シヤーネルさんは日本の中ですよ。

2010-01-21T19:08:00.000+09:00

Sunday 13th December
Not much today, went down to the shops and caught up on sleep a bit, and wrote out a note 39 times…. One for each other member of my class, thanking them for a fun year, saying goodbye and asking them to keep in contact and all that stuff.
Monday 14th à Friday 18th December
My last full week at school here, and shorter days, most only until lunch, and then most afternoons I went for a walk through the park to enjoy the snow now that its around again and did the last of my Christmas shopping, and letter writing, hope that all made its way to Australia in time.
Thursday was my last Japanese lesson over here which was very hard, as Ibata sensei has been the only person I have known and seen the whole of my and genrally a wonderful person.
Saturday 19th December
Spent today working on Christmas presents for host families and went for a walk down to the shops and then the library. Nothing to exciting.

Sunday 20th December
We went to kanazawa today, to kenrokuen… the castle gardens (which I have now been to in each of the 4 seasons) and then onto a noh theather production. The gardens were nice as always, as I said it was my 4th time there, but I wanted to go again to have been in each of the 4 seasons.
The Noh was intresting for the first hour or soo but was very long, about 4 hours and there was no interval. For those of you that don’t know, noh is a tyoe if traditional Japanese Drama, that is done to song. I cant explain it very well.. ill try to find a proper definition for you……
“Noh (能, Nō?), or Nogaku (能楽, Nōgaku?)[1] is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. The repertoire is normally limited to a specific set of historical plays. A Noh performance often lasts all day and consists of five Noh plays interspersed with shorter, humorous kyōgen pieces.
While the field of Noh performance is extremely codified with an emphasis on tradition rather than innovation, some performers do compose new plays or revive historical ones that are not a part of the standard repertoire. Works blending Noh with other theatrical traditions have also been produced.”

Monday 21st December
No school today, I only have school on Thursday this week. And again didn’t really get up to much, sorted out what stuff im giving to the new exchange students, and went for a fairly long walk.
Tuesday 22nd December
Today I went shopping with the lady from Rotary for my Christmas present, of an electronic dictionary and then out to lunch with her befor heading home for a bit befor a trip to the library.
Wednesday 23rd December
Had the Australian, New Zealand organization Christmas party in Toyama tonight, which was lots of fun, there were actually lots of foreigners at this one, some of the same people that had been on the bus trip with us back in March, but it was nice to catch up with them again and chat with some other aussies and other forginers, other than Josh, at the start of the part they gave me this thing that looked a lot like a sword and told me to go stand on stage… I was sooo confused, and then josh, a newzealerner and a Japanese girl walked in with candles and I had to light the “sword” I was holding with their three flames and then walk around the room lighting all of the other candles, as an act of sybolizim of the 3 countries coming together ( this ended up in the newspaper on the 24th )
Prior to the part which started at 4 I decided to go to Toyama and walk around there instead of wandering Takaoka again, I figured a change of seans would be well welcomed.

2010-01-08T16:13:00.002+09:00

so its basically impossible to get on here long enough to type up a real entry but this time next friday i will be in tokyo and on my way home! so if you bare with me for like 9 days then you will get a nice long update about my last month in Japan.

what the rest of my time entales is
9th - meating up with Rie a friend i met on my first trip to Japan in 2005
10th - going to my 7th host families for the day to say goodbye
11th - lunch with my 1st host family
12th going to toyama to hang out with Josh for the last time (excluding tokyo... but there are 6 exchagne students there then)
13th - rotary for the last time i think? or mabey that was last week not sure! they never tell me anything
14th - no real plan except for finishing packing
15th - get up super early and fly to tokyo... a friend may be meeting me at the airport and hanging out for the day.
16th fly from tokyo to singapore and hmm i cant rember if my flight from singapore is the 16th or not
17th - arrive home in Aus!

love lots

2010-01-04T10:29:00.002+09:00

sorry for the complete lack of updates, ill try and get somthing a bit more substancial up tomorow but i have no internet other than at the local libary and that is very limited, and its been closed for newyear, only opened uo agaian today. but all is well and im keeping very busy with trying to fit goodbyes to everyone in. ... i cant believe i only have 11 days left here!

but im looking forward to being home... and having a real pillow!

love lots

Sharnelle

2009-12-16T08:53:00.001+09:00

Monday 16^th
à Friday 20^th November

Had another half day host this week, was another kinda boring one, and again I don't really blame the hosts as ive done everything that there is to do in the area and available to do on Wednesdays, Japan is strange, a lot of places are closed Wednesdays (or else Mondays like things are closed Sundays in Aus) so we went to their company, and they kinda just left me with the ladies that work there, the company make control panels, so I got to watch a bit of that which was sort of interesting. The rest of the week was school, and study.

Saturday 21^st, Sunday 22^nd and Monday 23^rd November (labour day holiday)

Saturday I went for a wonder down to Aeon, and the shoe warehouse near it in order to replace my boots that I walked holes into the soles of last winter, and managed to find a new pair for about $20 J Sunday I decided to spend the afternoon at the library, even just to study, because they actually have desks there, unlike my bedroom, and the kitchen table, is always very crowed and the kitchen is freezing. Monday I went for a walk down to Aeon, just because it was such a nice day, and I needed a new set of earphones, my old ones were only making sound in one ear at a time, and would change as I walked along and bended the wires differently and I managed to get a blister on the bottom of my foot, because I didn't put my orthotic in properly and *ouch* and then home again for the standard at home thing at the moment of study, less than 2 weeks now until my exam! Eek*

Tuesday 24^th
à Friday 27^th November

No rotary or half day host this week, but just lots of school, and study for the Japanese profiency test. We finished our current project in calligraphy this week, of writing out a haiku, the one I did translates as looking up, beautiful cloud, autumn sky.

Saturday 28^th & Sunday 29^th November

Once again out for lunch, on both days of the weekend, and my hosts were out for the rest of the time, so I went for a walk in the park on afternoon and just around the general area the other. the rest of the time spent studying or working on Christmas(new year) presents

Monday 30^th
à Friday 4^th December

I have this week off school because they are in the equlivent of block exams, although I went in for my Japanese lesssons now with my Japanese test less than a week away. Most of the week was spent studying, with a daily walk in the afternoon, either to the library where I would read that days English newspaper and check my email if I could grab a computer, or to the park.

Wednesday saw another half day host, and I must say it was frustrating, they own a teawear shop on the main street of town, and live above it, and we spent the whole time there, other than when they decided to take me for a walk down that street pointing out what every shop sells, it was another of those "hello! I have been here since January do you realy think that I haven't been here yet?" Moments

Saturday 5^th and Sunday 6^th December

Sunday was the big test day, and boy it was a freezing day, but all went well as far as I can judge, wont be getting results until late febuary or march next year, and of course, that ment Saturday was spent studying for the test. After the test Sunday I kinda felt a bit lost at home, no longer having study to do, but did easily fill the time doing a practise pack of my suitcase, and packing my box of things to post home, suprizinlgly enough everything does fit in my suitcase it just weighs way to much… so I shall be posting 22kg worth of stuff home. You really don't relize how much you have accumliated until you have to pack it all up again.

Monday 7^th – Friday 11^th December

Monday I posted my box home, all 22kg of it and it only cost me 10900 yen which is less than the $270 that it cost me to post 13kg to Japan at the start of my exchange. Wednesday saw me do my goodbye speech to my rotary club overe here, ill try and get an English version of it up soon, I do have a video of it, but I doubt many of you will find that intresting as its really just 10 mintes of me rambling in Japanese.

Saturday 12^th December

Today I returned to my 7^th host families house for a Christmas party with a lot of yoshiki's friends, oretty much the same bunch of kids I went to genkigekijyo with back in September, this was lotf of fun, and I had decided to give them their Christmas presents there, but then they told me I will actually be spending Christmas night with them, oh well. I had knitted them all something, Yoshiki and Haruki got scarfs to match the beanies that I made them while I was staying with them, mama and obachya (grandma) got bags, ayako a scarf ( I made her a bag for her birthday in October) and papa a scarf. And then for the whole family I did a kinda scrapbook thing with photos and a message to them that detailed the time I spent living with their family, I have actually made( or will make for my current) these for 5 of my 8 host families, they 3 im not doing them for, are the 3 host families that together made up august, as I don't quiet have enough time, and they were all incredibly short hosts.

2009-11-19T14:54:00.001+09:00

Monday 9^th
à Friday 13^th November

Had another half day host this week, we went to Toyama to some shops and then to an art museum, one that I have been to twice before, but it doesn't have an Permanente exhibitions, so it has been different art work there each time I have been. Only at the moment they are changing over the exibit in the main area, so there were only the 2 small galleries open, which was a little disappointing.

Saturday 14^th and Sunday 15^th November

Saturday was mostly study, but I did go for a walk down to aeon for some more knitting supplies and on my way down there I found another op-shop which at the time had an out for lunch sort of sign up, and they said they would be back at 3, so I thought ok, ill hang out down at aeon so im coming back past this then, which was a little longer than I really needed at the shops, but anyway I ended up running into a group of girls from school. So I ended up going back past the op-shop well after 3 and it still wasn't open, ive been driven past it on several occasions since, and am yet to see it open, mabey this is why I had never noticed it befor.

Sunday I went to Toyama to see Josh, he isn't putting up a very good argument to loosing the nickname of tinkerbell that my family gave him when they were over here, when I texted him half an hour after we were supposed to meet, and turns out that message woke him up, so after waiting at the staion an increadibly long time, and having gotten rid of the freaky drunk ( at 10:30 in the morning) Japanese guy that kept talking to me. Josh finaly showed up, and inbetween the rain we managed to walk around both the castle park and the other park, befor giving up on being outside and reiterated to the shops, I refused to catch the bus to the big shops, because its to expensive, 370, when it only costs me 320 to get to Toyama and aeon which is just as big as toyamas shops is walking distance from my house, this annoyed josh a bit, especially as I then bought 3 dvd's but hey they were 500yen each, (about $7) I misjudged how long it would take me to get home, and ended up getting home after dark, which didn't fuss my host parents, they just said as long as im home for dinner its all good, but I don't particulary like the path between here and the train station at night, as it goes past 2 pachinko palors ( it's a form of pinball, but its basically gambling, aka lots of drunk guys there) and um a karaoke bar, that is targeted at men.

2009-11-12T14:27:00.002+09:00

Monday 26th à Friday 30th October
School, and freezing cold at school. But not all that much else to say. Thursday was dissapointly boring, because they had another sports day, which I had no idea about,so I didn’t have my sports uniform, and my Japanese teacher didn’t turn up either, so I spent the entire day alone in the library.
Saturday 31st October
Just mama, haruki, Yoshiki and I today, this morning we did some water colour painting while mama was out at haru’s kindy. And then went out for lunch and to the local park for a play, befor heading home, to be met by the rest of the family and then going out to dinner.

Sunday 1St November
Thismorning, befor we even had time for breakfast, we were visited at the house by someone fromt eh local temple, to give us a private service in honour of all the ancestors of the family, infront of the family temple in the house.
So after that and many photos and some random games with the kids, I moved to my finial host family, family number 8. Its so weird to think that I'm at my last host family already, but when my average time at any of the previous families has been about 5 weeks, and I have 11 left here, who can really blame me. At this host family its just me and my host parents, they were actually my first half day hosts, just says something about Japanese organization. But anyway.
We had our first snow of the season tonigh, as we were walking home from dinner, was very supprising but then my hosts went into a big speal about how last winter was really warm, so looks like this is going to be a very cold one.
Monday 2nd àFriday 6th November
It was a public holiday on Tuesday, (culture day) so no school on which I spent at home doing kanji study. Due to this and Tuesday next week being a test day Friday was a Tuesday timetable, meaning I missed out on my fun filled Friday. Also due to my Japanese teacher being busy on other days, I only had one lesson this week on Friday where she pointed out what I have been trying not to think about all that much, that my Japanese proficiency test is now only a month away. Eekk!
Saturday 7th November
Went to my host families business for a bit today, just to look around, they are roof tillers, so really what I looked at where lots of black tiles. Yay! And then it was home again for some more study.
Sunday 8th November
So this morning I finially stoped saying ill do it tonight and then not coz I was too tired and I sat down and wrote letters to those back home that I owe them to. (Grandparents and friends birthdays). Then I studied until lunch, after lunch I did another of those I've been putting this off to long things, and walked to the copper district, which was quiet interesting to wander through, but everything is soooooo expensive, well it is all hand made in the shops that sell them, but still, $2000 for a teapot! And then I went to an op-shop on the way home, didn’t find what I wanted, but didn’t have enough time before it closed to look through the whole shop. So I shall have to go back again sometime soon. Considering how cold it has been reciently it was quiet hot today, I have no idea about what the actual temperature was, but I was quiet happily wandering around after lunch in just a long sleeved shirt.

2009-10-27T15:18:00.000+09:00

Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th October
School both days, Wednesdays as normal only until the end of third, as I then had roatary, and again a half day host today, today we went to kanazawa to the gold leaf place, and made chopsticks, by that I mena decorated them with gold leaf, I want to go back there again and make several more pairs as souviners as it was very cheap! After that we went to a kimono making place, which I also want to go back to because you can make your own segments of them, but it takes several hours and we got there half and hour befor closing. Then it was back to their house for a bit befor we were goined by more extended family and headed out to yaki niki for dinner.

Thursday 15th October
So I have this next week off because my class has exams. Today I spent the morning studying befor going out and having my lunch bought at a convini in the park really close to us (not the park that I usually mention) and then returning home to find a half decient movie on the tv (in English) so I watched that until the others got home.
Friday 16th October
So this morning I said stuff it to studying, I do have a fair bit to do befor I will feel comfortable going into my prefeiency test, expecially as far as kanji, but it was such good weather, and over all it doesn’t matter what score I get in the profiency test, ill never get this opportunity to explore Japan again, so today I armed with a map headed to the train station, bought a ticket. I had really no idea where I wanted to go but had decided how much I was willing to spend on the train, so I ended up going to a little town called fukuoka. Turns out I had kinda been meaning to go there, they have the cutiest little Japanese music museum, which I ended up spending about 3 hours, in even though there is really less than 30 min worth of stuff to see, because the lady that was there was soo interested in talking to me, why I was in Japan and why I had gone to fukuoka, she found my story about the train cost to be very very funny. But she ended up giving me a book as well,. After several cupps of tea and biskicts, but this book is all about traditional Japanese music, and would have cost me about $30! She asked that I go back there again befor I leave japan and after that I think I will have to. Fukuoka is also home to a camera museum, which I found incredibly intresting, mabey a little nerdy yes, but I enjoyed it. I then had lunch at the train station waiting for a train home, and then fell asleep in frount of the tv watching another movie.

Saturday 17th October
Not a lot today was the 40th annerverary of harukis kindy so haru and papa were out at that most of the day, while mama was at yoshikis school in preparation for tomorrow, so this left me at home with Yoshiki, gosh he can be annoying at times. Latter, when haruki was home we watched “ponyo on the cliff above the sea” the latest studio ghibli film
Sunday 18th October
Today was yoshikis schools festival, I didn’t find it anywhere as near as fun as minem but then again it wasn’t aimed at me. But ti was good fun none the less. They had a cheap stall, where everything had been donated new, for them to sell, I bought a few things there coz it was cheap!
Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th October
Both days off school again, on Monday Yoshiki also had the day off school. So Monday was very unproductive, I had planed on going out on Tuesday but as it was really rainy weather that didn’t happen and I got a lot of study done
Wednesday 21st, Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd October
School, unfortunately my holidays were over and back to school I went. At least Wednesdays are only half days for me (because of rotary) on the way home I wanted to visit the op shop, but turns out its closed Wednesdays, ahh well. Thursday and Friday were both long days! But calligraphy on Friday was fun as usual, we learnt about the formation of hiragana and the kanji that they came from and then had to practise writing all the hiragana, old style.
Saturday 24th October
So this morning we left takaoka just after 8 to arrive in Nagoya for an early lunch at a well known tonkatsu restaurant. I must say I don’t think they are the nicest tonkatsu but that was just the sauce I chose, I didn’t particually like it. Ahh well. From there we went on to explore Nagoya castle, where the souviners were cheap, especially as this is the 3rd biggest city in Japan, and one of it main attractions, they could get away with prcies being so much higher,not that im complaining at all, I was just very surprised. Nagoya castle grounds are also home to some dear (much to my surprise) and the flower dolls, lifeish size dolls made out of flowers! As well as an impressive bonsai tree collection.
After the castle we went on to a museum which was mostly of old armor and weponary of the ;prds of the area. And then on to a friend of yoshikis house, they used o live in takaoka and went to kindy together, also they are children/grandkids of one fo the rotary members of my club over here. With them we went out to dinner. Of eel! Its actually a lot nicer than you think its going to be, again not my favourite food, but its what Nagoya it known for so…
It was then off to our hotel for the night, I had a fun time explaining to Yoshiki why I pulled the blinds and went behind them to take photos of the city.( to stop refection of the room we were in).

Sunday 25th October
So after a maccas breakfast in our hotel room we hopped back in the car, this time bound of Osaka. Yup true Japanese style holiday, pack as much into it as you possibly can while not really fully doing anything, but hey it was good fun. In Osaka we went to an aquarium and then a shopping street. Where we ate crab okonomiyaki! I love crab! Not so much octopus, and I think my host dad got a little offended when I refused to takoyaki which are octopus dumplings. But I really don’t like them and I have eaten them befor, and its not like they were going to go to waste as Yoshiki wanted more anyway.

2009-10-14T09:55:00.001+09:00

Friday 25th September
I finially finished my current project in calligraphy today, that of writing　自分の道 wich means ones own path, or ones own way, my teacher then asked me why I chose this, when I startd it she had given me a book of 4 character phrases and told me to chose one to do, and in all honest I chose this one because it was one of the few I understood and the one I most liked the meaning of and didn’t think was overally hard, ironically I found the 2nd charather the hardest, until today when I discovered ive been doing the stroke order wrong and when I started doing it in the correct order it worked soo much better. Anyway I mad4 up some bull about how living in another country with a culture so difrent from my own I have kinda combined the two and come up with my own way of doing things, and that’s why I chose it but my teacher didn’t believe me coz here reply was no its because you understood it. Ah the calligraphy teacher is good fun.

