a day in the life of an exchange student

The Final Days..

2011-04-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve been meaning to write the last blog of my trip for a while now. I was so busy in July as it was all going on, and everything was coming to an end. In August when I was at home, I was so depressed I just didn’t even want to talk about the fact I wasn’t in japan anymore. September rolled around, and University started. At first I didn’t really want to be here in Canada. My class from Japan sent me an incredible package of 30 letters, all with the cutest spongebob envelopes and other various adorable Japanese characters. It was so hard reading letter from my friends in Japan, seeing the puri I wasn’t in and the pictures of all the times they hung out together and I wasn’t there. But, well, I’m getting over it. My mother saw my life in Japan, and she knew how important my entire life there was. When I was in Japan my friends at school and all of the teachers kept telling me I should come back for the graduation ceremony in March. I knew I would have a break from University around that time, but I didn’t want to make any promises. So anyway, my mother knew how important and how amazing it would be for me to go back to Japan and see all of my best friends before they all finished school and went to different places for university.

So guess where I am right now? I’m sitting on a plane, flying over Alaska at the moment I believe. I’m headed to JAPAN! My friends, in just less that 6 hours (I’ve already been on the plane foreeeeeever) are coming to pick me up at Narita airport in Tokyo! The last time I was there, it was such a sad occasion.. I was traveling back from Japan in my sailor school uniform with way too much heavy luggage, and a broken heart.

This trip will be amazing – I’m staying in Japan for three weeks. For the first week, starting very very soon, I will be in Tokyo! A great bunch of kids from a university in Tokyo came to my University in first semester to study. They were so wonderful, but sadly they had to leave in December. I’m glad I got to meet them and become really good friends with them, and it was at the perfect timing too. Hanging out with them in Canada definitely made me feel better about not being in Japan. Anyway, I’m so excited! After Tokyo, I’m headed back to my beloved town of Kanazawa! Well, the city of Kanazawa. I’ve already e-mailed all my friends and one of my teachers printed out a letter from me to them saying how I would be there in a few short weeks. I have so many plans! I have so many people to see and so many things to do! Not to mention a ton of Japanese food to eat! I will post all about my trip, and I’m thinking of making a “flikr” account to host all of my photos from Japan. I will let you know!

Anyway, I wanted to finish off my blog. Like, I wanted to write about all the last things I did in Japan since that other post from July down there. My last two weeks in Japan was the busiest time of my life! So many goodbyes…

I hung out with my friends everyday afterschool. I went out for dinner and chatted with so many people. It’s amazing to think that when I got to Japan a year ago, I couldn’t understand if they were asking me my name or if they were asking me do I like to eat rice. I’m going to be honest, I think it’s so cool how I got to know people so well, that I never would have met or had the chance to know if I didn’t learn Japanese and have the amazing opportunity from Rotary.

But yeah, so in the last few weeks of being in Japan, do you know much purikura I took? I spent way too much money on that, that’s for sure! But that’s Japanese schoolgirl culture for you, and I don’t regret how much I spent on the silly little sticker pictures. I made good memories.

I went to karaoke with my exchange student friends, and I went to say goodbye to my calligraphy teacher. I didn’t know how much I really liked her until it was time to say goodbye! I’ve planned to meet up with her when I’m in Kanazawa next week.

My final host family was really helpful in the process of getting ready to leave Japan. My host mom helped me send packages and she drove me to school when I was sick – because I wasn’t sleeping enough because I was so busy. I kind of regret not being able to become super close with this family, but I barely had time in the last month for anything at all! I ate so many matcha green tea donuts in July you wouldn’t believe. They only come out in the summer – so I’m not going to be able to have any on this trip either. But that’s okay, I definitely still have them lurking around in my fat cells ahahaha.

The last days of school were really sad. Sometimes my friends would just look at me and break out crying, it broke my heart. I hated seeing them cry, and it made me cry. I took so many pictures over the last few days and I made all of my best friends huge cards with nice long letters I wrote myself in Japanese. One of the English teachers, Hirata Sensei, made everyone write a letter to me in English during one of the classes. As I’ve told you before, they can’t speak English. I didn’t read the letters until I was on the plane ride. I’m glad I read them then, they made me laugh.

I stayed over at my friends’ house one time before I went home, and I also saw “toy story 3” with one of my other best friends. We had been planning to see it forever, and it was the saddest movie I’ve ever seen – probably because it really applied to my life at that time. Going off to university, and leaving people and loved ones behind. Let’s just say the whole theatre was silent but you could hear us bawling our eyes out loud and clear. For my birthday last month, that friend actually sent me a copy of Toy Story 3 in Japanese! She’s the greatest.

