Wow, time goes by really fast. I keep wanting to update this blog but I can never find any time. And that isn't very good because I'm always doing stuff and after a months worth of adventures, I end up sort of forgetting a lot of the good stuff I had worth saying. But anyway, here it goes.
Since last February 14th, I moved in with a new host family. The parents are only 28 and 33, really young. maybe the youngest in rotary host family history?
but it's so fun living here, they have no kids - it's just the three of us. they're so great with wanting to give me a good experience while in japan! they've taken me out to a bunch of local historical spots, and in the start of my March Break they even took me for a two day trip to Kyoto! That was awesome, because I got to see a lot of great and famous places, and it's always nice to go with people whose company you enjoy. Life seriously turns around when you have a great host family! I am sad to say I'm moving out on April 4th.. It will be exciting to have another new host family, but I am really content living here! My host "parents" feel more like siblings, and I feel so at ease. Well, I guess that's the life of an exchange student, moving on..
I went on my school trip to Kyuushu at the beginning of March! That was something I was looking forwards to since the beginning of my exchange -
a 6 day trip with my friends from school. I can't believe it's over.. On the calendar in my mind, once the school trip is over means that it's almost time to go home to Canada.. and it is! There's only about 4 more months! That seems like a lot, but it's oh so very short. Anyway, my school trip was wicked. We took a bus to osaka, rode a plane, then rode in more busses. It ended up being that for the 6 days we mostly rode in busses. They would let us out for like 10 minutes at a famous place then stick us back on. We drove in a crammed humid coach bus all the way through the bottom island of japan (kyuushu) from kagoshima airport to nagasaki. We had a day trip in Nagasaki and saw the atomic bomb site, we saw Kumamoto Castle, we ate a ton of food, and even went to universal studios japan for the last day.
It was a good trip, a lot of fun! I also had my first onsen?
In Japan it's totally legit to bathe with everyone in a hot spring. It may not have been so bad if it wasn't with a group of your skinny school friends? My teacher told me I didn't have to do it, on account of the culture is so different - so I didn't do it the first night. But the second night, I took the plunge and did it. It ended up being a lot of fun! The weird thing was that they brought their camera's and were totally fine about taking pictures of eachother? That's apparently not normal - so don't be frightened, it's just my weird school.
Speaking of weird school.. In Japan, school ends in March and the new school year starts in April. The last day of school is usually a sports tournament. My school's sports day was fun, but everyone was acting weird and immature and the day ended up with me yelling at my entire class for how immature and mean they all are - and me storming out of the class on the note that I was going back to Canada. Apparently I'm a horrible person in their eyes because I have a lot of guy friends. It's apparenlty a horrible thing for a girl in Japan to have a lot of guy friends. It's not my fault if the guys are more friendly and act their age in compared to many of the minnie mouse loving girls in highschool who act like they are 10. It was about time I yelled at them. Yeah, I know I'm in the wrong for doing it - that's their culture, but the amount they bully eachother and the way they act towards each other .. it was about time I called them up on it. Can't take it back now either - what's been done has been done. I guess it was good timing, now they have a 2 week break to forget about it and we will all return back to school in April in a new grade and with the adventures of spring break on our minds.
I just want to point out that I'm not getting an average look at the average japanese teenager. My school is for very, let's say, "not so smart" students. And because of that, they are all very immature and it doesn't truly show me the japanese highschool student culture - although my school is fantastically fun! I believe normal japanese highschool students study a lot, go to cram school after school and all of that which we would imagine. But my school is different, I don't even want to imagine them trying to take a test that I took in highschool.. I don't think this school even gets homework! It's crazy, but fun. I enjoy it.
See? I forget everything that's happened. I guess when I remember or have something new to talk about, I will re-update. Oh, well, I am going on a Rotary trip this saturday for 4 days - kind of exciting! I will update about that afterwards.
Questions? Feedback? Anything? Send it my way!
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