Saturday 26th September
So this morning after cleaning Yoshiki invaded my room with his homework while I was trying to do mine, once we finially worked through both of our homework we all went out to do the grocery shopping, then home for lunch, after which I looked after haruki at home while yohiki was at the dentist, we then all went out shopping at dasio (the 100yen shop) before Yoshiki and I were dropped home while Haruka went to the doctors.

Sunday 27th September – My 18th birthday
So my birthday, definitely not what I would have ever though I would do on my 18th birthday, after opening all my presents that I had previously been given at like 3 in the morning or something ridiculous, I did it then coz that’s when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to open presents. I did then go back to sleep for a while and got up proper when my host siblings decided it was well time I showed my face down stairs… at 7. And for the following 3 hours I did the same puzzle 3 times with haruki and then played some Japanese chess against Yoshiki, he is yet to beat me but its not easy easy for me either it is still a challenge. I want to play against my host dad one day soon. And then I went out with Obachan (grandma) to get Ayumi and nick from the train station and we did a bit of sightseeing, the big buddah , the park (nick wanted to go to the zoo) and the copper district befor heading home for a bbq lunch, I don’t think that nick or I ate anything for lunch other than meat, there was vergies and stuff as well, but was good fun all the same. Haruka’s family were also over, so after lunch we played with the kids, at one point nick was playing baseball with a bouncy ball and chopsticks. Then my host dad pulled out his rotary blazer, from when he was an exchange student 16 years ago and I grabbed mine and photos were taken of the 2 of us, and then of Haruka and Yoshiki wearing them, mine touched the ground when Yoshiki had it on. It was very cute though. It was then cake time! Then came present time and omg did I get a pile, I already mentioned opening once I had previously been given, but then there were all the ones from my host family, Ayumi, and Haruka and her family. Ayumi and nick headed home soon after that and I kept playing with the kids for quiet some time until dinner which was yakisoba, but after cake, all the meat at lunch and the various other snacks we ate I barley had room for any of it. And I love yakisoba so that’s saying something

Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th September
School,
Wednesday 30th September àfridays 2nd August
So after school on Wednesday (for me school finished at 11:30 on Wednesdays) mama picked me up from school and we went out for lunch, then returned home for a rest befor I had to be at the train staion at 5 to meet up with all the other exchange students (except Andrew who was on school camp) and be taken off to the 3 day friendship in shinminato meeting, Wednesday night we attended the rotary clubs meating and got presented with happies (festival clothing) and then got ushered off home with our hosts, for this we were hosted with pairs, I was with Ashleigh, the Canadian girl.
Thursday after a traditional Japanese breakfast we were off again to the Fushiki marine museum and then kiomaru (the massive boat) and a river cruise, befor helping to push the floats for a bit and going to see the mayor. The mayor was a character and a half! After that we watched the parade for a bit more outside the mayors office, and then back to the rotary office (in the building right next door) where we proceded to watch the parade on tv… or as us girls discovered we had a much better view from the toilet window. But we soon got shooed away from there by tv film crews who wanted to take advantage of the spot. It was then home again for dinner and a bit of a rest (watching more festive activities on the tv) befor heading back to watch the night parade.
Friday we had a pottery class where I made a plate and a coffee mug, I would like to bring these home if they fired ok, but weight! And the care that they would need in my hand luggage on the way home, I don’t know if I will be able to. From there it was on to aeon, )which I found amusing, mainly coz it’s the shopping center I go past every day to get to school, but also because, with the acception of josh, everyone else lives in kanazawa where there are shops 100X better so like they really want to go to aeon. ) and then to the train and home)
Saturday 3rd August - school festival
So school festival today, and for some reason, (even though I attended the nichidai(sister school in Tokyo) festival 4 years ago) that this was going to be somewhat similar to open days back home, but I couldn’t have been more wrong, each class and club had to do either some sort of presentation or run an activity or two in their class room, genrally with prizes involved but not always. My class didn’t make me help them so I had the whole day to wander the rooms, just after lunch when I had done everything my host family came and I did it all again with them, it was some what funner the second time round with haru and yoshiki
Sunday 4th – district conference
Today it was off to kanazawa on a bus with a heap of Rotarians from my club heading to district conference, when we got there our club went out to lunch at a sashimi restaurant ( I don’t eat sashimi) and then to the conference, the conference itself was very boring, I could understand when I was really paying attention but then as I was on only one there that could read the program I kept getting asked when our next break? Do you reckon I can go to the toilet now? How much longer? Ect. There were some other Australians there from district 9680 (I think) because their club had teamed up with some of the rotairians from our district to help build a house in Vanuatu. Dinner was fun, we had geshi entertainment, and after our 5 hours of sitting in conference it was a nice break. I particularly enjoyed talking to Andrew( one of the Canadians), he didn’t come to the shinminato thing as he had been on school camp so this was the first time I met him, and in a lot of ways he reminds me of 2 of my cousins.
Monday 5th
So I had today off school because we had the festivale thing on Saturday, so I spent the day watching the dvd (7 pounds) I borrowed out last night and finished off knitting the bag for ayakos birthday present. We had a special dinner with lots of cake to celebrate he birthday, she turned 30 today.
Tuesday 6th school
School today, and I must say I am really enjoying pe atm, we are doing dance!

Wednesday 7th / Thursday 8th
Wednesday was another day off school, I don’t quiet understand why, but one should never complain when they get a day off school. However I did have rotary and a half day host, todays half day host took me to Futagamiyama (the mountain I went up with my family) and to the himi botanical gardens (went there in Jan) and then to a very early dinner and home, befor the thypoon got to bad, as soon I as I got home I helped clean the garden up a bit of toys and tie down the outdoor furniture, anything that could do damage in the stong winds of the typhoon, I think the worst of It hit here at about 3 Thursday morning, well that’s when I got woken up by it, but the winds and rain continued all day and is still going to some extent. Because of the thyphoon all schools had a holiday today (Thursday).
Friday 9th – school
So yes I actually had school today, but it was Monday timetable, so I didn’t have calligraphy and the set of subjects that I normally have on a Friday that I like. On the way home I stoped in at aeon for a bit, for some stuff mainly another Japanese study book, I still really struggle with particles! I think that is going to be my weakest point on my up coming Japanese test, but I now have a book devoted to them so hopefully working through that will help me.
Saturday 10th
Happy birthday Rach !
Haru, Yoshiki, mama and papa went away for the night tonight with mama’s parents and her brother family to celebrate her dads 60th birthday, so today it was just ayako, Obachan (grandma) and me. We went out for lunch and then onto some ski fields, well they are ski fields in winter, atm they are covered in “cosumosu” a type of flower, they would have been a lot prettier had we had not had the thyphoon but they were really pretty nonethe less. But it was very very cold there, especially when we went on the chair lift to the top of the mountain, but that was well worth it for the view.
After that we went to uni qlo, (a clothes shop) and I got 2 shirts, a scarf, a pair of leggings, and some slippers for 2500 yen which is about $35 ( I actually have no idea what the current exchange rate is, im still working on what it was in Jan there) after that we went out for dinner.

Sunday 11th

Again today was just the 3 of us, so after going out for lunch again we went to a big shopping center in Toyama, and there was a uni qlo there as well, I bought another pair of leggings, coz they are amazingly cheap, but other than that I didn’t buy anything, but it was a fun time shopping all the same. After that we came home and had sukiyaki for dinner, because of a conversation we had a lunch today that I hadn’t ever had it, this shocked them because it is apparently a very easy and popular winter meal in Japan. But then again if you think back to last winter I was with my first host family and we ate out about 95% of the time.

Monday 12th
So it was a public holiday today, sports day or something to that extent. Mama, Papa, Yoshiki, huruki and I went to taikoyama land and met up with 6 other families, all of which have a kid in yoshikis year level, ( they all went to kindy together but are at 3 different primary schools now) that was really good fun, and made me miss Adelaide a lot, I dunno we don’t have those sorts of parks in queensland, or mabey we do, but there are a lot more in Adelaide, and ahh I guess that’s where I lived when I was the age of most of the kids there today. After we got home, Yoshiki, haru, papa and I went for a bike ride, Yoshiki on his bike, papa actually rode mine, because, haru wanted to sit on the baggage thing above the

some more pictures

2009-09-30T11:08:00.005+09:00

2009-09-30T10:53:00.003+09:00

2009-09-25T13:43:00.000+09:00

Monday 14th à Friday 18th
Fairly average week at school, had a half day host, I'm kinda over these, in theory they are good but the problem is I have now been to all the things that there is time for between rotary finishing at almost 2 and the time I have to be home by at 8:30/9 like once you consider travel time then a decient amount of time there ect, so the are getting boring.
Saturday 19th
Tonight we went to another dance festival, this time in Johana it was very cool. And I got some very cool souvineres semi cheaply, and by that I mean they were still kinda expensive but a lot cheaper than I had previously seen similar things for.

Sunday 20th
Today we had haruchan’s sports day, she goes to kindy where they are between 2 and 5, so of course this was very very cute, and very typical japnaese, though then again it’s a kindy you wouldn’t want them doing all the actual competitions that we do in later years in Australia. It was all held inside a gym as well, not outside, which felt really weird for a sports day, though this time I hadn’t bothered to pack my hat, I did have my towel ready though.
Monday 21st
We went on a road trip, by we I mean, papa, mumma, my host uncle who is here for silver week, haruki, Yoshiki and I. we went down int Gifu prefecture first of all to a famous soba restaurant, and then on to the world heritage listed villiage of shirakawago which was really really pretty. But after the whole day walking round and probably not drinking quiet enough water, not to memtion that lunch was just soba, and a soysauce/ water soup as well as being cramped as one of 4 in the back seat with 2 screaming kids all the way home I felt like shit, and fell asleep as soon as we got home.
Tuesday 22nd
I felt a lot better this morning because as I expected my feeling like crap last night was due to a long day in a car with screaming kids on a lack of sleep, so my 13 hours sleep was a good enough cure. So after arguing with my hsot for a bit that I was fine and didn’t need to go to the doctor, okasan Yoshiki and I were off first of all to a friends house where we met up with several other friends, played musical seats with in cars for a bit until all the kids were sastified with who they were withand then we were off again, on a long drive to a place very close to the boarder of ishikawaken and what ever prefecture is the one south of that, nihon genki gekijyo which was kinda a theam park but not, I dunno cross a museum with a theme park and add a dash of Japanese strangeness to the mix and you have genki gekijyo, also it was Japanese themed so yeah,lots of ninja shows, old style Japanese drama, also leg baths in the hot springs, or in luke-warm water with fish that would come and suck at your legs…. Weirdest feeling ever! And highropes (with no helmets! I tell you work place health and safety would go insane over here) I spent most of the day mainly with Haru(ka) chyan (not my host sister haru(ki)chan) who is in yoshikis class and her little cousin rinchan 4. After all was said and done at genki gekijyuo… well actually when the park closed we didn’t quiet get everything done… we headed back to said friends house, and then out to dinner with haruchan and her family, her dad is the funniest guy, and livened up the drive to and from genkigekijyo as well as our dinner, we were literally eating between laughs and trying not to spit our food back up as we laughed.
Wednesday 23rd September
After several packed days I was very glad to have the day at home today, with the exception of a little shopping trip in which we brought a new game for Yoshiki, the game being ahh I've forgotten the name but its Japanese chess. Which for some reason I seem to comprehend more than regular chess though I think the rules are actually more complicated in Japanese chess, as you can re use the pieces you have captured, and when they get to the far side of the board they become more powerful.
Thursday 24th September
School today, but it was one of those weird days, where I didn’t really have lessons with my class, this was because we were on a Monday timetable today, but because it is really Thursday I had my Japanese lesson still and they had English and maths in that time and then the classes that I don’t do later in the day when I was actually free to be going to classes. But I did still have English writing and history. But I still don’t understand history, mabey if I could actually make myself pay attention for the whole lesson I would pick more up but instead I use history lessons to learn that weeks Japanese vocab.

2009-09-18T13:26:00.000+09:00

Thursday 10th September
A pretty standard day at school, I had another of those no I didn’t go back to Australia for summer holiday convos today after one of the guys in my class commented that he saw me with a guy in the holidays and wanted to know if it was my boyfriend, I'm guessing that he means he saw me and josh, so after explaining who josh is, (if your reading this and don’t know ill be surprised but hes the other aussies exchange student in my area) going through no hes not my boyfriend, or brother or cousin or any other reliative, no not a school friend from Australia (even though he is both a friend and Australian I did only meet him in Japan. )they were like wait you didn’t go home for holidays. So then I had to explain that no I'm in Japan for a year, and ill only go home at the end of that, in January, apparently some of my class mates didn’t relize I have been here since January andinstead thought I came when the new school year started in april, and thus thought I would be her until the school year ended. I'm not sure yet, because I don’t know when winter holidays end, but I don’t think ill come back to school after them, as if I do it would be for 1 or mabey 2 weeks, but I guess it also depends on my host family at the time ect.
Friday 11th September
In calligraphy today I finished carving my name stamp, its really cool, I'm very pleased with it, I really want to get more photos up but the computers at school are rediciously slow at doing so, so I'm going to try and arrange something else so that I can. Aftrer school today I returned to my first host families house, actually the first time I've returned to any of my hosts houses, it was weird, not so much the going back, well it kinda was but its soo different to when I was there, the have sold their grand piano, and that has given the downstairs area so much more room, I didn’t go upstairs but I doubt that would have changed very much as it is just bedrooms and the bathroom. Also when I lived there we always had snow and thus the heaters and winter blankets to snuggle under while watching tv ect, but it now bwing early autum and to the japnese standards still really warm and mabey even hot, (sorry but I'm my books 20 doesn’t = hot) so they had the house a lot more open and we actually went out into the glass room, a room that we never used as it was always to cold, it is all glass, the walls are entirely windows and the roof is glass as well, there is only about a 2m wall that isn’t glass where it connects to the rest of the house, it’s a really nice room. Okasan was thrilled to have me back there, as I have really only seen here once since I moved, at the dinner with my family, but I was sat at the other end of the table from her and as one of the 2 Japnese people there that could speak English she spent most of the night talking with and translating for my parents while I was doing the same with my sister. The reason I went back there this afternoon was that we had an Australian, newzealand organization meeting tonight in toyama that Otosan had to go to as well so he was taking me to that. At the meting josh and I were the only exchange students, fitting as it is a prefectual organization and we are the only excahgne students in our prefecture, but again there wasn’t any other Australians or any newzealanders other than the embasicy members that they had invited. The Newzealand embacy lady has been in japan for almost 2 years now and has very fluent and formal Japanese, where as josh and I mostly speak informal japnese because that’s what used at school and home, at occasions like this we should be speaking formally, and believe me they are 2 completely different things. As I attend rotary weekly and do speeches at least once a forghtnight if not every week, I at least get this practice at my formal Japnaese, josh not so much. The Australian embasy lady has only been here 3 months and hadn’t previously studied Japanese and thus wasn’t that great and I felt awful when my Japanese was way better than hers and several of the Japense people there commented on this in front of her, though I'm not sure she understood. The meating was like an agm if I understood correctly, looking at what they have done during the last year and what they have planed for the coming year, they asked my feedback on the bus hike that they took us on back in April and I gave some constructive critisisum, though I think it came across a bit harsher than I intended. I was also given a really handy little book all about Australia, in Japanese and I mentioned to them that they should give these out at the beginning of our stay, when we don’t have the japense skills to explain for ourselves.
Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th
So this weekend was the 400th annerversary festival, so there was a lot of photos around and displayes of the town of how it used to be, which were quiet intresting, they also had a mini replica of the castle made out of plastic bottles in the park on Saturday, however it was no where to be seen Sunday which was annoying as Josh came on Sunday, Saturday also saw several local bands perfoming on a stage set up in the park, which was also very cool. Oh and I got interviewed for the radio! Sunday my host dad and brother were in the parade, and so we (josh and I) actually watched that parade twice, once where the 2 parades passed fairly soon after one another and the other time with the rest of my host family from their old house, which is above their business. I then got to watch a display that is usually reserved to a day in golden week which I missed in golden week due to band practices which was one of the main factors as to why I quit. But this involved banging to huge floats into each othe multiple times, quiet the ridoculiosness but intresting all the same.

2009-09-11T14:18:00.000+09:00

Tuesday 1st September
So back at school today, my host mum drove me to and from school because it was very rainy, today was a pretty average day at school, other than opening ceremony, which then ment that the following 6 lessons were shortened to fit them all in by home time. Once home I did my last minute packing (eg packing my school uniform) befor playing a bit of Nintendo with Asa befor moving to my new host family.
Here I have a little sister haruki who is 4 a little brother yoshiki 7, parents, an aunty and Grandma. There isn’t actually a rotary member in this family however my host dad was an exchange student to new york in 1994. Granddad was a member of the rotary club befor he died 16 years ago.

Wednesday 2nd September
School thismorning, it takes me about 40 minutes to ride to school, and when I got there my legs were absolutely caning, the bike I have now is difrrent from the one I had last time I rode to school, its much older and isn’t geared,making it somewhat harder to ride. I had rotary today, so went to that where I got given my birthday present, which I haven’t yet opened, I have a small collection of things on my shelf now, which I'm not going to open until my birthday. And then I had to ride home… it got a little to hot, and I didn’t have a drink with me today so I stoped in at Aeon on the way home for a drink and to cool off a bit beofr continuing home. Once home I wraped the presents for my hosts, befor they all got home from work and school. Tonight with Obasan, okasan, Haruchan and yoshiki I went to Owara a really small town, near toyama for the dance festivle that was on there. We didn’t really get to see all that much, as most of the stuff was on a lot later than we could stay there with a 4 and 7 year old.

Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th September
School, Thursday was standard, Friday I had calligraphy in which we started designing our stamps, I cant remember the proper name for them, but like the stamp that we will use on our work in red ink to state that it is ours, and for this I had to use kanji so the first lesson (calligraphy is a double) was spent decided on kanji for my name, what we decided on is 赦寝 which means peacefull Friday afternoon I rode into the rain on the way home and actually only made it as far as the train station befor giving up leaving my bike there, amoung hundreds, mabey thousands of others for the weekend and ringing my host mum and asking her to come pick me up from there.
Saturday 5th September
Went to toyama today first of all to the wedding of my host parents friends then while okasan was at the reception papa, Haruchan, Yoshiki and I went out for lunch and to the science museum, there was a huge focus on the ecology of toyama prefecture, and the 4 noble prize winners that come from this area. As well as a few other really cool things, the one I found most intresting was the water harp purely coz I cant for the life of me figure out how it works. After that it was home to make a lot more origami… mostly shurikans, and balloons, they are the only things that haruki knows how to make, but Yoshiki and I did try some harder stuff as well. We had take out pizza tonight, which seamed very odd, I've had take out in japan befor, from the Chinese shop, where they dilvered it to us in proper dishes packed inside this special box, and when we were finished eating we put the dishes back in the box and outside and they would come back later to pick it up, take out pizza is just like in Aus, and the bases were thick like our pizzas to, most pizza over here is like on burritos.