My rotary goodbye party was where it hit me. Rotary had it for me about a week before I was set to get on a plane and head back to Canada. Seeing all of my host families in one room and listening to them all make a speech about our time together was so hard to hear. I really loved my host families; I was truly blessed for the chance of meeting them all, and becoming that close with all of them. I think about them often.

My school principal made everyone chant 頑張れ頑張れアシュリー (ganbare ganbare Ashleigh) at the party. It basically means “fight” or “do your best”. There’s really no English translation, but I learned the meaning of it over the year I was in Japan, and I often say it to myself for inspiration. Honestly, Yugakkan, my highschool was the best highschool in the world. Its sometime difficult to explain, and I didn’t really realize until after I left, but I learned a lot from that school and everyone there.

My last day of school was actually the worst day of my life. My host mom drove me to school and I walked in completely somber. As I entered my classroom my friends just took pictures with me, but none of us were really smiling. I had to do a speech in front of the whole school that day, but that’s no problem. I’m glad I was able to, one of my friends from another school actually never got to do a speech. It was nerve wracking standing alone in front of a thousand kids with straight black hair. I read my speech kind of off of a paper, but that’s okay. I was almost crying by the end of it. When I did end, my class actually yelled something incredible, 『アシュリー、ありがとう！』Which means “Ashleigh, thank you!” I just felt to loved at that moment, and I left the stage almost in tears. What brought me to tears was talking to my homeroom teacher outside the gymnasium, just the same way we had done a year prior – the only difference was that it was in English a year ago and now it was only in Japanese. My teacher was the best teacher in the world, she helped me with everything. When we were standing outside talking waiting for the assembly to end, she told me that the class needed a few minutes to prepare something for me in the classroom. She told me to just wait in the teachers lounge until someone came to get me. I waited about 15 minutes there, all the teachers walking by me and saying goodbye. It was really hard to do.. Then my best friend Mirai came down, and she just grabbed my hand and we ran through the hallways to our classroom where I found my class lined up infront of the chalkboard with beautiful writing all over it. And then, they sang. They sang my favourite song, the only song I knew when I first got to Japan. The song is called “Gift” and the lyrics tell a beautiful tale of how precious the gifts in life are, and how you could never ever ever forget the precious memories made – there couldn’t have been a song more applicable to me at that time. Needless to say, I dropped to the floor crying – ive never felt my heart break in half before and I hope I never have to feel that again. As they were singing this song, they were all crying too, it was the saddest thing to experience, but I’ll never forget it. They made me a scrap book, everyone made one page by themselves. It was filled with pictures and letters and my best friend Mirai even got all of the teachers to write out little letters too. It was the greatest gift I have ever received.

After all this, obviously I was crying my eyes out – and so were 99% of the people in my class. I’ve never been so sad…… We took a bunch of pictures and exchanged goodbyes. It was the worst day of my entire life……

That evening, my friend Gami who’s family owns a traditional kimono store, invited me to her house with our other good friend Risa. Her mother dressed us in beautiful Yukata’s and we went to the riverside of the old Geisha district and had a fireworks festival of out own. I will never get to do that again, and it was the coolest experience – such a Japanese tradition. Gami and I had many fights over the year, she didn’t understand my culture and I didn’t understand hers for a very long time either. But all and all, because we had so many fights, we became really good friends.

The next day was d-day. The day I was going to Canada. I headed to the airport with my family, wearing my school uniform and carrying bags that were doomed to be too heavy. Well, they were like 20lbs overweight in each of them but I feel that the combination of me being a Japanese speaking crying foreigner wearing a school uniform allowed me to pay zero cents extra, so that was nice. A ton of my friends showed up at the airport, and even my school dance teachers! I wasn’t expecting them! It was such a good surprise! Some of my host families, some of my best friends and even some of the Rotarians whom I had spent a lot of time with.

I yelled “行ってきます！”as I was leaving, and I get to say ただ〜いま today! (for all of you non Japanese speakers, that basically translates to “I’m leaving!” and “I’m back!”

As my plane flew up and over the airport, I saw my friends on the top of the viewing area waving my Canadian flag I gave them. I couldn’t stop crying until I reached Canada almost two days later……

So, there you have it. It’s something I don’t want to admit but, my exchange is over. A year seemed like such a long time before I went away, but now I see that a year is such a short time, and it certainly wasn't enough time. I think of my exchange, Japan, my friends and families everyday and the whole experience changed me forever. I have a very good life.

