought in the grocery store.. what I thought was an apple turned out to be a peach! But the peaches here are white and red inside, not orange! And the other awkwardly shaped fruit turned out to be a FIG! I've personally never seen a fig where it's not all shriveled and dry in a package.. It was actually very good! It was squishy and sweet and white and red coloured as well.

Tomorrow I will be going to Kenrokuen with Mayuka! That is something I am looking forward to, and will definitely take lots of pictures! It's supposed to be beautiful!

Also, Japanese television? It seems to be just talk shows or sports. They also have a lot of puzzles on the shows, like "which group does this fit in?" I've been watching a lot of Japanese track meets and this one talk show where they have to answer puzzles so that they can get food. I don't know, the concept is pretty strange.. but I enjoy the cheesy-ness of the commercials here!

I'm going to go take a shower in the shower room now.. and hopefully I can actually figure out how it works properly this time!

アシレーアンエ

a little lonely..

Notice anything about these magazines?

No Miley Cyrus! That's right! I was very excited to come to the realization about NO MILEY CYRUS!

Until today, on the radio in my house, a miley song played.. 3 times..

I think that is the worst part about Japan so far, just hearing her song "party in the USA" intoxicate the airwaves here in Japan..

Yesterday night I went to the grocery store with my host mom. That was quite an experience! I took fruit for

granted back in Canada! It's about 1.50$ here for just one apple! Hello malnutrition. The fish aisle was not just an aisle, it was basically an entire store in itself. We walked through it and there was squid and octopus and snails and everything in between! My host mom poked a squid, it wiggled, and she exclaimed "yum, fresh!" hahahah..

A lot of things are similar, but a lot of things are different about the food here. For example, the frosted flakes are the same here (but in Japanese) but they have different TYPES of things, like fruit! My host mom bought a package of awkward pear shaped fruits that they only have in Japanese. I have yet to try one, but I will let you know how they taste when I get to eat it..

An update on the toilets.. I still have no idea how to work them! There are so many buttons and knobs and at the back, it looks like a sink but I'm not sure what to do with it because I'm afraid I would be washing my hands in toilet water or something gross.. There are two different flushing modes, but I don't know the difference so I've just been alternating between the two modes each time, trying to figure out a difference (there is none that I can tell..)

My host mom speaks English, same with my one host sister. They were both exchange students to Ontario, Canada! They have a lot of Canadian stuff in their house which is nice! My other host sister does not speak English, and I speak no Japanese as of yet, so we don't communicate..

I haven't been outside my house yet much. I want to go explore, but I'm afraid of getting lost, because I'm alone. Everyone is out of the house! I also don't really know WHERE in Kanazawa I am, because apparently its split into different sections. I don't think I'm close to any exchange students either.. hopefully I can figure that out soon! I'm a tad lonely..

Anyway, if you guys have any questions about Japan, let me know. I'd love to inform you / discover something new myself !

アシリーアンエ

in JAPAN!

I arrived in Japan yesterday night!

The three flights and two layover were SO long. I was travelling for 36 hours, then plus the time difference!

A group of about 20 exchange students all going to Japan went together on the flight. It was a lot of fun, and a good way to loose track of time!

The first thing I did at Tokyo airport was spot out the crazy ending machines..

And then I checked out the crazy toilets! The buttons? I think they're useless. I mean, besides making he toilet sing when it flushes, it's pretty unnecessarily confusing!

At Tokyo airport, the four of us travelling to Kanazawa stopped at a restaurant for a drink. Did you know they have fake, wax versions of everything you can order in the windows? It's actually a very good concept! The 'creme soda' here is GREEN! I just thought you would think that is pretty weird..

After four hours passed at Tokyo airport, i then travelled on a VERY small plane to Komatsu airport where myself and the other exchange students were getting picked up by our host families! (I fell asleep the whole time.. but not until after I tried a very weird flavoured drink called "royal milk tea")

When we arrived, finally, we were at baggage claims, and we saw our host families and host clubs all behind the glass doors, standing with our names on signs and every member of the family there, ready to snap a picture. It was so exciting and exactly what I imagined!

My family and club were at the airport to pick me up along with my friends Ayumi and Yoshi who came Canada last year! It was nice to see them too!

The drive to my new home was 40 minutes, where we then had donuts (mine was GREEN TEA, and delicious!) and I directly went to sleep after taking a shower in the "shower room". In Japan, they have a room where you sit in the shower and he entire room is a shower. There is also a bathtub that you soak in after you are clean. And showers only happen at night, which is fine by me. The time change tricked by brain into thinking it had only been about 12 hours when it had actually been a good two days. I am still very jetlagged!

I woke up this morning to very loud japanese sirens and a japanese voice saying something over a loud speaker. I have yet to figure out what that was.. but it was pretty different..

I start school next week, but order my uniforms on Thursday and sort my classes. I am very excited for all of that :)

But for now? Naptime. It's Sunday 1:38 in the afternoon here, but 12 midnight at home.

(nemutai, which means "I'm sleepy!")

ねむたい！

アシリーアンエ

ps. the cars drive on the left side of the road! i was shocked to find that out!

1 days, 06 hrs, 48 min, 54 sec

I can not believe it.

I leave SO soon!

I've packed all my stuff, tried to get everything organized.

I hope it will all fall into place!

I have such horrible nerves and butterflies in my stomach about leaving.

It started to hit me yesterday that I am ACTUALLY going.

Life back here just started to be fantastic, I think my destiny has some pretty bad timing!

Saying goodbye to my best friend today was hard. It was the first time I actually cried, recently, about leaving.

The flight route I will be flying takes me from Toronto to Chicago to Narita to Komatsu.

I leave 8am Friday morning, and will arrive 845pm Saturday night.

Long day of travel? You betcha..

日本の一年

The past two days were great. I've gotten to spend time with my two sisters and mom and dad before I go.Yesterday we went out to a restaurant called Spice Avenue, an 'Asian lounge'. But there was basically nothing Japanese to have. They should have just called it a 'chinese restaurant'. because everything was just Chinese anyway..

Enough about the restaurant.

We went back home, and my family gave me a nice little, chocolate, bon voyage cake.

It was delicious!

Today, my sisters gave me beautiful gifts.

My one sister, Alanna, gave me her favourite necklace and earrings, to remind me of her when I get lonely. I think that is the sweetest thing, and I adore the thought!

My other sister, Andrea, bought me three beautiful books. One, a postcard book with 30 postcards of artwork by a Japanese artist. She then also got me a book entitled "One Year In Japan", and it's basically a really neat book explaining the culture of Japan! That will be useful! Then she also got me a "listography" book, which will be neat to complete in Japan. Here is the online version if you wanted to check it out: http://listography.com/

It's great to know that I have people back here who will miss me, but I'm so excited to leave for a year and discover new things.

I leave in four days..

I am not packed yet..

I think I should go do that!

Oh! I forgot!

Today I went to the beach with my fantastic friend from Australia, Andrew Swan! (Swanny for short)

It was honestly 35 degrees outside, so we went swimming and tested out my new waterproof camera.

It was great to see him again (for the last time.. until I go to Australia whenever that may be..), and of course, hanging out with exchange students always makes your day better :)

"back in Australia.."