Sunday 6th September
We had a really lovely breakfast out in the backyard this morning under a shade. And pretty much a lazy day really, as most of my host family were feeling unwell, this left me with a very energenic 7 year old to try and keep busy, and somewhat quiet.
Monday 7th September
School, because of the rain on Friday I was driven to the train station this morning and then I rode on to school, as usual when I am subjected to an English reading lesson I got absolutely enfuriated at the teacher, he refuses to listen to what I have to say, he askes me a question like to define words, but then he will change what I said, usully so it wrong when he repeats it to the class, I may have complained about my Japanese teacher back in Aus, I didn’t like the way he taught, but he with out a doubt knew his stuff, and I would much much rather that the English teachers here taught the way that he did and really knew their stuff. A lot of the teachers have one way of saying things and struggle to say things in other ways, some refuse to accept that there are multiple ways of saying things, and a lot of the time I cant even say what I would use, as one of my English teachers knows now, it depends on the context in which its used! Other teachers know that it is possible to say it multiple ways but struggle to know if the way that is being presented to them is correct if its not the way that seems most natural to them.

Tuesday 8th September
School again, and I'm actually really liking getting to school early these days, though as it starts to get much cooler I doubt that I will still be able to say that, not with riding to school, but I now do a lot of my Japanese study in the half an hour I have at school befor lessons start, which is great because it means I am carrying less books to and from school each day, but also because I'm not being distracted by haru and Yoshiki as I am trying to study. Though Yoshiki and I do often do some kanji study together of an afternoon. Not today however as very soon after I got home, we were out again, to drop haru and Yoshiki off at their other grandma’s place befor going out to dinner and then a tradition drama at the cultural hall opposite school, I understood hardly anything, then again neather did my host family or any of the Rotarians that we were sitting with, this was due to it being in old Japanese, kinda like Shakespearean is for us.
Wenesday 9th September
Our biol lesson today was intrupted by several of us noticing a fire near the school and our teacher making sure that the firebrigade had been notified, it looked really big, as we could see it over the top of another fairly tall building, yet I cant actually figure out where it actually was. I had rotary today, and a half day host, I must say probably the least interesting half day host yet, I do feel sorry for the ones I have now though, as there isn’t really much left in the local area that I haven’t done, and they all feel that they have to take me out to places, one of the half day hosts I've most enjoyed I went back to their house helped my host sister there do her English homework befor going and hanging out at the shops for a bit. Also I'm getting a bit sick of the obvisoul lack of people in our rotary club paying any attention to what I do at meatings, half of them, along with most Japanese still ask me if we have such and such in America, I feel like yelling at them when they ask me this, but then also the can you speak Japanese question, um hello, lets think about this I've been living here almost 8 months now, I get up infrount of all of you every month and do a 5-10 minute speech in Japanese about what I have done in the last month with no notes, but no I don’t think I can speak Japanese. Do you? There also seems to be a lot of ignorance and stupidity going round, I say we don’t eat fish very much in Australia, which compared to Japan is very true, somehow this always translated to their heads as I don’t like fish at all. Also when I said that my family doestngo fishing this apparently ment that no one does and that I would have never seen a fishing rod in my life. Ahh some people have a lot to learn don’t they. So today we went to a little fishing village, a coffee shop a picture book museum and then to dinner befor I got returned home at 7. Which I was good because I wsant really feeling the best so I went to bed fairly early.

2009-09-11T14:11:00.000+09:00

Friday 21st –Monday 24th August ~ Disneyland trip to Tokyo
So on Friday I moved to my new hosts, and it was an interesting first night, after much sitting around (waiting for my host sister to get home from work) we got in the car and drove to Tokyo overnight, once in Tokyo we grabbed breakfast and headed to Disneyland, and our first lineup of the day waiting to get in…we were there before the park opened! After lining up for over half an hour to get our fastpass tickets for the new Monsters Inc ride (that enabled us to return and skip the line after 9pm) we went shopping, the thought process wasn’t really there I don’t think, everyone knows the sensible thing is to shop at the end of the day so you don’t have to carry it around allday! But anyway, I was bought a Marie lanyard to put my ticket and fastpasses in and a Chip and Dale mini towel. I found a nice pin for my blazer and then it was off to the rides. After a few rides and some very long lines, we had lunch and watched the cool the heat show which started with the phrase (in English) “ are you feeling hot? We have the soluition for you, lets dance around in the sun!) this did actually involve a lot of water being sprayed around the castle and all over the audience! I think it just made it all more humid rather than cooling but anyway. After that we moved to wait for the day time parade, and there ate yet another Icecream, these ones came in souviner cups. After that we watched the cool the heat show again. Got really wet this time as we were standing in a different place to watch it. Host parents then went to our hotel while my host sister Azusa and I stayed at Disneyland, went on a few more rides, met Mickey and then grabed a good spot for the night show, for which our parents returned to Disneyland for, after that we had dinner and went on the monsters inc ride before some more shopping and then finially heading to our hotel at 10pm (the parks close time!)
Sunday was another packed full day up early and off to Disney Sea, again we got there befor opening time, the lines here were not anywhere near as bad, so a lot more rides were ridden! And I believe that the rides at Disney sea are much better than any of the rides at Disneyland (with the exception of Space mountain…. Fave ride ever!) however I didn’t enjoy the DisneySea shows as much. The Littlemermaid area blew my mind, very much designed for little kids, but I think it was the most true to the movies and it captured what I originally expected the Disneyparks to be. Disney Sea has a lot wider range of souviners available but there is still a lot missing from the range, if it mickey or any of his companins you will easily find it, stich is another big one as is Pooh Marie is a big presence but really there isn’t much else.
Monday was mostly spent driving home, stopping every time we passed a rest stop place, so at least every half hour, so it took way to long!
Tuesday 25th à Friday 28th August
This week was spent doing random things, from bowling, Karaoke, shopping, badminton in the park and Nintendo games and just generally getting used to my new host family. I was watching TV one night, well every night actually the TV in out apartment is never off and my bed is right next to the TV so it’s hard to avoid, and really some of the TV shows amaze me. They really do, all the sterotypes of them are totally correct. I watched 2 movies this week, sister act and Always, actually I watched them both twice, once in English and once in Japanese. I was fine watching sister act in Japanese, Always was a bit more challenging due to the discourses present in it.
Saturday 29 August
I went to Toyama today and spent the day with Josh, we went to some big shopping center which I have forgotten the name of, not that It would mean much to you anyway. But it was very similar to Aeon (only more expensive to get to, I finially realize what everyone was saying about Aeon being very convienient, even though it is quiet a way from the from the station to walk and all the other good things are on the other side of the station. Anyway we went shopping, went back to toyama itself, had lunch, walked around a bit befor it was time for me to head home.
Sunday 30th August
Went up some mountain in Ishikawaken and then to and Aquarium which was actually kinda intresting, but I think my host mum was about 10X more excited than I was.
Monday 31st August
As it was a fairly raininy day today so Azusa and I spent most of the day playing on the nitendio, and then at dinner I was informed that I will be changing host families again tomorrow, and as I have school tomorrow I had to make sure I got everything packed tonight, thankfully, as I haven’t been here long, and its such a small place that I haven’t really had room to unpack there wasn’t really all that much to do.

2009-08-21T08:59:00.000+09:00

Monday 17^th à Friday 21^st August

Just hanging out at home for most of the week, went to rotary on Wednesday, where my glasses broke and I was pressed into putting them into the first place we went to for repair, I have a spare pair which I am now wearing and I am worried about how much it is going to be costing me to get them fixed, but alas I guess getting them fixed is the best thing so that I still have a spare pair here for the rest of the year. Today (Friday) I will change host families AGAIN and we are heading to Tokyo for the weekend, and then I'm back at school next week, this next term takes us all the way through to Christmas eve. Yay! What a long term!

photos!

2009-08-17T16:31:00.007+09:00

2009-08-17T16:29:00.000+09:00

Tuesday 11^th August

So today I played the waiting game yet again, I must say communication here really fails. I changed host families today, and ahh waiting to change host families is one of the most nerve racking and annoying things. The only move I have felt entirely comfortable with was moving to the Mai family (Yoshi’s) mainly because I had actually met them before I moved and I knew a bit about the family. The only time I have actually previously known any details about the family I will be living with. So I moved at like 3. I had been told after lunch, and we ate lunch and then they were like soon, you move soon. So yeah 4 hours later, I moved to my next family, on the same road… technically, but about another 20 minutes drive away from the station and there are lots of bends and what not that it may as well not be. I have 2 older host sisters, an older host brother, mum, dad and grandma here. My bed is literally a mattress on the floor and I have no room to unpack my suitcase, not that I really want to, I am only here 10 days.

Wednesday 12^th August

Didn’t get up to much today, had a lovely chat with some friends on Skype today.

Thursday 13^th

So today we did the lets go to the supermarket and point at what you like game again. Have I mentioned how much I hate doing that?! And then after that Mari (host sister) and I went to the library and while she was doing her stuff I read one of the few English books they have called the castles of the samurai which wasn’t a bad book. A little dated but none the less I did learn some things from it.

Friday 14^th

So this afternoon Mari and I headed over to a friend’s house for a bbq. There we had the normal yakiniku sort of food, and then somen and ramen (both types of noodles) in the waterstream running down bamboo cut in half, it’s hard to explain there will be photos soon. And then we did fireworks and just generally had a fun afternoon/evening.

Saturday 15^th

Today, well today I'm confused, we drove to kawakawa… which is about an hour and a half drive away went to “hachiban ramen“ (it’s a chain of restaurants that’s in almost as many places as maccas) and then turned around and came home. I'm a little confused as to why.

Sunday 16^th

After having a heap of other family members over for lunch Mari and I went out to a bbq at the beach with mostly the same people as Friday, I actually went for a swim and it felt great to swim again, even if it was very cold and the Japanese girls got really freaked out when I went in further than waist deep, apparently they fail to realize that Australians can swim!

2009-08-11T18:33:00.001+09:00

Saturday 1st August
Not much today, finished unpacking all my stuff and setting up my room, getting frustrated at myself because I couldn’t remember where I decided to put things, always the issue with changing hosts, re getting used to the environment and where I am able to put things. I then got a little bored and started to sketch from my photos.

Sunday 2nd August
This afternoon saw me going to Inami with my host parents, it was a sweet littletown whos main industry is woodcarving. I got to see some of this in Action and just look at lots of other finished and half finished pieces of work.

Monday 3rd August
So didn’t really get up to much today did some more sketching.

Tuesday 4th August
So at lunchtime today my host brother and I went out to an Okonomiyaki restaurant, I hate how on several occasions different host families have said lets go out to lunch/ dinner, and then we go on to a heap of other things, mainly because I don’t nessaceraly take my camera and wallet with me when we are “just going out for lunch”. Today we went to a book off which is a second hand book store, also has dvd’s cds and that sort of thing. And then on to some tower, it was a huge tower in the middle of nowhere but from the top it was quiet a nice view.

Wednesday 5th August
Morning didn’t really get up to much, after lunch I decided that it looked like nice enough weather to go for a walk, I ended up down at Aeon (shopping centre) where I picked up a few things, befor coming home and doing a fair chunck of study. I did last years test of the level 4 Japanese profiency test, and passed it very easily. I will be sitting the level 3 test in December, but as the textbooks I am using cover level 3, and 4 and I finished all the level 4 stuff about 2 months ago and the practice book I bought has both levels.

Thursday 6th August
Again I went for a walk after lunch, today I went in a big circle, I went up past my second host house, round to a shop I had seen while driving past it on multiple occasions and thought I should take a look at it. And then I went on to Aeon again, just because I could. Tonight we went to the Tanabata festviale where we had dinner, and wandered around. I must say I highly object to festival games that result in winning goldfish which you are given in cliplock bags!

Friday 7th August
So today I spent with Josh, the another Aussie who lives in toyama. Today he came to Takaoka so for a while we went and hung out in the park, where I managed to get the kookaburras to pay attention to us by singing “kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” then the gorilla decided to copy what josh was doing, and then would nod or shake its head at questions we asked it, actually at questions Josh asked it didn’t seem to like me very much. We then went to the 100 yen shop for the first time, and then we headed back to the train station via the festival stands, to wait for nick. Nick said he was running late so we went back to the 100yen shop and the bakery nearby for some lunch, a while later we got a message from nick saying he wouldn’t be coming so Josh and I decided to head down to Aeon, we had intentions on maybe seeing a movie, but none really suited us with time restraints and what not so after wandering around the shops a bit we went to the arcade part where we played a rhythm game, where we failed very epically! Then a shooting game which again was an epic fail and then finally a car racing game, it felt weird “driving” again. It will be very weird to actually get back in and drive a car when I get home! After that we just sat round talking for a bit more before walking back to the train station together and then heading home.

Saturday 8th August
So after a fairly uneventful day full of sleep and study I went to the summer light up of Zurugi temple. If you think back to the 14th of Feb I went to the winter one then to, it was exactally the same! Well except its not freezing at the moment, but as far as the actual festive side of things it was exactally the same, they had the same food stalls, the same souvenir stands, everything, it really gets me questioning about some of the Japanese traditions, and festivals, don’t get me wrong I love the festivals and that they have such a deep rooted set of traditions, I mean gosh my town here is 400 this year, and Queensland (my state in Australia) is 150 this year, and the history of White Australia doesn’t go back all that much more. However all of the festivals are pretty much more or less the same, I mean the decorations differ, but what you can do as someone who attends them is the same, even the entertainment seems to be the same from festival to festival.

Sunday 9th and Monday 10th August
Again not much to write about, I went walking on both days, got the present for my next host family organized, I say present as I am only going to be with them for 10 days and I am having to be sparily to some extent with the presents I have, never thought I would have so many host families. and then packing yet again. I really don’t like packing! Especially this time, I was re packing things that I haven’t even used since I got here, but unpacked because when I got here I had no idea that I was only here for such a short time, and I'm only at my next family for 10 days.

2009-08-11T18:23:00.000+09:00

Sunday 26th July
Spent most of the day today finishing off getting everything together for camp, went shopping with okasan and Yoshi to get a last few things, and do the groceries. I think we called Mutsuko, my host cousin and another 2nd year student at my school about 10 times to confirm what the sheet ment and what I did or didn’t need to take with on camp.

Monday 27th -> Wednesday 29th July – school camp
So the last 3 days saw all the 2nd year students head off on camp. Camp was in Nagano prefecture, which is to the east of Toyama prefecture. (the southern one of the two prefectures Toyama shares the eastern boarder with). So on Monday after several hours of driving we got off the busses into pouring rain for a 45 min walk up a hill through a forest to a shrine, and then another 45 minutes back, the weather wasn’t hot at all during camp, but I think that on this walk was the hottest I have felt this year, being that I had my raincoat on and the humidity and the exercise was just a bad mix. After some more driving we arrived at our camp site, but again the busses couldn’t get in there so we had to walk about a km into the camp carring all out stuff, not a bother to me as I had everything packed into my backpack.
This was actual tent camping, but all of our tents had already been set up for us. I was in a tent with 2 other girls from my class, and I must say the tents were rather small, I couldn’t lie straight the long way of the tent but as they were to narrow to sleep that way we had to sleep across the tent, and because of this I didn’t sleep very well either night at camp. The tents were pitched over thick foam boards, and that for the most part acted as our matterases, we were given 3 blankets, one under, one over and one as a pillow, well at least that’s how I used them. It was sooo cold up at camp, I had my jersey and a jumper on and was at times still cold. We in groups (about 7) had to cook our own meals over the fires, and again safety doesn’t really seem to be a big thing in Japan. Here are some cotton gloves for you to wear while playing with the fire, um no thanks, and I'm glad I didn’t, because even though it did mean I got a splinter, at least I didn’t burn my hands, I mean really lets put a flammable glove on our hands while playing with fire!
Monday night we had a bonfire, around which we had a few compertitions, class against class and then did some dance that I think about 5% of the grade actually knew but all good fun none the less.
Tuesday morning saw me making blueberry and rhubarb jams (2 separate jams not together) befor eating lunch and then going for a kayaking lesson. I while very much enjoyed being in a Kayak again and where we were was absolutely amazing one of the prettiest places I have been, it would rivel Miyajima island for the top of my list of Japanese pretty places. I was also very boared with the simplicity and speed of the lesson. But I do understand that It was the first time for a lot of the other students. Tuesday night I went to bed rediciliously early as there wasn’t any actual activity planed, it was very rainy and so our tents were really the only dry place to be.
Wednesday saw us leaving cooking and leaving the campsite in fairly heavy rain. We went into the town of Obuse, and wandered around in out tent groups for a while. I saw a Squrrile! And bought a miny toy one for my blazer! And then we got back on the bus and headed home.
My host aunty picked me up from school and took me home. Was nice to see her and hiroko one last time while I'm with my current family.

Thursday 30th and Friday 31st July – changing hosts

Thursday and Friday were spent packing, I absolutely hate packing! I'm not sure if I hate it coz I know ill just be unpacking it all again the following day or just because it is hard to fit everything into a suitcase a box and a backpack. Actually not that hard this time as I had just sent all my excess stuff home with mum and dad last week. Again I packed with my box being things that I don’t intend to return to Australia with and the stuff I want to take home in my suitcase, somehow It all fit in fairly easily and is JUST and I mean JUST under weight at the moment, so won’t be in 6 months time. Though I did have a fair amount of weight and space in what will effectively be my carry on luggage. Anyway I'm sure ill sort that out when the time comes. Thursday night my host family (minus yuka) went out to a yakiniku restaurant for dinner, which was really nice. Friday after I finially finished packing, it was just playing the waiting game again, I think I hate that more than I hate packing. Friday dinner was soo hard, thye gave me presents, a puzzle with photos and comments about my time with them, and some other things. We then just sat around to some extent all playing the waiting game together, my next host dad and brother then came and picked me up and took me to my new house. Leaving the Mai house was the hardest move yet, while I love all my host families, I have felt most at home in that family, and I really didn’t not want to leave them. I think what annoyes me most was that I had really wanted to spend more time with Yoshi, but since he returned we have both been busy with school and whatnot, and school holidays start tomorrow. The other this that kinda hurt is the fact that it would have been very culturally inappropriate to hug them goodbye. And while I know I will see them again leaving there house and not living with them anymore hurt/s.