I will tell you all about this trip as soon as I can. I also plan on taking pictures of EVERYTHING! Especially everything I eat!

Thanks again for reading,

アシュリー

2010-07-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

I was re-reading my blog and I am going to stop complaining about how sad I am to be leaving, and start talking about all the amazing opportunities that I have had!

Well, let's see.. what have I done since the end of April? A lot.

I moved out of my 5th host family just about three weeks ago. It's a blessing in disguise how once you leave someone, you

come to realize how much you really liked them. I didn't do very much with that family - we didn't go on any trips or go out to dinner all the time but it was definitely a great experience. My host parents were really caring and helped

me with everything. They taught me a lot of Japanese and were just like my real parents if not better. I would stay up taking to my host mom for hours and hours every night. I really miss being able to do that. I really liked that family!

I've moved in with another family - they volunteered to host me, so they're also a good family, really sweet. But, you can't help but have favourites, and this one isn't in the top rankings. I guess it just kind of bothers me how I'm going to be going home so soon and I don't really want to think about it - but they keep bringing it up. That, and the fact that they keep inserting English words into the conversations. That may seem good, but no, it's annoying. It's truly annoying. I've lived here for 10 and a half months now and I understand Japanese now a days. I don't really need you to make me even more confused and put oddly pronounced English words into your

Japanese. I will stop complaining.

In May, my real mother came for a trip to Japan for two weeks! My host family at that time was super awesome and offered to drive us around everywhere and take us places. My mom came to my city, Kanazawa, for one week. We got to put on kimonos and do a tea ceremony. I took her to all the tourist places in my city such as the geisha district, kenrokuen garden and the samurai district. We ate a ton of matcha ice cream whenever it was available and had a lot of fun. I have the pictures on my facebook if you want to check it out, here's the link to the album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=432930&id=513680245&l=7db0d64713

My Rotary club hosted a lunch for my mom to meet all of my families. It was really amazing to be able to have the people I love most in the world all in the same room!

For the second week, the two of us went on a trip to Tokyo!

It was my only time that I've ever been to Tokyo this year.

Here's a link to the pictures so you can follow along:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=434853&id=513680245&l=f8a729e87b

I've wanted to go since I was a kind and am really glad I got to go! It was so much fun!

We went to Shibuya, Harajuku, Asakusa. Shibuya was packed with people. We watched the shibuya crosswalk from the third story window of a starbucks. It was really cool to get to go there! I've only ever seen pictures! Harajuku is usually packed with people but we went on a Tuesday night so it wasn't full at all. Not the true Japanese experience but I guess it's better than not even being able to breathe. When we went to Asakua, a lot of people took my picture. They said "sugoi kirei gaijin". This would be fine if it wasn't that like 15 of them were old men. Kind of creepy. In the next days we went to Yokohama, where there have a big ferris wheel and a lot of shopping malls. They also have one of the biggest China town's in Japan, hahahaha. We also went to Kamakura where they have the second biggest buddah in Japan - the biggest is in Nara where I went on the Rotary Trip. We also went to Shizouka, where we saw Mount Fuji from a train and had some delicious tea. The trip was fun, I think my mom enjoyed it as well.

In May I also started a new Saturday course at school. I used to take cooking, but now I take Hip-Hop. It's not anything traditional, but it's so much fun. Or should I say, it WAS so much fun. It ended last week. The sensei was amazing at dance, and other university dance students helped teach too. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. It was also fun because the senseis always talked to me and i even ran into them once downtown at a festival. We were going to have a goodbye party, but it turns out that the courses at the university for Saturday school had to end a week earlier for some reason, so we never got around to that. But i enjoyed that course, it made waking up on saturday mornings at 6:30 way better.

In June we had a Rotary orientation. It was average. I would tell you more about if it I could recall, but I can't. I love my exchange students.

In June, Japanese high schools have their sports festivals. We spent a month practicing for it. But we weren't practicing sports, oh no. We were practicing cheerleading. The way the day went was that there were random events such as tug-o-war and re-lay races but the big event of the day was the cheers. I'm a third year student in class number 8 so the teams were set up as the same class number or all three years. First years, Second years and Third years 8 class were all the "yellow team". Our cheer was to the music of a really popular manga. I've never read it or ever will read it, but my class made me one of the main characters because he has "blonde hair". My hair is apparently blonde. It was a ton of fun, but it was SO hot that day and my outfit for my character happened to be wearing black pants and a black jacket. It was HOT.

We didn't end up winning but we had a ton of fun. My whole class cried when the day was over because we put so much work into the day and we really enjoyed it and was sad that it was over.

In June my dearest Sandy left Japan. We also lost Michael and Andrew. It's crazy that exchange is ending! It went by really really fast, but it's been an amazing experience, that's for sure.

I have two more weeks in Japan and every day until the day I leave is packed with plans. For the past two weeks my school friends has testing so they couldn't hang out, so I'm hanging out with a majority of them in the next two weeks. It's going to be super busy, and I'm going to be poor by the end of it - taking purikura with each of them. I was looking through my purikura book the other day and counting how much I have spend on purikura in the past 10 months, and it equals over 125 dollars. After this week I bet it will be 150. Such a crazy passtime, but it's so much fun. My Japanese friends were astonished when I said that we don't have purikura in Canada. They asked, "but what do you do for fun if you don't have purikura?!"

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=310158&id=513680245&l=a454273e88

AND

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=429499&id=513680245&l=d104452cd3

I hung out with two friends from school yesterday.

The one girl's family owns a kimono shop. How Japanese is that! So we went and we tried on a bunch of kimonos.

We're planning to have a "花火", which in English means fireworks, sometime over the next two weeks in our kimonos. It's traditional in Japan that in the summer you get dressed in your summer kimonos and you do fireworks. There's actually a big fireworks show in July, but I'm going to miss it, so my friends are going to do one with me.

The picture to the right is a picture of the kimono I bought!

I have two more weeks left - a lot to pack, a lot of people to hang out with, a lot of food to eat, but its just not enough time. I wish I had more time! It's been the experience of a lifetime. There's no way I can express in words how grateful I am for this experience this year Rotary gave me!

leaving?

2010-06-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

i don't even want to talk about how upsetting it is to think I'M LEAVING JAPAN IN A MONTH AND ONE WEEK.

that is absurd. i feel like i just got here. it was just yesterday when i was still going through interviews to get into the exchange program!

im so sad to be going back to canada, but it's purely for the fact that i just wish this year wouldn't stop. it's been the best year of my life so far and i just dont want to stop making memories with all the people i've had the pleasure and opportunities of meeting.

i don't know what else to say. i don't even really want to think about it more than i have to..

...

2010-05-09T09:40:00.001-07:00

"often the greatest enemy of present happiness is past happiness too well remembered"

lately

2010-05-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

i've been thinking a lot lately..

i also wish i would have wrote down all my thoughts about every single thing interesting or new that i found in japan, and all the feelings i've had over the past few months. i know it's a little late, but let me start with this list about what i've been thinking about lately:

1. i can't believe how fast time has gone. it's almost time to go home! my plane ticket has been bought and i am going to be back in canada this july 18th.. my heart broke into pieces after reading the confirmation e-mail from the travel agent..

2. being away from your family and traditions for such a long time makes you miss the stuff you thought you hated, and also makes you wish you had spend more time with your loved ones and didn't complain so much about things you could have fought your way through.

3. i'm going to miss the friends i've made here so much. i don't think they realize how much they mean to me, and i wish they did. i want to hang out with my friends from school more and i've been trying to stress that i only have two more months in japan, but it's difficult to make finalized plans with japanese people i find..

4. i haven't been accepted to the universities that i really want to go to yet. that's a problem. i don't really want to go to the other universities i'm already accepted at.. what am i going to do with my life? all i want to do is move to tokyo, go clubbing in osaka, and dress up like the crazy japanese girls do - for every day of my life. i don't want to go back to the country of jeans and a t-shirt!

april fools

2010-04-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

Time has really flown by. It seems like I've only been here a couple weeks - but yet it feels like I've lived a lifetime. I've lived in Japan for 8 months now. I'm living with my fifth host family right now, and it's already that time in exchange where the countdown to going back to Canada is ticking down..

My fourth host family was absolutely amazing. I was their first exchange student, so they tried to give me a really good experience in Japan while not having any rules or past experiences to live up to. They were great and so caring, and now that I'm living in a new host family, I realize how much I miss them. Not to say that this new host family is bad, but I've lived here 3 weeks and haven't done anything with them yet. I have two host siblings - both don't talk to me. Nor to eachother really so I guess I shouldn't be that concerned. My new host dad owns a famous company of Japanese sake - and my host mom is just a sweetheart. I have my first real Japanese style bedroom where I have paper sliding walls and a traditional futon bed that I have to take out of the closet every night. It's cool, it's a new experience.