2009-08-06T14:25:00.002+09:00

hey guys i dont have internet at my new host family and this internett cafe i have found doenst have anywhere i van use my usb and its not all that cheap so im not gonna sit here and type again so you will just have to wait till the 20th or there abouts when im back at school to get a propper update on here.
you can allways contact me on my phone
sharnelle@softbank.ne.jp

lots of love

2009-07-25T21:43:00.000+09:00

Saturday 18 --> Saturday 25th July; family visit, Goodbye to Geoff, Nick, Brie and Riley
So what a week it has been I will try and write coherently but I'm not promising anything, I noticed more than ever this week that English now requires concentration to be able to speak it, though once in English for a while it did get better, but speak a little Japanese and poof my English sucked again. Oh the joys of being an exchange student, you forget your own language.
Saturday (18th) my family arrived at Takaoka at 2:47, so the morning was spent finishing off my packing for the week, and then lots of sitting around waiting for it to be time to go to the train station, that day we walked back to where we stayed at the daibutsu Ryokan (daibutsu = big Buddha, Ryokan = traditional Japanese style inn) and after setting into our rooms and me getting over my tears of Joy at seeing them again and being able to really use English properly. We headed out to the park for a walk before heading down to Aeon (the shopping mall) where we wandered for a bit, did Purikura (Asian photos) and had dinner in the food court.
Sunday we headed into toyama and managed to see the Castle and have some fun climbing around the kiddy playground and get half way to Toyama’s park before the rain for the day hit, we sat in a shelter on the close edge of the park waiting for the rain to die down before we headed back to the train and home again for the day. That night we went to a Yakiniku (fried meat) restaurant, along with another Australian that was also staying at the Ryokan.
Monday after eating okonomiyaki and Yakisoba at a really cheap restaurant near school, we met 2 of my friends from my first year class at school (although it was a national holiday they still had club) and headed out to Karaoke. The fact that I took my parents to Karaoke and Purikura Very much amused a lot of my friends, and the Rotarians, but I think they enjoyed it, and they were here to see me and to see what my life over here is like, and both of those activities are a major part of any teen in Japans life… outside of school that is. Monday night we came here (current host families house) for dinner, which was great to be able to show my parents exactly where I am living and show them inside my house, and also for them to spend some time with my host family, they had actually met my host sister and Mum when they went to Australia to Visit Yoshi, who they had also previously met at my rotary orientations in Australia.
Tuesday we just missed our train to Kanazawa forcing us to wait for almost an hour inside Takaoka train station and significantly decreasing our time in Kanazawa before I was meeting up with all my friends (Exchange students, past exchange students and other friends of exchange students). Once in Kanazawa we went to Kenrokuen which is one of the top 3 gardens in Japan and was the Castle gardens, only about 1/8 of them is still in existence and it is still very large, by anyone’s standards not just Japanese. After that we headed back to the station to meet everyone else, I ended up leaving my family then and they headed back to the art gallery, while I went to the beach with all the others, I wouldn’t have done that except that they all leave really soon, in fact 3 of the 4 that were there have already left, (mike left a few weeks ago) the beach itself was pretty crap, reminded me very much of SA beaches, but then again I am very lucky to live (in Australia) near some of the prettiest(well known) beaches. But it did have a nice set up there, hammocks a gazillion chairs and tables but sheltered and not, and volleyball courts. We had a great time playing around, playing volleyball very badly that is, and then turning that into mugby. (attack whoever happens to have the ball at the time.) a few fireworks were let off before I left, but it wasn’t really dark enough and it was way too windy. With the spirit of the morning I missed my train home from Kanazawa by less than 10m and then got very frustrated because I had been trying to run up the escalators knowing I was pushing it and the people in front of me wouldn’t move over, but not to worry I got home eventually, and sitting at the station let me get all my tears out about having said goodbye to Geoff, Nick, Brie and Riley. I think Geoff will be the one I miss the most out of them, while I didn’t really ever do anything with him other than this other than Rotary arranged things, we got on well, and he is our adopted Aussie, and I guess yes I'm my head even though I know he is Canadian I counted him as an Aussie and it dint really hit until saying goodbye at the beach that he wasn’t going to be here for the second half of my exchange.
Wednesday was a day full of Rotary commitments, we had a lazy morning actually, but then headed off to Rotary meeting, which was a very special one as it was the one and only time this year where the district governor will attend our clubs meeting. After that a whole club photo was taken with the district governor which my family was also in, bit confused about that but anyway. After the photo and some other formalities we were off for the afternoon with one of the Rotarians (who had been my half day host a few weeks ago) and with him we went to Futagamiyama (2 toped mountain) which was a lookout point back over the area of Takaoka, and also had a huge festival bell which was fun to ring, and interesting to note that if you stood so that you were in the center of the bell it got a lot quitter. And then to the Famous rocks at Himi, the Takaoka history museum and then to a tea house among all the old houses before being dropped back at the Ryokan for a break before it was out to dinner with My host families and a few other members of My Rotary club here, unfortunately my second host mum couldn’t make it to this and so my family didn’t get to meet her.
Thursday morning we visited the Museum of Takaoka in The park before heading out for lunch where we made a group of high school boys day, they sat there staring at us the whole time, then when they left they asked me through the window if they could take our photo, but we made them come back inside so mum could give them Australian Stickers that she had been carrying for little kids, she is such a teacher! We then headed on to school, where my parents had the chance to talk to my home class teacher before joining Felicia and I and the English club. The Club told us about the Tanabata festival which has already been celebrated where I live but not yet in the suburb that school is in. and then we had question time before we looked at some hard words and sentences to pronounce in English. After which we bought massive soft serves and headed to the park where we ended up feeding at least 30 Coi and then about as many turtles. Pokka and I then lay on the grass in the park and watched clouds for a bit. Not very Japanese to lie on the ground but hey we are foreigners it’s ok, I generally don’t use that rule but ahh sometime the Japanese way just doesn’t make sense.
Yesterday (Friday 24th) I had to go into school for a lesson, home class about camp next week so my family went to the art gallery across the road from school and then we all went to lunch together before heading back to Aeon for some shopping, I got a new shirt and my family picked up some last minute souvenirs for friends back home.
This morning I had a very hard time saying goodbye to them, while I am very much having fun here and I don’t by any means want to go home yet, saying goodbye for that long again was very hard, it’s just not as exciting this time round, I know what it’s like here, and I have been animate in saying that one of the reasons I found it so easy to not really miss them, don’t get me wrong I did but not be homesick ect is that they had never been a part of my life here, I have most host family and my friends here, and while they are different that’s my life here, but now that they have been here and I shared some of my favourite places with them I worry that those places will remind me to much of them and really make me miss them.
Tonight we had what they call the summer festival in our neighborhood, basically everyone from this block of houses (it is actually fairly clearly defined… we are surround by rice fields) went to one of the parkish area and we had loot of food being cooked and sold, and a raffle and good times were had by all, they even had Yoshi and I cooking, not sure that that was the best idea, so I tended to stick on putting sauce on our shutting the containers and attaching chopsticks.

2009-07-17T15:18:00.001+09:00

Monday 13th --> ay 17th
So half days of school, last Japanese lesson for over a month, lots of talk and orginaization for camp. And lots of excitement on my behalf, because tomorrow at 2:47 I am going to be the happiest little girl. Aka my family arrive in Takaoka. So can not believe that is time 25 weeks ago I was chucking the last things in my suitcase and getting ready to come to Japan. This is really half way through an awesome year. One I am loving very much.

2009-07-12T18:42:00.001+09:00

Thursday 9th --> Saturday 11th
Nothing much to say, half days at school on Thursday and Friday , very rainy ones at that to, on Thursday in Jap I did a revision test of the first book of work and scored 95% on that so Yay! I know it will and next week will finally start book 2.
Sunday 12th
Went out for lunch with Yoshi and okasan and then met up with 2 of Yoshi’s cousins Mutsuko and Hiroko and there mum at Aeon. We went clothes shopping for a bit before the 4 of us “kids” went off to the games centre played a few games and did some purikura before re finding our mums for ice cream.

2009-07-09T15:05:00.004+09:00

Tuesday 7th – Tanabata
So today is tanabata, I went to the festivalish thing last week though, but today in my Japanese class Ibata sensei and I made a mini tree with our wishes on it, was good fun. School again finished at lunch time, so then home it was, and the afternoon was spent mostly talking with Yoshi and looking at his photos from Australia, was also very fun.

Wednesday 8th

So school in the morning then as usual for a Wednesday I went to Rotary and again I had a half day host family today. Today we went to the Toyama botanical gardens which were very over grown but still had some nice stuff to look at. And then to an Art gallery, one which I had also been to with my 2nd host family but that was ok because it was a complexly different Exerbittion today, I think I liked today’s better anyway. And then it was off to dinner. Today it was host parents and a host brother, who was some what older than me and he is moving to Sydney in about 2 months as they are trying to expand their family business and they have decided to do so in Sydney so he was very interesting in talking about Australia, and he had amazing English skills.

and now there are 6

2009-07-07T20:42:00.001+09:00

Monday 6th July
School until about lunch time, that’s how it will be for the rest of term as well, we only have 3 classes a day now, well I have 2, English and maths, but they also have Kokugo (Japanese). Because of when the trains come and matching up times where I have to change trains I had a while to wait today, because I had stayed at school a little longer than need be to talk with some people trying to arrange things for when my family are here. So I went for a walk to the park in this time and boy have the cygnets grown in the last week and a bit since my last wander to the park! They are actually starting to look like swans now not just ugly ducklings. So then home it was and I didn’t get up to much it was mostly waiting, and waiting.

Waiting for what you ask? Waiting for Yoshi. Yoshi is my host brother, he returned today from a year’s exchange on the sunny coast, in the same rotary district that I come from, I met him almost a year ago at the first rotary orientation I went to, and from that day we have been good friends, I will never forget my first conversation with him, he had only been in Australia less than a week, and his English wasn’t great, or maybe it was and he was just really nervous, I know that my Japanese appeared to be a lot worse than it was when I got here because I was just nervous about it, nor will I forget the fact that he very excitedly told me I was coming to Takaoka and would be staying with his family before I actually got told by rotary. Anyway he hadn’t been in Australia long he I'm pretty sure he slept through most of that orientation weekend, well at least when we were being spoken to but I remember several conversations with him, in bits and pieces of broken English and Japanese. Sunshine safari again has many happy memories of times with Yoshi and all the other exchange students, by then his English was very good, and he spent a lot of time on the various bus rides helping me with my Japanese. The last time I saw him was at Australia zoo, when a group of us exchange students went together, saying goodbye then was almost as weird as saying hello again tonight. At that point we knew that I would be living with his family at this time, the time that he returned to Japan and so it was weird saying goodbye to a friend knowing that the next time I would see him he would be my host brother. Do you have any idea how weird it is to say welcome home to someone whose house you have been living in for 2 months, yet they haven’t been in for a year?
Waiting for him to get home today was weird, how much would he have changed since I last saw him, how much have I changed? Today has very much been an eye opener to what I will be facing in 6 months time, my return to Australia. In some ways it feels wrong being here tonight and that is why for once I am actually writing an entry the day that it is about, it feels wrong being here and spending time talking to him when his grandparents are downstairs and he hasn’t seen them in 12 months. Yet I feel honored that I am here, this family could have quiet easily said that it didn’t suit for me to be here now that Yoshi is home, and again I feel bad about that as I am in Yoshi’s room and he is now on a mattress in his mums room.
I got to watch as Yoshi and Ojisan (granddad) prayed to their gods at both the shrine and temple in our house, and then as Yoshi “unpacked” by which I mean he spread his stuff pretty much all over the living area down stairs. I was very surprised that he had a present for me, as with the rest of the family, and although you may be thinking but its something Australian why would you care so much, well what is was is an Aussie homesick pack, has some gum leaves, Billy tea, vegemite, a little flag, a match a badge with Aussie animals on it ect.
In hole a good day. I'm looking forward to catching up with Yoshi more and also just having the experience of living with a brother, and a house of 6! that should explain the post title, also applys to the fact that i now have been here 6 months, and have 6 months, left, also ironically its the 6th today!

2009-07-06T21:01:00.001+09:00

Wednesday 1st July
So had a half day host again today after rotary, and I got to visit his company, a paper making place befor going home, they live in a fairly old house in central Takaoka and we visted som of the other really old houses in the area that are set up as museums, we then went to Aeon where I spent the time wandering with my half day host sister (also 17) and I bought a few books and stuff coz everything was on special.

Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd
Both days themselves a little boring with not much to do at home during the day, however Thursday night saw us go to the judging night of the tanabata displays as Yuka had to write about it for Fridays paper. Apparently Imizu shi celebrates tanabata this month but Takaoka shi will celebrate it next month, so seeing as I live in imuzu but go to school in Takaoka I will kinda get to expericace it twice, and for that I'm sure not complaining.

Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th July
Saturday morning I had school, well they had 2 tests, through which I sat in the library and did some kanji study! Fun stuff that. Actually kanji study is a lot easier now that I have finially finished making all my kanji flash cards, a process which I actually started about 5 times befor I found a way that I really liked, but they are finished now and are much easier to use than the last set I made. Anyway the reason I had to go to school was for homeclass where we talked more about camp. After that I went to my counselors house as my host family was away, so I spent the night at my counselors. His business makes and sells Sake (Japanese rice wine) so I got a tour of the brewery, only it was not in operation, they only actually make it during winter, and then it has to sit for at least a year. So really what I saw was a heap of sake bottles sitting around. Unlike wine it has to be stored upright in the bottle not lying down. Something to do with the pressure changes doing this stage. Sunday was mostly spent at my counselors house befor a quick trip to the rose garden at Himi that I went to with my first half day hosts dinner and then returning home to my regular host family, well minus my host mum.

2009-07-05T21:04:00.001+09:00

Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th June – Happy birthday mummy!
Saturday was fairly boring didn’t do much at all, well nothing worth writing about anyway other than i very much amused my hsot grandama who didn’t realizes that I was talking to mum via skype and got very confused when I started singing happybirthday, would be a little weird I guess. Sunday okasan and I went and visited the big ship I saw a few weeks ago with the senda family (3rd half day hosts) but like we actually went on it, and it was lot more intresting than I thought it would be. And then we went to a place that makes the stuff out of fish paste, basicaially they mash the fish up colour is something intense and make it into pretty shapes ect.

Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th So I have this week off school coz of exams, so I've been spending my days with a combination of studying, mostly kanji, reading, folding paper cranes and knitting, I would go walking but there really isn’t anywhere to walk from here, and its rainy season now so it makes it a bit hard to really.

2009-06-26T21:08:00.001+09:00

Saturday 20th June- Kurobe gourge.
So today was wonderful trip with Okasan and Obachan first in the car for about an hour then on a special train for 80 minutes through Kurobe gorge. Kurobe gorge is advertised as the no.1 V-shaped gorge in Japan. I question weather this means it the one that is most like a V rather than say a U or weather it is the prettiest. But that’s just me and my odd way of thinking. The train ride often went through the mountains and as it was an open carriage it got very cold at times. But it was amazing, once at the finial destiontaion (as far as the train anyway) we had lunch and walked with Obachan to the foot bath place. (sulphur overload!) befor okasan and I set off on some more trails to other parts of the gorge, best exersize I have had in a long time, also very sad that okasan seemed to cope better with it than I did. But then again I was constintally stopping for photos and on those kindas of tracks inertia does certainly help. Got a fair collection of new things for my blazer. I really should weigh it some time soon to see how heavy it really is, I mean I know its heavy, any exchange student (well any that actually put stuff on theirs ) will agree with that. I think all 3 of us slept for at least part of the train ride back, and I know I sertaintly slept the car ride, I struggled to stay awake for the train but every time we went back into a cold tunnel and the winds picked up I woke up, unfortunately wasn’t the intreting parts!

Sunday 21st June
Just a really relaxing day at home, letting our musscleas recover form yesterday, so a bit of study and lots of sleeping actually.

Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd June
School and I cant think of anything particually intresting.

Wednesday 24th June
Tonight I attended my clubs change over dinner which was very different to my memory of the Kippa ring one that I attended. (Just a note that was the first rotary meeting/ event that I ever attended, July 2008) It started with a wonderful concert by a harp and violin player. And then proceeded into the speeches swapping of badges from current presidents to next years, and all the other positions ect. And then dinner which was 7 courses plus coffee/ tea, though pretty much any meal in Japan ends with Coffee or tea. Rotarians partners also attended this and for that I am very grateful because that provided me with some decent conversation at my table with out having to talk with the some what drunk Rotarians. It was surprisingly difficult to convince them and the waiters that no thank you I don’t drink alcohol, I'm 17! (drinking age here is 20)

An amusing side note, if your female and fill up your car on a Wednesday at the petrol station near us you get a free packet of 4 rolls of toilet paper. WHAT THE?

Thursday 25th and Friday 26th June
School on Thursday I found very hard to stay awake through because of the rather late night due to the rotary party on Wednesday. Today, Friday I wore my short sleaved uniform for he first time, after others in my class started wearing them yesterday, its not that I actually found the long sleaved one much hotter if any, especially as it does keep the sun off, its just that it seems to weird to wear a long sleaved shirt in the middle of summer! In home class today we decided on groups for camp. I really didn’t care to much about who I was with, and I think that worked out really well as I'm now with a group of people that I don’t know all that well, but that’s good coz it will give me that chance to really get to know them as well as lots of others in my class, in al I am really looking forward to camp.

2009-06-20T20:21:00.001+09:00

Wednesday 17th June – ½ day host~ Senda family
Had the morning off school today because they had exams all day, so really I had the whole day off but I always have Wednesday afternoons off. So lunch time I headed off to rotary, and then with my third half day hosts. We visited his company and met most of the family then went to Fushiki and did a boat cruise before picking their 18 year old granddaughter Kaede up from school and heading to the Takaoka manyo history museum. After that we headed off to Dinner at a yakiniku restaurant! I love yakiniku!