April has gone by really fast. I went on the Rotary trip at the end of March with all of the exchange students. We went to Miyama Jinja, Hiroshima, Osaka, Nara. We saw a lot of great traditional / touristy things in Japan. We also had a lot of late nights and about 8 hours of sleep total over the 4 days. I would expand on those goings on, but I'm not going to. hahaha. But the trip was an overall success I would say - despite having to sleep for 3 days straight after coming home.

School started up again. I had a fight with my classmates the day before Spring break, but they sort of forgot about it over the two weeks that we had for vacation. Now I am a 3年生(a third year student). Our classes changed, but it’s not like they got harder. Now we have arts and crafts class, and music class where we learn children’s songs. It’s because over half the class want to be kindergarten teachers.. This past Friday we spend class at a kindergarten playing with kids. It kind of sucks how I couldn’t answer some of the 3 year olds questions because I’m not fluent in Japanese..
School is fun, BUT I feel like my brain is melting a little bit from not actually doing anything at school anymore..

April was a beautiful season in Japan. The cherry blossoms bloomed! I went out many times to see the flowers, it was absolutely beautiful! There were a ton of tourists around in April, but no wonder, the country was so gorgeous.

My Rotary club had a special dinner in honour of the cherry blossoms – in Japanese they’re called sakura. There were geisha’s and I got to do taiko with the geisha’s on the stage which was pretty cool!

At school this week we had a third year student barbeque. It was sort of raining and chilly so that kind of sucked, but it was fun. We made yakisoba and roasted marshmallows. T’was a good time.

I probably should update this more often. Life is actually way more interesting that this blog makes it seem, I swear! Sorry. I will update more in the next few months. Can you believe it? I go home in less than 3!

This month was easter - but not it Japan. My mom sent me a couple cadbury cream eggs from Canada and the dogs in this family legit broke into my room, into the box and ate the chocolate. Totally was afraid they committed suicide in my room - but they're okay. They just ate my easter. no big.

i'm not very creative with these titles..

2010-03-25T03:42:00.000-07:00

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!

アシュリー

huh? wher'd time go?

2010-02-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

it's been almost a month since my last post. what?

where on earth has time gone?

speaking of where time has gone, I can't even remember. everyday is so busy, but nothing too extravagant happens everyday. it's just so tiring to listen so intently to japanese all day long, but i love it here. time is going to fast and i don't want to leave! we have to book our flight dates with the travel agent in two days, greeeattt. i don't wanna leave!

even though, i feel like i've hit a wall with the language. i try to hard and still cant speak properly and writing and reading is killer.. even though i try so hard, it just doesn't come easy. and i definitely had a breakdown over that a few days ago - along with having my first catfight in japanese with a friend over the fact that i didn't help sweep the classroom one day out of the past six months.

im moving to my FOURTH host family today! time has been flying so fast - and i've accumulated so much luggage. i think i have just about double what i came with. crap. i feel so embarrassed!

so, the olympics are in canada - and i feel so patriotic about it. i love canada so much and am glad that people are finally going to pay attention to it a little more :) watch the opening ceremonies? they were amazing! it was cool to see all the countries and realize i have a friend in so many places - i love exchange students! the world is so big, yet so small. there are so many more places that i want to go to, and as soon as i can. theres so many more languages i want to learn and cultures that i want to experience. it just sucks that my wallet isnt deep enough for these dreams of mine. anyone wanna hook me up with some lucky lottery numbers? thanks.

anyyyway, i don't feel like writing anymore - but i should update more. soo, i will do that another day. i move to my new host family in twentttyyyyy minutes! scary, but exciting as always. wish me luck?

ash

ps. i can't believe i was in temagami a year ago - it seems like just yesterday we were all getting ready to go out on exchange and didn't even know what country we were going to. now we're all off and out in the world becoming new people for the year. time flies.. make every moment a good one eh :)

pps. valentines day in japan is very different - girls only give chocolate to boys?

best days of my life

2010-01-15T21:41:00.001-08:00

So, I’m going to talk about myself in this post. Maybe a little conceited, but my birthday and the day after have been the most amazing days of my life. Went through every emotion to the extreme, it was amazing.

So, my birthday was coming up. And, my classmates know I’m getting better at Japanese – but I guess they still don’t believe I know as much as I do. The day before my birthday, I knew they were making me a big card and planning a birthday surprise. I smiled to myself all day and pretended not to know a single thing about it. It was so cute knowing how much effort they were putting into stuff! They kept asking me really obvious questions like, “what time are you coming to school tomorrow?” and such. I knew, and that made me really excited.

So, my birthday rolled around and I went to school and one of my best friends at school kept me outside in the hallway, even past when the bell rang. I totally knew what was up and played into it, it was so adorable! So when she finally said we should go to class, I walked in, on the chalkboard they wrote “HAPPY BIRTH DAY ASHLEIGH” and wrote all their names! Then they sang “Happy Birthday” in English! It was amazing! In Japanese, they pronounce birthday bas-day, it’s cute. By the way, “Happy Birthday” in Japanese is “Tanjouubi Omedetou” :) We took group pictures with the writing on the chalkboard. It was so cute of them to do that for me :)

Then time past, and it was lunch time. That’s when they showered me with gifts! People got me all kind of packaged treats, and many people made me cards with cute charcters (hand drawn) or with pictures of us of together. I could read all of what they wrote to me in the notes, which I find amazing. I would have had NO IDEA what so ever what they said 4 months ago! One girl even wrote to me in English. Of course, it’s broken English, but her message was so sweet. She said how I became one of her best friends, etc. That’s when I started to bawl and realize how great my classmates are! Then a boy from another class gave me chocolate, and a boy in my class came inside, and handed mea mini snowman – made of legit snow from outside. Basically the funniest thing ever! I brought my Nikon camera to school so we took a TON of pictures. My friends took the camera and took pictures of everything that went on. It was so much fun!

Then my classmates made it seem like it was over, but I still knew about the card. And at the end of the day when we were all about to leave, they said Ashleigh, turn around and we’ll blindfold you. When they re-turned me around and un-blindfolded me, they had put the giant card up on the chalkboard. It was absolutely amazing – they all had written notes to me next to their favourite character that they drew. It’s amazing and it’s something I’m going to keep forever!

In the evening, Rotary gave my host sister money for me to have a party and bring my exchange student friends out for dinner. We went to the arcade before hand and played with the “UFO catchers” – the claw machines. Since they’re kind of hard, I took advantage of it being my birthday and asked one of the guys working there for help. I ended up winning a huge hello kitty for only 200 yen, 2 dollars CAD. Pretty good gift to myself I would say! Then we went for dinner – we had Indian curry. It was delish! Then we went to another restaurant and had cake. They sell the cake in separate slices, but the store put it all together and pit candles on it and made me a birthday cake! It was so cute! Definitley had a great day!

But my happiness came to a halt because I had planned to go to the airport the next day and say goodbye to my friend Nick – who was going back to Australia – with all the other exchange students. I had asked my teacher, and she had to ask the principal. Because it was during school time and I wasn’t with an adult, they asked Rotary – and they said no – I couldn’t go. I cried and cried because I never got a proper goodbye with Nick who has been one of my best friends for the past 4 and a half months. I cried, and there was no way I could go because my school said no and my parents also knew I wasn’t allowed to go. But the thing that made it worse, was that every other exchange student got to go – it was just me. So, my plan was so wake up super early and go to school super early and cry to my teacher. She’s a sweetheart and it was a surprise that she told me that I couldn’t go. I toyed with the idea of just skipping school, but I was nervous my teacher would call my parents, who would then tell Rotary, and that would not be good – because they could get so mad about it that they would send me home. So I didn’t want to risk it. So, I set my alarm for 6 o’clock Friday morning. Because I was just so tired, I never even heard the alarm to actually get up. I woke up at 7 and just said to myself no, there’s not enough time now.. So I didn’t go and I just kept sleeping – and had dreams I was at the airport.. But then I woke up at 10 and went into school around 12 o’clock.