Thursday 18th + Friday 19th June
School. But instead of just saying that I decided I will tell you about the classes I'm currently taking because I don’t believe I have done that with my second year classes.
Maths 1: to me this stuff is really pretty simple, we are doing logs at the moment. But that is only because I have already done it in Australia, you have to remember that I'm about ¼ of the way through year 11 here. Does make this stuff a lot easier, and as maths is really a language of its own this is fine. Unless you get a really wordy question that has lots of kanji, but then I play the match kanji game…. One of my friends wrote out the more common kanji that is used in maths and the pronunciation and meanings of them for me so I am getting there with learning them and can generally figure out what the question is asking me to do. It does help that for this I do actually have a test book.
Maths 2: this is a little harder than Maths 1 I will give it that but I still do not at all find it challenging and I don’t see how they are actually learning anything. Here all they seem to do is pick a student and get them to write their answer to the homework on the board and then correct it if nessaceray, and this is what they do every lesson. I don't have a textbook for this so I can’t actually do the questions ahead of time but have no issue doing them in class anyway. Still I get very board in this class.
English ra( writing): probably the English class that I enjoy the most because I can actually do it as well, this, most of the time is translation sentences. And again one student writing the answer on the board and then going through them as a class correcting. I have fun challenging myself to understand the Japanese, it’s just the kanji that is hard! And then figuring out as many possible ways as I can to say it in English. I do quiet often get stumped when what's written on the board isn’t quite right. And I know it’s not right but I can’t think of the right way to say it! It’s annoying to know that my English is detraining! Because really the only time I use it now is when I'm on my computer, either typing my blog or things on the internet, and even half my internet things are in Japanese.
English R (reading): I get board as all hell in this class because there is really no interaction we read a book, repeat after the CD sentence by sentence. Pronounce words the American way, or just plain wrong …. I've asked the Americans and it’s not how they say it either. And then the teacher goes through and gives a Japanese explanation to it.
English 2 (communication): I like this one better than reading, and I do enjoy Friday lessons of it better than Wednesdays. On Wednesdays we have the Alt running them and because she’s American I'm of no use in these classes. However on Fridays it is just the teacher and I get to help out a bit more, and I enjoy English lessons where I feel like I'm being useful a lot better than just sitting there. This is supposed to be a class just in English and for the most it is, though they do get a few Japanese explanations here and there, on the more complex things. We read a passage and then do comprehension question on it, some multi choice some true/false question then we are given definitions of words and have to find the word from within the passage, or a different form of the word from the passage. And then the last section requires us to write sentences as our answers to questions. At the end of the lesson they are given a Japanese translation of the passage that we read that day and detailed explanations of the grammar points.
Computers: I do what I understand and the rest of the time I read the news on the internet, though I do seem to get most of this… we made mini movies the other day, like the ones you get by flicking through pages of a book sort comic animations. Very fun though.
Home ec: we cook pretty much every second week and are on the computers every other week either finding recipes or doing a write up about what we did last cooking lesson I don’t really understand the computer lessons but I do enjoy the cooking ones.
Pe: always involves lots of running! L and then various other things, we have done basketball, lessons of stretches, track and field events ect.
Hpe: I have no clue what’s going on in this half the time, it’s all book work!
2B (Japanese history): I understand bits and pieces of this, sometimes because we will talk about the same topic for a few lessons so in the first lesson I will pick up the years and cities or major people we are talking about come home and Google them and read up about it in English which then allows me to understand a lot more of it the next lesson.
2L (biology): I find this almost as easy as I do their maths lesson except that this actually requires more language skills, but as I said before you have to remember that I'm in the start of year 11 here, and I did do biol in Australia thus it’s not new work and that greatly helps in my ability to understand what is going on. I have on occasion even managed to complete the worksheets with in class time, again the kanji factor just means it takes time, but I also have a lot of common kanji for biol as well. Thanks to the same friend that made my list for maths.

2009-06-17T21:22:00.000+09:00

Saturday 13th July – Ohtemachi Rotary club charter
This afternoon headed into Toyama for the charter ceremony of Toyama Ohtemachi rotary club. We pretty much in 3 sections. The first being lots of boring speeches that I don’t think that any of us exchange students were really even trying to pay attention. The second section was a concert by a quartet. Very nice sounding. But we were thoroughly amused that they sang “them bones” (the hip bones connected to the leg bone the leg bones connected to the foot bone the foot bone…. ) we then changed venues and had a standing buffet dinner where a lot of the Rotarians drank a little bit to much. Then home again, I must say I didn’t at all enjoy the trip home with the 4 Rotarians from my club as they were a bit tipsy. And very hard to understand but I know I was the point of a lot of their laughs.
Sunday 14th July – lunch with 22H
So today we went to lunch at “botejako” and when I say we I mean most of my homeclass. That was really cool had okonomiyaki and something else that I have forgotten the name of atm will try and remember to ask one of them and tell you, but it was very yummy… and cheap I ended up paying about 300 yen ($4) After lunch we went to Karaoke at japan rent a car … yes they have karaoke at a car rental place! I don’t understand either? But that to was very cheap about $3 for 3 hours ! there we sang lots and lots of songs includidng me singing some Japanese ones and the boys choosing English songs of which they knew like one or two lines they would sing that much and then hand me the mic! Half the time I didn’t actually know them either. But thanks to them I now have a micheal Jackson song stuck in my head!
Monday 15th + Tuesday 16th July
Not much at all, school study and that’s it really, my knitting needles broke again, second time on this particular project, so a little annoyed about that, third time lucky hey ?! … when I get new needles that is.

2009-06-13T10:11:00.006+09:00

Friday 12th June – Sports Day
Ok where to start? JAPANESE SPORTS DAYS ARE INSANE!!!
I’ll run through the day and explain as I go or at least try to.
Get to school and we carry our chairs down to the “oval” and set them up in front of our class banners. (my whole class and teachers in front of ours at the end of the day)

Class banners/themes: about 2x5 meters painting of a scene of our class them. My classes theme was Aladdin. We had to do a dance to do with our theme. My class danced to a song that is apparently sung but Koreans… In Japanese when we were doing Aladdin. Go figure! These backdrops were part of a competition to see who could make the best decorations. We also had to have flags. Which lead our classes around the track during the march.

(getting jasmine ready for dancing... no japanese dress up thing is complete with out cross dressing!)
We then marched around the track in our home classes (also our teams) watched while the flags were raised. The flags being: the Japanese Flag and the school flag. We then spread out and did a sort of stretching dance thing very strange! And then back to our lines while listening to our headmaster’s speech and a few other things.
There were standard races yes, but that isn’t very interesting to write about. Um ok fun stuff: the first years played a tire grab game. Two teams lined up with a row of tires in between them they have to get as many tires are possible to their side.
Us 2nd years, each of our teams got given about 100 hacky sacks to try and through under armed into a laundry basket that was attached to the top of a pole held up on the desk by the unfortunate student teachers. Much fun.
The 3rd years did among other things a multi legged race. Like a 3 legged race but with about 10 people not 2. Somehow this didn’t end badly they actually did very well. Marching across the field very well.
The boys did a few weird things which we would never be allowed to do back in Australia for Safety reasons. There were poles with flags on top held up by some of the boys trying to stop the other team from getting up it while the rest of the team tried to get up the other pole to steal the flag. Again I don’t see how this didn’t end badly
They also did this thing where they had another guy on their shoulders with a flag and ran at the other team also the same again trying to steal each other’s flags.
Relays! There were standard relays but there was insane relays as well. First person runs about 50m to a table with to bowls about 30 cm apart one filled with beans. And a set of chopsticks in-between them you job is to shift all the beans from one bowl to the other with the chopsticks before being allowed to run on and tag the second member, they had to go pop a balloon with a piece of paper in it and do something according the what the paper said. The 3rd person has a bit of an obstacle course to deal with. The 4th had to down a bottle of coke. The last person had to run the rest of the way with the class flag to the finish line. 22H all the way! We won this one!
After all the events were done and dusted it was back into our class lines in the middle of the oval as the certificates were given out for best decorations, best sports team ect of each grade, and then packing up.(first second and third years best decoration ) All the legs of the chairs had to be washed before we could take them inside and then all wiped down with a damp cloth ect. Not hard just time consuming stuff. We then had a short home class where our final goodbyes were said to our student teacher before heading home. He gave our class a really cool present, though odd a little money box thing where you put the money into the mouth of the face and it moves as if eating it, very cool, it is now sitting on top of the blackboard on display.

unlike grace where we were yelled at for going anywhere near the buildings on sports day here we used the hight advantage to watch from the windows.

also unlike at grace we dont wear hats.... we put towels on our heads instead, i actually did have a hat which i wore briefly befor being told i shouldnt and being given a towel instead. go figure?

and hopefully this works for you a video of the boys on the poles.

2009-06-13T10:09:00.000+09:00

Monday 8th --> Thursday 11th June
Tuesday we had a whole day practice for sports day. After school Wednesday we (my homeclass) stayed until almost 7 rehearsing for sports day… this will all make sense soon I promise. Thursday we said our formal goodbyes to our student teacher because as he would be there on Friday it was sports day. This required each member of the class to write a note to him. I wrote in both English and Japanese, not because I didn’t know the Japanese but because he is training to be an English teacher and that’s how we spoke in bits of both Japanese and English.

2009-06-09T18:23:00.000+09:00

Monday 1st June and Tuesday 2nd June
Monday was the first day that we had to wear summer uniform. Well what I have dubbed semi summer uniform because it’s still long sleeved, skirt that’s as far as looks goes is the same but its thinner and thus cooler. And a shirt that has the collar and cuffs the same as winter uniform but a white body instead. School… pretty much as normal with a few lots of time allocated to getting ready for the sports festival

Wednesday 3rd June
Rotary meeting and then off with another half day host family! Today it was off to Kanazawa we went. There we went to an old geisha house which is now set up as a museum and then we went up a mountain to a park and cool look out before heading to a steak house for dinner and back home to my house. I then attached my new things to my blazer did a bit of study and went to bed

Thursday 4th & Friday 5th June
Nothing much school and more practice for sports festival. I haven’t mentioned yet that our school has been swarmed with lots of student teachers from Kyoto at the moment. My home class teacher is being followed by a guy who lived on the gold coast for a year as an ALT he’s really cool and it’s nice that someone else actually knows where I am from! He will be teaching my English reading classes while here but I didn’t have any this week due to timetable changes and when I have my lessons with my Japan tutor and that I leave school on Wednesday afternoons for Rotary.
Friday night I enjoyed a chat with my pook via Skype which was lots of fun discussing various things and looking at childhood photos! Love you pookie (that’s my sister for any of you who didn’t know)
Saturday 6TH and Sunday 7th June
Headed to Kanazawa for a weekend orientation. And I must say it was the least oritated I have even been at an orientation! (i.e. we did nothing in that respect but it was a great weekend none the less) was very cool though that I just so happened to get on the same train and carriage as the other in bounders from toyama prefecture so got to enjoy the ride with them had that not been the case there would have been no way I would have found them on the train. It was packed!
We got there and the in bounders were all handed 2000 yen (almost $30 with the exchange rate… $20 if you look at what you can actually buy for it) and told to be back in 5 hours. There was a festival on so everywhere we went was very crowed. But we just chatted and walked around, venting about what is annoying us ECT. At one point I did think that being back with the exchange students was really bad because some of them are just ready to go home. They have enjoyed it but want to go home, and they bitched about some things more than others. I won’t hide it that I also did some complaining here and agreed with some of what was being said but in that I do totally acknowledge that it is their lifestyle it’s how they do it and in all that’s what we came to Japan for, to experience that. The main point within that is that a lot of the kids our age do what they do because it’s what’s expected of them not because they really want to do it or enjoy it in the least. For example some people do club because they think they have to I spoke to someone who told me they don’t enjoy their club but they can’t quit coz then they would have spare time. And that would be boring! They don’t seem to realize that if they had spare time they could do some things that they enjoy!
During this time Riley helped me pick out some books designed to help me study for the Japanese profiency test I will be taking later in the year… she took the easier one last year. The one I got I got mainly for the kanji side of it coz it uses pictures and the history of the kanji to teach you as well as having the stroke order and things. And then I got a copy of a previous years test. All for less than $25! Books here are cheap!
After the festival we went back and met the out bounders and moved to our hotel. I shared rooms with one of the out bounders Risa; she is going to Redcliffe and will be at Southern Cross. Ayumi as a rebounder had spent the day with the out bounders and then continued with us for dinner and to Round 1.
Round 1 is a huge game/sports center, where you pay depending on how long you are going there for, rotary covered this but the other exchange students have been there before and I don’t think it’s too expensive… Ayumi and I are gonna go there again next time o go visit her as it is really close to her house. There I played badminton did a bit of roller skating (so much harder than ice-skating!!!! Though once I got my balance on them I could still do some tricks (backwards cross over’s)… not bad considering I haven’t skated in 3 and a bit years)
After that it was back to the hotel (that’s when Ayumi went home) as normal we all crashed in one room and as last time I ended up leaving fairly soon when they all started pushing some of the rotary rules but also some other moral boundaries that I didn’t feel comfortable with.
Sunday morning we had to do a translating exercise paired with an out bounder…it was the first night questions for host families. From Japanese into English. It was interesting to hear how Mike (American) who was sitting behind me translated differently to how I did. Just in differences in what sounds natural to us in the countries that we are from. It was weird to sit and directly translate something. Not a thing I have done in a while. We then signed the Americans and Canadians flags as they are leaving soon and headed off to lunch. Another buffee meal! After which we were dismissed. We all went to the station and no one could make up their mind what they wanted to do but josh and I both felt like going for a walk so that we did. Note neither of us live in Kanazawa, josh has only ever been to Kanazawa for our 2 orientations nor the only other times I have been to Kanazawa I was either with Ayumi or my host parents…. I.e. neither of us had any clue where we were going and did happen to get a little bit lost a one point but we knew which generally direction the station was in and found our way back in plenty of time for our train. The train ride back was rather boring for me though coz Josh slept the whole way after having not gotten much sleep at all the night before.
Once home I attached my new additions to my blazer and spent some time with my hosts before getting an early night myself.

i thought you might like some more pictures!

2009-06-03T20:07:00.006+09:00

so i relized i hadnt put any photos up here for a while so here goes in the cave up Takayama

yuka (host sister) and I eating our dango in Takayama

im a sarubobo - traditional type of doll 0 takayama

at the "festivale forest " - takayama

at the rose garden in Himi with my first haf day hosts

the cygnets in the park !

making inari sushi with okasan

Tateyama

at rotary

my room

tonami tulip fair

my room at 2nd hosts

all the flutes at the band concert

some golden week festivale

another golden week festivale

2009-06-03T19:53:00.000+09:00

Thursday 28th May
Tonight okasan and I went for a walk along the river that’s really close to our house, and I was absolutely amazed to see fireflies and lots of them. That’s why we went for the walk. And seeing as I know Felicia will tell the story anyway, yes I came back and said to her “I just saw those insects whose bums light up” because I could not for the life of me think of their name! but it was kinda again one of those I've heard about these in books or movies before but I don’t know having never seen them before I kinda didn’t believe they really existed, seeing is believing.

Friday 29th May
Friday during home class we were working on getting ready for sport festival. Sports day here seems like it is going to be very very different to back in Australia but I will hold out about really writing much about it until the thing its self to avoid confusion.

Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st May
Saturday lunch time we (okasan, Yuka and I) went out for lunch to a restaurant that Yuka had to write a report on for the newspaper. It was a really nice traditional Japanese buffet. After that we headed down to Takayama (translates as Tall Mountain) in Gifu prefecture for the night. In Takayama we went to “matsuri no mori” (festival forest) which was in a giant dome in the middle of the mountain. Literally underground! There were (supposedly – I say supposedly because you see the label the best, the biggest, the most well known on a lot of things here so after a while it starts to loes meaning and is very contradictory to itself.) the largest drums in the world. Japanese largest portable shrine and lots of floats and other stuff used in festivals around Japan. We then wandered the town of Takayama its self. In Takayama there were lots of Sarubobo. Sarubobo is a traditional type of doll which were made by the mother or grandmother during pregnancy and then played with by the child when they were young to help bring the child good health and luck. Back at the hotel on Saturday night we went to the onsen, very nice I must say I think I enjoyed this one a lot more than the “very famous” (very expensive) onsen I went to back in march with my first hosts not anything to do with comfort level of the public bath thing. I just liked the set up here more. There were waterfalls and stuff that you could sit under and it massaged your back. And binoculars around the edge of the bath on the edge of the building from which you could look out at the beautiful scenery ect.
Sunday after another beaufiful buffet meal of both Japanese and western style breakfast foods we headed into the township itself again. This time we visited a few art galleries , an ancient house and a temple as well as many shops! Needless to say I came back with lots more stuff to cover my blazer and many fun memories that go with them. I think that’s one of the greatest things about the blazer is the hunt for new stuff for it is so fun. And I have lots of random things attached to it that just happened and seem really random and are the keys to bringing back into my conscious some great memories. For example I have a straw, its not actually attached yet but at the moment it lives in the pocket. A straw? I have my reasons which I cant be bothered to type right now

Sunday night once we got home I set about attaching all this stuff to my blazer and Yuka found a stack of the pins that she had taken with on her exchange to give away and had left over and gave them all to me. And seemed to clean her room in the process. Lots of Japan rotary badges and random other stuff was given to me that night. And lots of fun.

2009-05-28T19:54:00.000+09:00

Sunday 24th May
Just a lazy day at home again. Lunch with my host mum was enjoyed while watching videos of my host siblings when they were little. Of which I will not go into detail, because I'm sure they would not like it. And yes both of them speak English and know about my blog. Helped make inari sushi for dinner and then we made crepes which we ate for dessert J
Monday 25th May
Back to school today after last week off so I hear “neri chan hisashiburidesune” (nelly its been a while since I have seen you) a lot today followed by many questions about what I got up to in my week off… there were a fair few who thought I would have gone back to Australia for the week! Some of them.. the boys in particular seem to have trouble grasping the fact that I'm here for a year and I don’t go home at all in that time.
Tuesday 26th May
After school I went to English speaking club which had a bit of a party thing going on as it was the first time I had been able to go since the 1st years joined. So it was pull out the map and photos and all that jazz again to show them, plus we seem to have gained a few more 3rd years than I remember their being previously. We were then joined by our ALT (assistant language teacher) and played fruit basket!
After this I went to the gym and waited for my host cousin Musko to finish club. I then went home with her. She lives with her other grandparents and does have 2 sisters, but even considering that they have a huge house, and I mean big even by Australian standards! I had dinner there and spent quiet some time talking with the various members of the family befor coming home.

Wednesday 27th May
Went to rotary today and found out that my club has arragned for me to have lots of ½ day hosts. Meaning that on Wednesdays after rotary meetings I go with a Rotarian until after dinner that evening. This is so that I get to know more of the Rotarians and those that wanted to host me but arnt get to have me for a little while. The family that I went to today were really nice, we went to a new rose garden at Himi and then back to their house and just talked over lots of photos and then went out for dinner befor they returned me to my hosts. It was very fun. I just wish I had been told about these befor I got to rotary at lunchtime today.

2009-05-24T17:12:00.000+09:00

Monday 18th --> Friday 22nd May
So I had this entire week off of school as they had mid-term exams and I don’t do exams. So I hung out a home for the week venturing around a little but really I now live in a clump of houses in the middle of a gazillion rice paddies. So my mornings were mostly spent studying and then after lunch I would watch a bit of TV with my host grandma or go for a wander (or both). Some observations of some of the TV shows I have watched this week. Yes they are insane; I watched a singing show which seems to be very like doing forget the lyrics, only if you do forget them you get water poured on you from the ceiling. And then if you try to keep singing they add powder or something else to this! Or in one case they activate a trap door that you are standing on and you fall off stage… very odd show! There is also a lunch time show on that teaches kanji (the most complicated of the 3 Japanese scripts) and by teaches it goes through a sentence that says say the weather is hot. The Japanese has 2 kanji for the word hot, both are pronounced the same “atsui” but one is used just for weather the other is used for hot objects. There are a lot of things like this so it gave sentences and the contestants had to pick the appropriate kanji for that context. There was then explanation as to why they were wrong/right. Proves my point that kanji is very complicated, my host grandparents were getting half of it wrong!
I went to rotary on Wednesday and got given my summer school uniform. (Pictures will come when I actually wear it) on Friday Yuka (host sister) had the day off work and we went to a cooking school where we got to make traditional foods. No photos because it was really busy and too fast to take photos. But it was very fun.
I spent Friday night showing my hosts lots of photos on my laptop, from the sunshine safari that I went on with all the other exchange students in December to photos of school and Google earth images of home and school in Australia compared to the Google earth images of school here.

Saturday 23rd May

Today we went to the Tateyama museum of Toyama. Tateyama is the huge mountain that boarders Toyama prefecture and Nagano prefecture… so right on the eastern boarder of Toyama prefecture. This was an interesting experience. A lot of what I saw and I must say barley understood other than what I got from the pictures but I have done a bit more research on the net today. There are/were a lot of beliefs that women should not go up the mountain and those who tried would be struck down, and the mountain was where the god lived? (That’s the feeling I get) anyway ill just say it was really pretty and interesting I'm not going to “explain” too much because I don’t understand. There was this one part that was “heaven and hell” again very interesting, the hell part of it was yeah as much as a set up of hell as they could do and still make it child friendly and also that people want to pay to go there. Heaven had some pretty cool stuff but not very heaven like. But really who knew that there are bears in this area of Japan? I sure didn’t.

2009-05-21T16:56:00.000+09:00

Tuesday 12th à Friday 15th
School, which was actually a fairly boring week, because they have exams all of next week so it was all revision and study time in class with the teachers just being there to answer any questions you might have. But this also means I have the entire of next week off!
Some stuff I did in my Japanese lessons this week where tongue twisters.
なまむぎ　なまごめ　なまたまご
Namamugi namagome namatamago(raw~ raw ~ raw egg)
バス　ガスばくはつ
Basu gasubakuhatsu （a bus bomb）

Akapajama kipajama chapajama(no meaning)

Tonarino kyakuwa yoku kakikuu kyokuda

Kaeru pyoko pyoko mi pyoko pyoko awasete pyoko pyoko mu pyoko pyoko (pyoko pyoko= the sound a frog makes)

Saturday 16th May
Quiet a boring day really stayed at home and studied ect while my hosts were all out at work or asleep but I managed to find my own fun that. I finally finished off a scarf that I started way back (when I was back at my first host family) and some nice productive stuff like that.
Sunday 17th May
There was ment to me a kite thing along the river today but its very rainy so its been cancled thus im at home inside again today. I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. I don’t really mind all that much. Went out for dinner with my host mum and grandma tonight and then went to the grociery store again where again (because grandma wasn’t with last time) I got to do the fun Sharnelle point at foods you like thing which I have done with all my host families and I hate it. I hate saying what I like because then they will cook that and only that. I much rather them cooking what they would normally and trying it, and then if I genrally don’t like it I will let them know but otherwise im cool with it.

2009-05-13T15:07:00.000+09:00

Tuesday 5th May – children’s day – band concert
So off to school again, this time for an 8is start! way to early, I know I know I had 7am starts every week for choir in Australia but in Australia I had a lot more energy than I ever seen to have here, in that I’m constantly feeling tired here. And b I didn’t have to ride to school, and when its less than 20 degrees at the warmest part of the day, riding that early in the morning, especially when you are riding against the wind, and wearing a skirt is somewhat fun (can you feel the sarcasm there) but none the less I got to school nice and early! And we spent the morning rehearsing the finer parts of the concert, i.e. getting on and off the stage, the changeover of conductors, and the songs which had fancy lighting so that the techy people could practise that.
For lunch today the ichi-nen-seis (first year students) had to provide lunch for the ni- nen- seis and the san-nen-seis in their section, the flutes joined with the double reeds for this. But that was a fun experience, topped by the fact that they were shocked … again … that I don’t know my blood type… this mattered because they had different chopsticks depending on what blood type you are. From what I understand they somewhat use blood types like the west has horoscopes.
After that it was the concert. And boy it surprised even me, at the length of it … actually I seemed to be the only one surprised by that, it was 2.5 hours with 20minutes worth of intervals in there, so basically we had about 2 hours of music… now for a high school band that is a little insane. Yes? Also the baseball team were there, I think they must have been forced to come!
As this was the last thing for the san- nen- seis the dressing rooms were filled with lots of tears after the concert, and I can thoroughly appreciate that feeling, I was sad by the fact at my last band performance in Australia, is hard to separate that from graduation as they were the same time, but performing arts in general was as you all know a huge part of my life in Australia and the performing arts at Grace was my second family, I don’t by any means get that feeling here, I feel quite the opposite in fact, especially in that the different groups, seem to have nothing to do with each other… which I find quiet strange. Lots of flowers were exchanged. I even got some! And lots of photos taken, I got sick of hearing “neri-chan, ishiyon ni shyashin tote desuka”( I actually don’t think that’s proper Japanese, but they do that they speak differently so that I understand them… though I understand the normal stuff.) “Nelly can we have a photo together?” or something very similar. This I just found annoying coz half the people that asked for photos I have seriously never talked to, so I just seemed like they were taking photos coz they can then say "hey look I’m friends with the foreigner", I have seriously had people at school come up to me say hey, so I’m polite and say konnichawa back, and then they go of saying to their friends see that the foreigner girl spoke to me, did you see? Did you see? (Yes I have taken to replying in Japanese if they just say hello or something similar to me in English. If it’s a question I will usually talk back in English, but once you start in English they assume that you don’t know Japanese.) After that was all said and done I headed home to finish the packing process. In some ways it’s really sad to see everything of mine packed into a cardboard box (all souvenirs, both Australian yet to be given away and the stuff I have collected so far that I can’t attach to my blazer!), my suitcase, backpack and my handbag but then again I know that living with only that amount of stuff has made me appreciate it all so much more. I have at times thought I’m looking forward to going home and having a gazillion t-shirts to chose from (even though even then I know I will just wear the same 5 or so very repeatedly) yet I have what *goes and counts. Well opens the draw from where she is sitting and counts* 11 here … I actually didn’t realize I had that many here, 1 is my formal uniform shirt from school, which I wore travelling to Japan and haven’t since, and another is my formal one I would wear if I ever went to rotary and I wasn’t in my school uniform. 3 others I have gained while here, one with the town mascot, one with Sakura (cherry blossoms) – Japan’s national flower and the other being my band shirt (says Takaoka　(yes in romaji… i.e. exactly what I just typed not たかおか(hiragana) or 高岡(kanji) in the shape of a music note!)　anyway that’s enough about my clothes, point is I appreciate more than ever how much I do have, even if it does all fit in my suitcase, because I know it’s a lot more than some people have ever had. Also I must say I was very surprised it all fitted in so easily this time… as I couldn’t vacuum pack anything…. My hosts don’t have a vacuum cleaner… they don’t have carpet; the entire house is either wooden floors or Tatami. (Traditional woven flooring)

Wednesday 6th May – Tonami tulip fair and changing host families
So this morning my host family did precise what they always do and went “hey Sharnelle has free time… let take her somewhere!” (don’t get me wrong I appreciate this, but I do also miss having my free time actually being free time) so this morning it was off to tonami (still in Toyama ken but on the other side of the prefecture if my geography of Toyama ken is at all decent … don’t trust it though...its shaped kinda like Australia which I think is cool!) anyway tonami has a tulip fair, I had previously been to Tonami’s tulip museum, but the fair wasn’t on at the time. It was really pretty and what not and then we went into the museum there, not the best art I’ve seen, and I have seen a lot this year. I love living in such a cultured culture! After that it was out to lunch then back home and I did actually have some spare time but it was very boring spare time because all my stuff, books that I have now read about 5 times over, my knitting, even my origami paper! Just as a decent movie had come onto the TV, and I was getting into it, it was time to head off to my next host family! So into the car goes all my stuff and we drive to Imizu, to my next host family. Imizu is another suburb, but still very close (Takaoka à Imizu = similar distance ect as Morayfield à Redcliffe or there about) so I am now with Yoshi’s family (for some of you that will mean nothing and that’s ok) and here I have a host grandma, grandad, mum and currently an older sister, later in my stay Yoshi will come home from his exchange in Australia and then I will also have him as an older brother.
A few things I’ve noticed about this family/ house already, first of all the house is huge, ok well not all that huge compared to houses in Australia in fact I would guess it’s about the same size as my house and considering 5 people live here that’s not a big house, but you’ve got to remember it’s in Japan. And yes in general the houses in this area of Japan are not what you would think, this area is not overpopulated like Tokyo but in that saying that the house is the same size as mine its 2 stories, you would never see a house the same size and only one story. They always build up not out!
The house also shows the irony that fills Japan. Where you have the traditional and the very modern right next to each other living in my house now the first of these that I noticed is that we have the traditional dining area with the low table on Tatami, (this is actually raised in this house so that it has traditional heating under it) but then standing right next to this is a massage chair (like the ones we have in shops that you generally pay $2 for 5 min on) In front of a huge TV.

Thursday 7th May
So school today! So I guess this is where I inform you of my new way of getting to school! I catch a train! Well 2 but that’s beside the point. Which I think completes my different ways possible for getting to school, car for primary school, bus for high school… with the occasional car trip for early mornings or late afternoons, then walking from my first family, riding a bike from my second and now the train. I get driven to our closest train station (about a 10 min drive) catch the first train one stop to Takaoka station change trains go one more stop and then walk the couple of 100 meters to school, but seriously there are enough of us on the train you don’t even have to think about what your doing you just get swept up in the mass movement into school. This morning my host sister came with me until I got onto my second train to make sure I knew what I was doing but I came home on the trains by my self today. Had to ask for help changing trains coz I didn’t know which one to get on... I was right in what I had guessed but I wanted to be sure. When they picked me up this afternoon we bought a 3 month pass so that I don’t have to buy tickets everyday but I figured out it’s the same price as 27 days! Much cheaper as well.

Friday 8th May
School, nothing to exciting to note,I actally had a very boring day, because the classes were all changed around and the ones I would normally attend were then duting my Japanese lesson time so I ddnt do much at all today. We went out for dinner at a Chinese place though.

Saturday 9th May
Had a real lazy day today which I enjoyed imensly. Was home with just my hsot grandma and so talked to her a bit, but I find her increadibly hard to understand. She talks rerally fast, uses dialect! But I read a few of the English books I found in my room. And caught up on sleep it was just a really nice day.

Sunday 10th May
Went out for lunch with my host mum and then on to a special art display in Toyama it was amazing there was one painting in particular that I loved, I bought the postcard with its picture but of corse the picture doesn’t do the painting justice but I will try and get that picture up soon.

Monday 11th
School, had a nice chat with some ichi-nen-seis at lunch today they seemed really nice and told me that they have joined the English speaking club so I’m sure I will be seeing more of them… one of them lived in America for 2 years! But I think the highlight of my day was the walk with my host mum and sister after dinner.

2009-05-07T19:35:00.001+09:00

Monday 27th
Happy birthday daddy!!!!
Went to school today even though I still dint feel 100% but anyways, however I didn’t go to the band rehersal which was on this afternoon. Felt a little better this arvo though so I went to the shops and bought a frame for my next host families present, as I couldn’t see when else I would manage to fit that in. so then I came home and framed that as well as genrally started rearranging my things and sorting out all the presents for my next host family.

Tuesday 28th – えんそく
So today I had school trip, it was really really fun, but also nothing like what I expected a Japanese school excursion to be like. For starters we got to wear free dress , and I must say there were some interesting but very cool fashion senses among my classmates. Where we went was about a 2 hour bus ride away, and we spent the time on the way up there singing karaoke. Yes that’s right they have karaoke on the bus! The TV screens the mics everything, its pretty cool.
Where we went was a place called bokka no sato, but other than that I really don’t know what to call it or how to explain what it was. There were farm animals; sheep goats horses and cows, and you could milk the cows and ride the horses ( at a ridiculous cost may I add) and then a lot of hany craft opportunities, making cool shapes out out bread…. I made a turtle, but you could also make pizzas flower reaths, pressed flower keyholders (key rings… they call them key holders here), candles or ocarinas. There were also massive fields of flowers, and said as it is to say I didn’t really appreciate them as much as I should have with the imesnse amount of places I have been reciety purley to look at the flowers, that seems to be what I do these days when im not at band, and im not at all joking, I haven’t written about half the time, I have been taking somewhere to look at flowers because quite frankly I think we would all get board of it.
Oh at bokka no sato I found a あいうえお　 (aiueo – in hiragana) stamp set like I saw at the first onsen I went to and had since regretted not buying so of course I grabed them instantly here, and turns out they were half the price I would have payed for them at the onsen so I guess it was really a good thing I didn’t buy them there. I also got some over souviners there for my blazer.
There were many photos taken here, me and my 4 friends, then one of me and each of them individually, then all of us on this wooden horse thing, and then another teacher walked past (our computer 1 teacher) and so we had to have photos with him as well. And so on, but it was good fun, I swear the 5 of us spent half the day taking photos of each other.
Also they thought that my sunglasses that clip on to my regular glasses absolutely amazing, but I guess they don’t really have that sort of thing here, as far as I have seen most people don’t have sunglasses, I think I have seen one Japanese person wear them in my whole time here. One of the girls in my class said she thought they were only for when you go skiing! I guess you would really need them then! But I thought there was a great need for them a lot of the time especially when I first got here and there was white snow everywhere it has quiet a nice was of reflecting into your eyes very painfully.
I slept the bus ride home as did many of my classmates. After that it was back home briefly where I had what I believe will have been my last play time with yua and riyoma (my host niece and nephew) and then I headed to Toyama, for our rotary get together overnight stay and then bus “hike”.
This was the first time I actually caught the train to Toyama, and I was amazed at how quick It was, being about 15 minutes where as I swear any time I have been driven to Toyama it takes about 30. I met 6 of the other 7 exchange students from the district as well as my first host dad at the train station in toyama (the other students decided not to come on this trip) and after a quick stop of at our hotel we went out for dinner.
It was then back to the hotel and free time, not at all surprisingly the 3 of us aussies and our adopted aussies Geoff went off from the others…. As it always was on our last trip as well. Seeing as Josh actually lives in toyama we though he would be able to kinda show us around a bit but he was hopeless as ! we wandered past the already closed CIC building (kinda of department store I believe… I went there with Riley on my very first weekend in Japan.) but then we decided to go to the other side of the station mainly coz we believed Josh’s bull when he said that side is much more lively! But we then found out way to the park that I went to a while ago with my host parents (on our first flower viewing day) and although it didn’t have the sakura anymore it was just as pretty by night. Got some really cool photos which will go up along with all the other photos ive been promising when I find a computer with the capability to do so.
We then headed back to the hotel stoping brefly in the passageways under the train station to watch some hip hop dancers just in time for our 10pm curfew. However that is by no means where our night ended, as we sat in the loby playing a card game “murder” for several hours in which I “died” several times, the most remembered ways being by paper cuts from birthday cards, another being malled to death by a chewed up popstick. In all a great very fun night was had by all.

Wednesday 29th
So after a night of much fun and very little sleep we were up and out of the hotel just after 8 as our bus “hike” started at 8:30. The first stop for the day was the robot museum which quite frankly I was disappointed with it was by the makers of the robots so there wasn’t really any overly intresting ones, robots that “fought” but the weapons never even touched, ones that solved rubics cubes, another that spelling out the companies name with these little squares you placed on the converbelt in front of it , and 2 intertactive ones, one of which you controlled th mouse and had to run away fromt eh robot which was a cat. The other was like DDR where it had pads for your hands and feet and the robot copied what you did… if you were really slow, so that was somewhat disapointeing, though it was fun watching one fo the guys trying to beat it.
After that we headed up to Gokayama and made soba ( a type of noodle) which we then ate for lunch aling side of tempura veggies and some other stuff. ( not much to say here but photos will come at a later date)
We then went to a different part of gokayama to the gassho style houses where we had tea which had been made over a campfire, now I love campfires and when I saw that one realized how much I had missed them, but where they are inside a building that has practically no ventailation there are kinda annoying. This house had 4 stories to it, we went up to the 3rd, but it was very rickety… I wonder how it passes work place health and safety regulations but they don’t seem to have them in japan. It was an intresting place none the less, we then wandered the rest of this little village for a while, I had an intresting conversation with one of the other students about how they don’t think we have choice over anything as its all decided by science, im not going to say anymore on the matter because I don’t really understand it(… if your reading this and want to explain it more, email me and ill edit this) and then we were told to go into another of the houses where we saw a traditional dance. Which I videod … which will also go up when I have the capabilities to do so.
It was then off to yet another part of gokayama where we saw more of the houses and a cool water fall, and the adopted aussies decided to climb a stone wall just for the heck of it which got some very strange looks from the Japanese people passing us by.
Back on the bus and we went up a different mountain where the road was literally built on the side of a cliff several years ago but now that cliff is starting to erode away, quiet scary, and this was all for a 10 minute stop at one fo the few places that have sakura still, and yes they are pretty but there is only so much sakura you can see befor you start getting sick of it.
They then decided that they were going to drop the kanazawa students and myself off at the closest train staion as were were almost in ishikawa prefecture anyway, and ti was the same distance from there to takaoka as from toyama to takaoka for me, so basically it made more sence than us travling back to toyama on the bus only to turn around and travel back in the direction we had just come from. And home it was.