I walked into class and my friends asked if I had said goodbye to Nick – because that’s what they thought I was doing. That’s when the tear fell from my eyes because I was so sad that I didn’t get to go. I told all my friends how my school said no and my host family said no because the school said no. By that point I was so sad – and my friends told me to call him at the airport. I called him just in time – he was just going through the security check. I was crying on the phone, and all of my friends understood and they all started to cry because it was so sad. They all knew how hard it was for me not to say goodbye to a good friend. They were all so compassionate. I’ve never met so many compassionate people in my life – they are such amazing friends. Then, I guess two friends went and told my teacher about what happened and how I was still crying my eyes out. And then she called me to the teacher’s room. That’s when she and I sat down in a room while my friend patted my back, and my teacher explained how sorry she was that she had even asked the principal. She told me that she realized she should have just let me go in secret. She told me that that night, she was sleeping and it occurred to her that Australia is so far from Canada – I would have no idea when I would see Nick again. She said how she realized how close the airport is to the school and how I would have been just fine taking a bus and being able to say goodbye to my friend. She saw that I wasn’t there at school today, and said she was happy because she thought I had just went to the airport, and she told no one about the absence. The class told her at the beginning of the day how good of friends I was with Nick – how we always hung out and he was in so much of my purikura. When I showed up and 12 and she heard what happened, that's when we had this talk and I realized how amazing of a person she is. She shed tears as she was telling me how truly sorry she was about me not saying goodbye. That’s when she promised that she would let me go say goodbye to the next friends at the airport, and if there was no one to take me, she would. I was crying so much at this point because I was so thankful for her compassion and I realized how truly cared about I am at this school. I was the saddest I had ever been, and hearing what she said to me, and seeing my friends compassion and how much they comforted me – made my tears of pure heartfelt sadness, turn into tears of joy and happiness and love. This sounds so cheesy, but it’s absolutely true. It was hard not to be able to say goodbye to a close friend, but today I realized how many more friends I have right here, right now. They also explained how he would be my “zutto tomodachi” – meaning friend forever and how I could send him mail or e-mail. The emotional rollercoaster ended when I realized how much these people care about me and the words they said to comfort me. It was truly remarkable.

The day continued to be remarkable because my host dad picked me up from school and we went to the “Kimono Yasan” – meaning Kimono store. I got to try on three kimonos, because tomorrow – I am having a professional photo shoot in the kimono! AMAZING! I am also going to be a model for their kimono store with the pictures! That is absolutely amazing and I am so excited! I will definitely put the pictures up once it happens! Getting a kimono put on me for the first time was amazing, I felt so Japanese. I tried two purple kimonos and a greenish blue one. The light purple one was so pretty, but I ended up choosing the brighter and bolder greenish blue kimono with pink accents. I think it’s more bold, and the picture will look interesting that way. I’m really excited to see how it all turns out, and also, so have a professional photo shoot in Japan! Rotary is such an amazing organization; they put this all together for me to my surprise. Same with the birthday party too. It’s a great organization, being a Rotary exchange student is incredible.

Well, I have more things to say but I don’t want to bore you. I will update after I get to try on the kimono! So exciting!

Questions? Concerns? Let me know :)

bikurishita

2009-12-30T06:34:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-28T00:39:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-12-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-13T06:18:00.000-08:00

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..

2009-10-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-18T05:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-28T05:44:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T17:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-24T05:28:00.001-07:00

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..

2009-08-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-22T20:48:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-19T22:11:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

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.."

6 days, 21 hours, 41 minutes.

2009-08-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast time has gone by!

I leave SO soon!

I got back from camp last Satuday, and have been rushing around trying to do everything to get ready for Japan.

I bought new luggage last night, I bought new clothes the day before, I have to go out and buy all of my "Canadian themed gifts" today, and hopefully a new camera too.

There's more little things on top of that, and it's so stressy!

Wish me luck,

I hope I don't forget anything!

new updates

2009-06-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

I wanted to update about a week ago, when I went to the consulate of Japan and got my VISA!
It was a really exiting thing, because I am one step closer to getting to JAPAN!

This past weekend was the Rotary Niagara-On-The-Lake Bike Trek. The weekend consisted of a lot of bonding, picture taking, bicycle riding, and tears! But it was such an AMAZING weekend!The trek was 54KM, and some parts up pretty steep hills! It was so beautiful to ride along the lake side and be able to ride all the way to Niagara Falls! It was a lot of fun, and for a good cause too!
We got our blazers this weekend also, but turns out they mixed up the sizes and I now have a jacket size 18.. I'm a size 8. Think of how big that is! I was so excited to start putting all of my pins on to my blazer, but I can't because now I have to do something about the ridiculous size!
Sadly, it was the last weekend to see all of the inbounds of 08-09 and us outbounds together at one place.. There were so many tears but it was happy because everyone realized the amazing year they had here! I was crying FOR them, I'm quite the emotional person ;) that may be my downfall in Japan!
I had such an incredible weekend, and I find it truly awesome to have been able to met so many great people through Rotary. Every exchange student has changed me in some shape or form, and it's awesome to have met each and every one! It's also nice to know that you have a friend in every country..

guarantee forms

2009-05-09T21:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since anything big has happened,
but last week I got my guarantee forms from JAPAN..
I'm going to be living in ISHIKAWA prefecture and going to a school where a friend of mine went on his exchange!
He had a lot of fun and met nice people (because it's not a school for very smart kids, it was easier to fit in), so I'm excited!
I leave August 21 on a group departure, and I will have to travel to 1 airport, drive to another then fly to another, all in JAPAN! crazy! hopefully I don't get lost.. neither my luggage!