Thursday 30th
School today, on Tuesdays timetable but my jap lesson was still on at the normal time for a Thursday which made things a little confusing but we got there. And then band after school, for me until 6 because that’s the latest my hosts will let me stay, the others I believe stayed until 8.
So home and dinner, and then out to the pre festival festations. The festival itself will be on tomortow while we are at school, but tonight I got to go and see all the portable shrine thingys that will be involved in the festival and get lots of stamps( like ink ones … not postal ones) in the process. I also managed to pick up the towns 400th year postage stamps in the process which is good coz I had been meaning to buy them)

Friday 1st
School Wednesdays timetable today, this is coz next week we only have Thursday and Friday at school so we will have done a week of lessons over 2 weeks… well that’s what I figure anyway. And then band after school.

Saturday 2nd , Sunday 3rd
Band , although tonight (Sunday night) we went out for dinner at the same chineese restaurant I had previously been to with this family, sadly enough we sat in exactally the same seats and had the same meal, apart from my desert, because tonight I had mango icecream rather than (anun dofu … ousund like onion tofu….. which is a milk pudding thing with fruit.)
Also at band today I met another of my cousins of my next family… the elder sister of the one who was in my ichi-nen class (first grade)

Monday 4th
Band again, today we were rehersing in the gym, I think that was to get us used to the biggerspace and the acustics that go along with that, and then after we had don’t sufficient rehersal we took everything over to bunka hall… which is literally across the road from school.

2009-05-06T15:48:00.009+09:00

on school trip

my canadian host sister, holly

the childrens day display

in kanazawa .... he obviously really wanted that photo

and today through the circle window you can see kanazawa castle.

in the castle park in kanazawa

the stone pulling festivale in takaoka

my tulip softcream

tulip museum !

i couldnt resit, sorry i

the sakura at school

the first 25 cranes

toyama

at eh music festivale on my first weekend

the toyoma thunderbirds mascots

photos

2009-05-06T15:24:00.003+09:00

see i said i would get them up at some point, here are some from our rotary trip ...back in march

the 3 aussies plus the adopted aussie (canadian) nik, josh, me and geoff

the temple at nara

takoyaki (octupus dumplings) museum in osaka

in osaka ... i took this one for dad

all pods!

at universal studios osaka

the 4 way elevtors in osaka

the ferris wheel on top of the shops in osaka

on the way to Miyajima island, still one of my favourite places in japan

ok not from the trip but like 2 days after it ... al packed for my first move!

2009-04-26T12:10:00.000+09:00

Tuesday 14th --> Friday 17th
School and band not anything overly intresting to say, on Fridays I don’t spend a lot of the day with my home class as I take calligraphy with first years ( a double) and then I also take physics with 21H, that is kinda fun as I have to take my desk with me to that class, but luckily they are just next door! At least I don’t have to do stairs with my desk that would be ammsuing for all I'm sure!
Firday night also saw me having a Canadian host sister, Holly for the night witch I thoroughly enjoyed!

Saturday 18th Sunday 19th
Band all day both days :(

Monday 20th -->Saturday 25th
School and band pretty much filled the week again, some highlights of the week though, my walk/ride through the park on my way to rotary on Wednesday, there was an entire jnr hig school in the park, having an art day so they either had to draw or paint sences of the park, it was nice to see that, but alos to see and be able to spend some time in the park again, it looks sooo different now its all such a bright green! I swear I have never seen anything so green, but I guess with all the rain they get here is not all that much of a surprise, most of the sakura have gone but now there is a small purple flower everywhere, which of course I like almost as much !

Sunday 26th
I should have had band today but the slightly sore throat and bit of a head ache I had had on Saturday had progressed into a full head cold so I stayed home and slept half the day away!

will get pictures up soon! （hopefully)

2009-04-16T19:52:00.000+09:00

Wednesday 8th April
School, and we had another opening cerimonyish thing, the headmasters speech, so I think overall if may have been as long as a grace one when you add the 2 days up. And then homeclass where we played the name game… reminded me so much of the first English lesson of yeah 10 with Mr. Larsen… I never stopped thinking deckchair Dan lol! But I don’t think this really helped me learn their names at all coz they all spoke way to quietly! But that’s the Japanese for you!
Thursday 9th April
Thursday was our first day of lessons, and we were lucky enough to start off with pe! Yay! And today we just ran round and round the gym for the entire lesson. Usually we do 7 laps as a warm up, and seriously at first I was stuffed after 4 laps, stupid asthma but then again when I got here it was also only about 5 degrees in the gym coz it’s not at all heated. But today I managed to do 10 before slowing down, which was also when I realized we were doing it for the whole lesson not just as a warm up! But at least we got to listen to cool music… in English! Some of my favourite songs to.
I then had my Japanese lesson and the afternoon was filled with maths, Japanese and home class. At some point I had two of the girls in my class playing with my hair which was a little weird but anyway… then they wanted to know what shampoo I use and I was like I don’t know it’s all in kanji!
I also got to decided my timetable but I’ll write more about that later when I have actually experienced all the classes I'm taking and really decided if I am going to do them.
Friday 10th April
Classes again today not really anything interesting though, and yes band again!
Saturday 11th April
The morning was spent at band, came home had lunch then it was off to view the flowers at asahi-machi from the road there were red, purple and white tulips, then yellow rape flowers, then green, then the Sakura along the river bank then snow caped mountains in the background, truly amazing view, was sooo pretty, and smelt really good to.
We went out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant; still think that that is sooo strange coz I'm in Japan but anyway. I love gyoza!
After dinner we went for a walk through Kojo koeun (the park) and there were heaps of bonbori (lanterns) up, and the Sakura have all flowered now, and there were lots of food stalls and cool music, so it was good fun. I even bought a toffee apple! Gosh it’s been years since I had one of them.

Sunday 12th April
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!
Easter here is nonexistent, which was really weird for me but anyway, I do like it being in spring! And what a lovely spring day it was to.
Today saw me having a picnic “mos burger” (it’s a restaurant chain) lunch at a park with my host mum, can’t remember the name of the park but it was in Imizu I think, like right on the boarder of Takaoka and Imizu. But it was cool, lots of fun stuff there, well fun for little kids, I would have fun on it to but there were too many little kids and I didn’t want everyone to think I was a complete fool, which of course I am, and I think they thought that anyway when I started posing for photos with all the characters of the doreamon manga figures that are in the park.
From there it was off to Tonami tulip museum which we will apparently go to again next week when the outdoor tulips will have bloomed! It’s hard to describe but it was awesome so pretty and again it smelt nice. Oh and tulip soft creams (ice-cream) are sooo yummy, Japan has every flavored soft creams, Sakura is pretty dam nice to but I think I prefer tulip.
It was then back to Kojo koeun for a festival, ooishibiki basically there were teams of about 20 people pulling 1 ton stones into the park of wooden sleds, from a fair distance away, there were a groups of Canadian students doing one, they are at one of the local school at the moment on a school trip. And then there was one huge 6 ton boulder at the end of it all. (That one was pulled by a lot more people).
I bought some more Toshinaga Kun (takaoka’s mascot) goods; a few more badges, with Sakura and the one for the event I was at, and a deck of cards which all have a different picture of the town on it and it even came with a map of where the pictures were taken.
My glasses broke tonight to, just the screw fell out, and so I'm currently wearing my old pair and will take them to get fixed tomorrow.

Monday 13th April

I had the day off school today because my class, well everyone actually had the whole days doing tests on their holidays homework. So after getting my glasses fixed, okasan and I headed to Kanazawa, on the fast train, which is twice the price of the regular train, but gets you there is half the time.
In Kanazawa we went to the castle garden, where Ayumi and I were going to go had it not been such awful weather the day I visited her, this included going into kenrokuen, which is just more gardens but a part you have to pay to go into but it’s well worth it coz they were sooo pretty especially with all the Sakura in bloom.
I got a Sakura t-shirt to, I was trying to find a Sakura badge for my blazer but failed at that but scored an awesome shirt (cheap to) in the process.

sorry for taking so long! and for this being such a long entry

2009-04-08T14:16:00.000+09:00

Saturday 21st March
Band this morning which was pretty fun really, at one point one of the girls in the percussion section had to take a photo for the concert program, of our conductor conducting, but he didn’t want to just pose for the photo so we were playing she would take a photo, stop work his way through to get the camera, check decided he wanted another photo so back he goes to the front. I should mention here that we aren’t rehearsing in the hall atm but in a classroom due to renovations going on at the school so we are somewhat squashed.
After band Okasan picked me up from school and we headed to Toyama for a classical music concert, which was awesome. It was a violin player with a piano acumpliment and the violinist did most of it by memory, in fact all but one piece and that piece went for over 20 minutes in its self.
Putting a bit of a time line in here we got to Toyama and parked in one of the huge parking towers. I find them kinda amusing, I know we have them at home to, but at really busy places, like airports or in the inner city, they seem to just be everywhere here. We then went to the performing arts centre and traded our tickets, we had things saying we would be going to the consert kinda thing and we had to trade them for our tickets into the concert that assigned us our seats. We had pretty awesome seats in row L so what (abcdefghijkl) 12 rows back (with an aisle in front of us) and right in the centre.
After trading the tickets we went to a nearby hotel for lunch, and then back for the concert. This went for about 3 hours (including interval).
After which we headed home, but as it was almost 5 when we got home we went out for dinner as well.

Sunday 22nd March
Band in the morning. Are you surprised at all?
Came home for a little bit and then we headed out for lunch.( Yes my third meal out in 2 days! ) and then proceeded on to an onsen, (that’s a public bath remember) but this one wasn’t anywhere near as fancy and we didn’t stay there, just went for the bath that’s it. (but it was a heck of a lot cheaper 2 … the 3 of us cost about a 1/7 of one person going to the other onsen we went to a few weeks back) now don’t get me wrong I love onsen. I love having a bath you can practically swim in and I love being able to take really hot showers for as long as I like. But I don’t understand why sometimes. And by that I mean I really don’t get why we went to an onsen today, I mean it took almost an hour and a half to get there , so that’s 3 hours driving for a bath, I mean nice yes but to me it seems the sort of thing that needs to be done with a night away. Or at least a day trip to the area.
Home again for a while in which I crashed, (sleeping that is) even though I had slept most of the trip home from the onsen. And then wait for it wait for it.
We went out for dinner!! (Yup 4 meals out in 2 days) we drove around for ages because we were going to a new restaurant and they didn’t know where it was. It was a soup curry place, it was nice enough, but I'm not a huge fan of curry so yeah. Here I would like to make 2 points, firstly even with all my eating out I have only had one double up on restaurants! The other point being that restaurants are in really strange out of the way places. Like this one they aren’t on main streets, they aren’t even on the streets off of main streets they are in really out of the way places. This isn’t the only restaurant I've been to that I've thought that about there are been quite a few of them.

Monday 23rd --> Wednesday 25th
Band! Actually really not much to say just band. And that the school year is now over, we had closing service on Tuesday which was a short and unlike Australian ones as graduation ceremony was

Thursday 26th
Tour started today, Okasan dropped us at the station as it was snowing so it would have been too hard to walk there, met Mike (American) at Takaoka eki and got on the thunderbird where we met Riley (Canadian) and Josh (Australian) who had gotten on in Toyama and it continued on to Kanazawa where Bree(Canadian) Nic (American) nick(Australian) and Geoff (Canadian) also got on, completing the group of 8 of us exchange students and our guide, my host dad.
Today it was off to Miyajima Island, so when we got off the train at Hiroshima we put our big bags in the coin lockers and headed over to the island. I love this place just as much as I did when I went there in 07 but it did look significantly different, as it was low tide so the gate wasn’t in the water and there were a lot of people on the shore picking up all the oysters. But also because there were Sakura (cherry blossoms) we are yet to get them in Takaoka but will soon … when it warms up enough.
Then it was back to Hiroshima where we got our tuff and headed to our hotel which was very close to the train station. We had dinner at the hotel resutorant, kinda of a buffet meal only not, we could eat as much as we wanted but we had to order it to our table. And boy did we eat a lot that night! All 8 of us then went to Karaoke! I think I ended up paying a bit more than my share coz I just paid the whole thing and people payed me back but I don’t think everyone gave me the right amount.
We had a 10pm curfew but that was to be back in our hotel by that time, so the 3 of us girls did the girly thing and did each other’s make up. We then put on our robes and toped it off with shower caps before going and visiting the boy’s room.
Friday 27th
This morning we went to the Hiroshima memorial museum and the peace park. I went into the museum this time and I was right in my reasoning to not go back in last time I came, you really do only need to see some of that stuff once, but in saying that I would not discourage people visiting it. I bought a book all about the museum and what is there if anyone wants to borrow it once I'm back you would be more than welcome to read it. (it leaves out some of the more graphic and disturbing things you see at the museum)
At the park we were lucky enough to run into a free tour guide who is an A- bomb survivor, he wasn’t actually born at the time but his mum was pregnant with him at the time of the bomb, and as many of our would know a lot of the unborn children from the time were born with complications due to the bomb, making those that lived A – bomb survivors as well.
After Hiroshima we went to world heritage Himeji castle where we were not given anywhere near enough time to actually appreciate where we were, here we ran into another rotary youth exchange student who was traveling with his parents at the time, from Italy living in Okinawa (very south prefecture of Japan). Having to follow the rotary emblem on a flag everywhere does come in handy sometimes !
It was then onto Osaka to our hotel in which we would stay for the next 2 nights, this was a business hotel so we all had our own room which was 90% bed.
Dinner was out at a Mexican restaurant which was enjoyed by all, especially the Americans and Canadians who have been here for 7ish months and have really missed that sort of food.
The 8 of us then went to a shopping centre that has a huge Ferris wheel on top which we all rode before splitting up into smaller groups
Back at the hotel most people crashed mikes room I however went to bed.
Saturday 28th
Universal studios today don’t really have much to say about that huge lines ect all the norm for them parks. Nick (the aussies one) Riley, Mike and I left the park earlier than we had to in order to explore the shops between the park and the train station which was good fun there was a Takyoyaki (octopus dumpling) museum there, more or less just shopping selling it and the stuff you need to make them, kinda interesting none the less. And some other cool shops, one which had lots of capsule machines and a game arcade and another which just had lots of big collections of stuff, some smurf stuff some Japanese cartoon characters, some star wards stuff.
Dinner was on our own tonight so after exploring the electronics store for a bit we had dinner and went to gold plated Karaoke I'm not going to say much more about that at all expect that we were very upset at the cost of it and it was a good lesson learnt to always find out the cost of it prior and that the big city karaoke doesn’t work like what we have in Toyama and Kanazawa where you have unlimited time for a set cost, but they charge you by the half hour.
The Aussies and Geoff (who we adopted as an aussies ) hung out in my room and we watched blood diamond … which I must say isn’t really my sort of movie but anyway.
Sunday 29th
Went to Nara this morning, not long enough there either but that seemed to be the norm of the tour walk through something don’t read any of the information that they have there for you to read just walk past it! Although I didn’t mind here because I had been twice before.
Had lunch in a French restaurant where they guy that owns that works for one of the other students current host dad! Although that wasn’t just by chance turns out that is why we went to that restaurant.
Then it was back to the train station and home we headed
Monday 30th
Band today was just free practice but I went purely coz I had missed so much band while on tour otherwise I don’t think I would have because it was such a nice day, I came home by lunch time though. And spent the afternoon packing for my shift I can’t believe it is time to move already but alas it has to happen at some point and it probably one of the reasons that we have multiple host families so that we don’t get to attached to any one family and find it really hard to leave at the end of the year
Tuesday 31st
Okasan birthday today, I gave her a scarf I had made! And then off to band for the entire day! Came home at 5 and packed the last of my stuff up, basically I changed and found a place to stash my school uniform. Then carried it all down stairs, it mostly fits in the boxes and bags I came with, the only thing that wasn’t in them was my school uniform and my coat, but although it’s still the same size I swear it is sooo much heavier and that’s a worry. Though I have tones of school books which I don’t plan on bring back to Australia with me, they are just too heavy!
We went out to dinner at a really nice restaurant, like nicer than normal hahaha yes I know I eat at restaurants far too much! After dinner it was off to my new house, also Kenmore family, confusing hey!
Turns out I have walked past my new house a fair few times, it’s between Zuiryuji temple and Aeon on the main road.
I gave them their presents and pulled out my aussies map and postcards of aussies animals and the comparison map of Japan to Australia, and it was a pretty late night.
Their house is huge, it comes close to my house in Australia but for Japan that’s huge, and there is only the 2 of them living here. I am the first exchange student this family has ever hosted ! which in a way is cool because they don’t have the expectations that I've heard a lot of families have that we will do things just like their past exchange students but it’s also a little scary in that they don’t really know the program and have no experience with it.
Wednesday 1st April
In the morning okasan and I caught the train to school and then walked home, so I would know how to if I ever needed to but most days I will ride to school. Went to Rotary today I feel really bad that the only time I ever seem to go is the week where I get my pocket money, but anyways. Came home and studied for a while and then their 2 grandkids, 1 and 4 came over, okasan babysits them every wed- Friday afternoon. So I played with them, kinda sad when a 4 yea1r old corrects my Japanese but there you go. (I've been studying the language since before she was born!)
Thursday 2nd April
Went and ordered my bike this morning, and then continued on to Toyama family park to go to the zoo there coz okasan thought they had wombats there, turns out they don’t they have capybara which do look fairly similar (when sitting down) but they have legs a lot like the Mara( kinda dear like) I just realized how stupid using Mara as a comparison is when I myself hadn’t ever seen Mara until I came to Japan this year. We then came home and had lunch and I went for a walk down the Aeon in the Avro while okasan was out and then her grandkids came over again.
Friday 3rd April
I had band all day ….shock horror

Saturday 4th April
Went to a festival in Toyama this morning, can’t remember the name of it but it was groups of 3 people all dressed up playing music was really cool and quiet interesting. To get to where the festival was we parked at one of the shops in my host dads business and walked which was quiet a nice walk past Toyama castle.
After we had seen enough of the festival we went out for lunch which was really nice! The place we went to does desert pizzas! We didn’t get one coz our main course more than filled us but they looked really cool.
We then proceeded to go to an art museum which again was pretty cool, a lot of it was calligraphy sort of art though so was kinda lost on me but it looked pretty none the less. Got a few souvenirs there coz they were reasonably priced and really pretty!