I keep dreaming in Japanese too!
I keep having dreams about my exchange or something Japanese!
It's getting more real and I suppose I'm very anxious!

JAMESTOWN!

2009-03-30T13:51:00.000-07:00

Jamestown was a lot of fun!

After a 3 hour busride, we arrived in a town with wooden 'adams family' type houses. We had a cheesy dinner, literally. Then we went off to host families for the night! I stayed with Ayumi, from Japan with a family who lived just outside of the town. It was really nice! Very different, but fun! My host sister made each of us beaded rings, really cute!

It was great to see all of the exchange students again, especially for the dance! that was a lot of fun ;) pretty wild!I'm really excited to get my Blazer in June! Getting all of the pins from the inbounds made me so much more excited for my exchange!

I started to learn some Japanese when I got my country placement just a month ago, and I thought I could at least string a sentence toegther.. but nope! Speaking to the exchange students from Japan was a painful task! I can not understand any of it yet! So I must study TEN THOUSAND HOURS by the time I become fluent!

pre-jamestown

2009-03-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm heading off to Jamestown for the weekend,
I'm super excited!
I have NO idea what we will be doing there.. but I'm excited to meet everyone who I haven't met before and to see all of the inbounds and outbouds I already know :)
I suppose I will update this with what I actually did when I get home!

JAPAN

2009-02-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting for my letter telling my country for a week or so now.
and I got a facebook message from a man called "papa dave"
and we spoke and asked if I could wait for my letter or if I wanted to know my country!
(he is the curator for the whole exchange thing)
so i said, "sure, let the butterflies in my stomach go!"
the reply was..

"Do you own a KIMONO?? You'd better plan on getting one.
No more butterfRies hahaha
Sayonara Ash, hope you're HAPPY -You should be!!
Papa San Dave"

Those Japanese puns were incredible.
IM GOING TO JAPAN!
IM GOING TO JAPAN !
WOW !
JAPAN !

TEMAGAMI

2009-02-21T12:13:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday until Tuesday, I went to TEMAGAMI with all of the inbounds and outbounds from my district.
I was So nervous to go, I knew it was going to be SO cold and I wouldn't know anyone but two girls!
It ended up being the most incredible experience!
I met so many great people from all over the world!
We went on a day long snowshoe expedition on the third day where I was voted the leader. We all sang our countries anthems. We took so many pictures. We crossed a frozen lake. We drunked ourselves into a hole in the ice and then ran back to the sauna. We woke up at 6:30 and went running everymorning. We taught eachother english swear words. We wrote letters to our future selves under the stars with only light from a candle. We made fun of eachother in skits. We had no bathrooms. We had no running water.

It was such an intense trip, but it was just so great!
Every exchange student in this district is so fun and I loved meeting everyone !

I wouldn't trade that experience for the world!

Interview

2009-01-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

This weekend I went for my district interviews, it was scary! one interview was to make sure i was a sure fit for the program, and that panel of interviewers grilled me! my parents went in after me, and when they came out the paper had ACCEPTED circled, which was quite a relief!
The next interview was with the representatives of each country, I hope to hell I get my top choices - Japan, Austria or Switzerland! 'Cause i'm a vegetarian, i want Japan and hopefully they realize that :) but i heard japan was a pretty popular choice this year! which may be an issue!
oh well, where ever I am sent will be the place where i'm meant to be .. i hope!
but it was great to know i'm an outbound exchange student!

I'm going to Temagami for 4 days in February, it's going to be SO cold! i went out and bought big clunky waterproof boots and long johns 'cause it's going to be super cold! but it will be amazing. i go to temagami inb the summer time, so going in the winter will be great, but yet so different.
but i'm so excited :)

Acceptance

2008-11-17T18:48:00.001-08:00

It feels so great to get something you've wanted so badly.
For the past few years I have been aching to become an exchange student. For the week after my interview I felt sick to my stomach with nerves. I found out earlier today that I was accepted to be an exchange student and all I could do was jump for pure joy.
I felt that if I didn't get accepted as a Rotary exchange student, my life would have a little bit missing - because I've wanted this for a very long time. I want to wear the blazer full of pins, and I want to meet students from around the world who are as eager as I am to live and learn in a new country.
This is such a great opportunity, and I am so glad to have it.
I am so excited, and can not wait to see what is in store!