Sunday 5th and Monday 6th
Band!
Tuesday 7th
Start of the new school year today! Yes in April its insane I know I've asked a few people about why it starts in April and I've got varying answers, because they love sakura…. But I would think that means they want more holidays when they are around, and its spring which means new life, a fresh start to school (I like that one) and lot of people just say because that’s the way it is.
Anyway I'm in year 2 now, in the second class again! Which is on the 3rd floor? Dam all those stairs! Nar they aren’t that bad really, I swear my leg muscles are growing heaps though with all the walking and riding I'm doing.
Had opening ceremony which like graduation and closing ceremony are soooooo short compared to the grace ones.
Afternoon was. can you guess band again!

Pictures !!!

2009-03-20T17:56:00.009+09:00

a statue in kanazawa which ayumi failed to see why i found amusing
Ayumi at Karaoke

i dont know what to call this (help anyone) but its cool ... at the art gallery in kanazawa

my room at the onsen

my host parents dinenr

on the way to dinner

at the onsen

some more plum flowers ... we will have Sakura soon!!!

at the tea cerimoy admiring some of the more valuable vessels

the sweets the big grean ones in the right dish are hte really expensive ones

okasan making tea at the tea cerimoy ... thats the main guest right next to the action

some of the art at the tea cerimony

one of my friends at school

at a shrine on one of my longer walks

the bank which is "famous" for its red bricks

a view of my school from the rotary meeting

the Hinamatsuri dolls in our house

at the ski resort

2009-03-20T17:50:00.000+09:00

Monday 16th March

School today in which my class had exams all day so I got a little board, spent most of the day up in the computer room studying or browsing the web, was most annoyed that I couldn’t upload photos to either my blog or facebook, but there are much worse things so I really shouldn’t complain.
After school Okasan and I went an saw the movie Australia, which I loved, I don’t think that that is the most appropriate name for it though, but a great movie none the less at times I sat there going I wonder what they (all the Japanese people in the cinema) think of how that is being represented, for those of you who don’t know the movie it includes the bombing of Darwin, an attack on Australia by the Japanese. But I think it was taken very well it did have me feeling a little uncomfortable at times though.

Tuesday 17th March --> Thursday 19th March
School each morning, as usual, Tuesday Avro I came home and slept because I was so tired, Wednesday I was told that we actually had rotary this week, so I left school at the end of third lesson and slowly wandered down to where our rotary meetings are held, I even deviated through the park to try and use up some time (I have an hour 10 to get there when it’s really on a 15min walk away) but still when I got down there our rotary sign telling us which floor we were on this week still wasn’t out so I waited down stairs for a bit, then decided to check the floors that we are usually on, nope not on either of them, so I asked someone and they took me to the rotary office but no one was there. I figured I would go back down stairs and call my host parents to work out what was happing but I ran into my host dad on my way down, turns out there wasn’t actually a meeting this week, so we had lunch in the restaurant there and then I headed back to school as I had club that afternoon, but I got back to school about 10 minutes into lunchtime, and my group of friends were all eating in the “school restaurant” today and they were all a bit confused why I didn’t eat anything, I told them I had eaten but they couldn’t understand when I had. Whatever they had in the lesson I wasn’t there for was something I wouldn’t normally attend anyway so I don’t think they realized I hadn’t been at the school.
Thursday well Thursday I thought spring had actually come, it was a rather nice warm day, and by that I mean I only wore one jumper with my jersey and a shirt underneath it and it was nice, good to not have a gazillion layers on and no rain and a nice blue sky.

Friday 20th March ~ spring equinox
So today is officially a holidays because it the spring equinox but you guessed it I had band anyway. Didn’t really do anything else exciting went to the park for a bit but its freezing again so that wasn’t all that pleasant

2009-03-16T09:34:00.000+09:00

Sunday 8th march
Okasan had to go to a follow up party of the tea ceremony that was held yesterday. I had a kinda lazy morning sleeping in and then doing my washing and some Japanese study. Had lunch and then went for a wander in the park, it seemed extremely busy today and then I wandered past a heap of stalls selling all types of foods and kids toys and masks so I knew it had to be a special advent. Which I later found out was the bird watching festival now that some of the birds have returned as it is now spring and warm enough for them. Spent a fair amount of time in the afternoon trying to make sense of the rest of my events guide for the year so that I don’t miss any of the advents I want to go to, because the bird one was interesting and it was just by chance that I happened to wander upon it at the right time.

Monday 9th March
School today, had my lesson with Ibata sensei and then English which was cool, I struggled to explain when we say something is made of something rather than saying something is made from something. The example sentences were
The cloth is made of silk. The butter is made from milk.
We then spent ages setting up for the entrance exams which will be held over the next 2 days actually giving me a break from school. But this process was interesting, I was up in one of the 3rd year class rooms with some others from my class and we first of all did the standard push all the tables to the front sweep the back of the class room, but as we shifted them to the back we had to turn them upside down and get rid of all the fluff that’s stuck to them. The sweep the front. We got rid of the excess tables so we had the exact number of desks to the number of students that would sit the test in that room. Getting rid of the ones that had more marks and scratches of them, quality control! And then we set them up roughly and checked to see if they were wobbly and taped cardboard to the relevant feet so they didn’t wobble anymore. And then set them up so there were and exact distance from each other… reminds me of QCS tables!
And then we placed the numbers on the desks with the template that had been made for us to make sure they were all the same distance from the corner of the table.
Oh and somewhere in all that we put white paper over everything…. Over the things on the chairs that say the brand and the height that they are meant for, over the heater control, over the thermometer over everything that has writing on it basically. Just a little insane I think.
After that was all done we were free to go and it was home to do some more Japanese study for me

Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th March

Had these 2 days off school coz the entrance exams being taken. So we went to an onsen on Tuesday night. But first Tuesday … actually not all that much to say I slept in something chronic wandered the park and studied, seems to be about the norm when I'm not at school.
So we went to the onsen. And it was awesome. An onsen is a public bath. This particular onsen that we went to is the most famous in all of Japan. So very fancy. The first bath that okasan and I took was on the 7th floor, and the showers were in there own little door less cubicles but still they provided some sort of privacy. The bath itself was then outside. And what a beautiful view that provided us with looking out to the Sea of Japan and it was about the time of sunset to, very nice.
We had dinner…. Onsen style which meant we wore our yukata’s (I think that’s the right word) to dinner, the cotton kimono like outfit that you wear to and from the baths. Otosan had ordered me a western style meal for which I was very grateful, not because I don’t like the Japanese food, what they ate looked very nice (apart from the sashimi ) but because as part of my western style meal I got some roast pork and a steak. Meat of that sort is rare here and I have been missing it a lot.

After dinner we took another bath, this time in the main bathhouse, this area had 3 baths, the inside one was so hot and steamy that you could barely see a thing, which in a way is good yes, but when you can’t even see where the edge of the bath is to get in and out it’s not so cool, this area also had 2 outdoor baths, one was fairly small and was a herbal bath, very relaxing, the other was fairly big and just nice and relaxing, and there was a very shallow bay that was next to this that was really cool, to cool down when necessary.
The following morning I took another bath up on the 7th floor which was amazing, because while I was up there it started to snow. Almost as surreal as the day in my first week when it snowed at Himi beach, but this was more special to me, as one of the things I had really wanted to do was go to an outdoor onsen in the snow, of course it would have been nicer with more snow, but I'm certainly not complaining.
Breakfast there was an interesting buffee, interesting in that it was a mix of the standard western style buffee breakfasts but also the traditional Japanese breakfast so quiet a mix of things.
We had to leave the onsen by 8:30 because of Otosan’s work. So home again I went for a wander before lunch, and then studied and slept in the Avro, before going back to the department store to pick up my school uniform, (we had taken it there on Monday afternoon for some alterations as they hadn’t quiet made it right, and my skirt was now way to big on me as I think they allowed for the norm of exchange students and putting weight on where as I have lost it.

Thursday 12th March and Friday 13th March
School this morning and we had our photos taken, no class ones like in Australia, just individual ones. But I was surprised at how quickly they got everyone through.
Spent Thursday afternoon sorting through all my stuff, and deciding what I will give to my next host family as presents, because I move in just over 2 weeks, but in that time I have a lot of days where I have band 9-5 or I am away on the rotary tour, so I knew if I had to get anything else organized with them that I had to do it this week before I get really busy again. The main thing was to frame an aboriginal painting I brought with. But I also sorted out all the souvenir stuff I have collected into one place and generally reorganized my stuff within my room.
Friday saw us having another round of cake at school due to the fact that it was the closest school day to white day, the returning of valentines presents and my understanding of thins had been that the boys who had received gifts had to return the favor on this day but it seemed to be a day of giving all round, even by the girls, to people they didn’t give to on valentine’s day or that they felt they hadn’t given enough to as the present they received had been better. I'm not really sure don’t entirely understand this but it was interesting to observe none the less. The Avro was band.

Saturday 14th March

Ok so today I finally saw Ayumi (past exchange students to my sponsor club and to my school). I traveled to Kanazawa to see her that is where she lives and is the capital of Ishikawa prefecture, the other prefecture of my rotary district here. I should probably mention that I haven’t seen here in 8 months, since she finished her exchange.
So I met her at the train station, we wandered around there for a bit and then caught a bus to the Kanazawa castle park. And went into the castle, we didn’t actually spend all that much time in the park because the weather was horrible, really rainy, snowed a bit and extremely windy to, at one point we were going to go to one part of the park but the steps to get there were like a waterfall so we decided that probably wasn’t the best idea.
After the castle we went to the art museum. This is a very modern building and had some very interesting pieces of art.
After that we went to Mister donuts for lunch (they do proper meals don’t worry we didn’t just eat donuts :p) and then to Karaoke for almost 4 hours until it was time that I had to head back home.
Only a short entry but seriously one of the best days over here so far.

Sunday 15th March

So my host brother “came for the weekend” but he hadn’t got her yet when I went to bed at 9:30 last night, and he only just got up before I had to leave for school and had left already when I got home, so technically I have met him but yeah never actually talked to him. Today I had band 9-5, we had an hour lunch break in there which was very fun, a lot of people went and ate lunch I the centre grassed area of the school, I think they are crazy coz its way to cold, I stayed in the band room along with most of the saxophone section we ate lunch and played Uno, but they have weird different rules here. I still one the first round and came 3rd the next time, coz I'm awesome like that.

2009-03-08T16:58:00.001+09:00

Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd of March

School both days. Yay. The 3rd years graduated on Tuesday so we spent a lot of time on Monday setting up the hall and practicing for the ceremony… and then the ceremony on Tuesday. I swear we spent more time practicing it than the actual thing went for.
As far as setting up it was held in the gym. And they had put a green plastic thing over the courts so that we didtn reck it with our shoes or the chairs ect. Some of the boys hung huge banners or red and white stripes all the way around the gym and the rest set up the chairs for the 3rd years and the visitors while the girls wiped them all down with wet (freezing) cloths and check that they were in perfect condition.
The ceremony itself was very very simple unlike ours they don’t all get presented on stage, there is no entertainment pieces no awards and only 3 speaches and 2 songs, the national anthem, the school song and a traditional song.
The traditional song is to the tune of auld lang syne but their version is titled the light of a firefly. I have the lyrics and I do fully intend to translate it at some stage when my language is better than it is currently.
After the ceremony we were free to go, so I went home for lunch and later went out shopping to a place I had seen befor but couldn’t decided what I wanted when I was there so I went back and brought aheap of Takaoka stuff the mascot of the town is soo cute and coz it’s the towns 400th year there are a lot of souviners available.
Then went walking in the park and it snowed. So much for it being spring lol.

Wednesday 4th march
School for 3 lessons then went to rotary which was actually kinda fun today, I spoke to a couple of the Rotarians and I think we pretty much understood each other even if my Japanese did get laughed at a few times. I then headed back to school for band, and had to apologize to the English speaking club for not being able to watch the movie with them (was at the same time as band)

Thursday 5th March
Half day at school again I had my Japanese lessons in period 1 and 2 however during the break the principle decided that he wanted to have coffee with me so Ibata sensei, the libraina nad I sat in the library staffroom with the principle and had coffee, I was nice, good chance to use my Japanese.
After school I came home for a little bit befor heading out to the “street lined with storehouses which was ok, not all that intresting but there were some cool things there, I particually liked the teahouse… some very nice ladies there. And there was also the Sugano residence which is of some cultural signifigance, it was really pretty. There was also the bank made of red brick that they seem to think is soo cool. I was like yeah , half the houses in Australia are made of red brick, whats your point? Came back and wandered the park for a bit.

Friday 6th March
School this morning. And I then went to the art museum which is across he road from school and I have walkd past every day but had not yet gone in, I must say I really don’t think its worth the 210 yen entrance fee. I actually thought that the stuff that was just genrally around in the free area and the shop was a lot more intresting that the actual museum itself, but that could just be me. Because it was kinda icky weather I decided against doing the walk to the next place om my map I want to visit and instead decided to have a lazy afternoon at home. Ended up going for a walk just for the heck of it but genrally spent the arvo knitting, studying and napping.

Saturday 7th march
Had band this morning, but not as a whole ensemble I think everyone was at school but today all the woodwinds had a sectional of sorts of our own up in the class room that we go to for tt lessons. and we played all new songs…. Well knew to me I've had them in my folder from the start and I had looked at them a bit but I hadn’t played them with the band yet.
Came home and went out with Otosan for lunch. We had tempura udon. Witch is noodles (udon) in a soup with a tempura prawn on top. Was fairly nice, I don’t really like prawns but its getting there, I will eat them now because they are there but I by no means would actually order them if I had a say in the matter. Oh and there were gold flakes in it, how odd.
In the afternoon we went to Imizu shrine, which is the one in Kojo park for a tea ceromny that was hosted by otosans mum and okasan was helping out in. it was a very intresting experience however I don’t quiet understand why you would host one. Because it is held at a huge expense. The sweet that you eat befor the tea, is alone 420 yen ($6.65 AU), and there were over 200 guests through the day yesterday. So that’s a total of 84000 yen ($1333 AU) just in the sweets and then there is of course going to be other costs involved. Otosan said its all about showing off the art that they own and sharing the knowledge of the arts that they have with the guests. I must say that some of the “art” was quiet amazing… I thought it was more intresting than what I saw in the art museum earlier this week anyway. The art displayed has to reflect the current season, so although while I still think that it is very much winter here the arts were all spring works.
We went out for dinner again tonight this time to a pizzeria with a cob fire oven. Love it. I guess I should point out that Japanese pizzas that you get at resurants are nothing like our in Australia in that they arnt made on a think bready base but on something more like pitta bread. And they are no where near as oily. We then went to baskin and robbins for an icecream which I think is absolutely crazy when its this cold but anyway. Home for a bath and bed.

2009-03-02T08:54:00.001+09:00

sumo ring in the park

Monday 23rd -->Wednesday 25th
School um very boring school to be perfectly honest as they are doing exams all the time now, 2 or 3 exams a day and them we go home. I go to either the computer room or the library and do my own thing during this time, Monday I went to the computers. Tuesday library and had my tutor come for part of the morning. And Wednesday the library again because the computer room wasn’t open. Came home and did my own thing both Monday and Tuesday which pretty much meant I walked through the park and wait actually I walked the tram line and all the shops along there… not all that interesting but it means I've explored that much more of the town. Wednesday I had brass band after the test for the day were finished. That was pretty cool. Fun and I think everyone was actually there which hasn’t happened a lot recently because of people needing to do stuff for assessment and all that jazz.
Thursday 26th February
Day off school today. So I decided to take advantage of the fact that Okasan had taught me how to get to Aeon and explore it. I had been there a few times but for particular things like going to the bookstore or the Jusco which is kind of like the hypermarket (like Coles and target in one). I wandered around there and didn’t actually find it all that interesting. It’s good though I can get stuff there that I haven’t found anywhere else to buy it… or it’s just cheaper/better there.
I bought another book. This time “Tuesdays with Morrie” by the same guy that wrote “the 5 people you meet in heaven” the book I bought and read in Tokyo. I got bored with the shops very quickly actually although those of you who know me know I'm not a window shopper, I like shopping with purpose, and with that done… that being I had checked the craft store out, I was rather bored and out of my element.
So I left however I decided I didn’t really want to catch the bus back… I felt like a walk… also I totally do not think it is worth 160 yen anyway. Instead I spent 100 yen at the first convenient store I came to on an iced coffee to enjoy on my walk. And huzzah I walked all the way home. I actually have no idea of the distance because Aeon isn’t on the map that I have. But it was a good hours walk, although I did pop into the 100yen store on my way to pick up a few things that I had seen at Aeon but they are cheaper at the 100store… most things are, lol.
At home I started reading but couldn’t get comfortable and was kind of infuriated by the fact that I was spending time inside on what turned out to be a day of fairly nice weather … still far to cold for my likings but not overly windy and not raining so it was a good day to be outside. And then I realized that it was almost 2 and I still hadn’t eaten lunch so back down to our department store where there is kind of a shop kind of a food court thingy in the basement (when I say food court I mean there are places that sell food but not to sit like our food courts back home) bought some lunch and headed to the park armed with my lunch and my book. I sat in what has quiet easily become my favourite location in the park. In the gazebo over the lake that’s off the little island. It must have been quiet the sight for the people that walked past me. Me sitting there freezing my but off eating my lunch and either laughing or crying depending on what the book was saying at that point. It is a great book which again I'm gonna suggest you all read, ahh I love that author, there was another of his books there, shall go get it sometime soon.
I then came home and did some knitting and when okasan got home we went and got my phone Yay!!!
Email on it is Sharnelle@softbank.ne.jp but I will still be using nellyblyrox@hotmail.com as well, and my number is 09094402971 (that’s without the country code which I think is +81 for Japan) Otosan had gone to Tokyo for business and would be away over night so Okasan and I headed out to an Italian restaurant for dinner.
Came home and I pretty much spent the rest of the night playing with my phone. It’s pretty cool, I can put it into English but then I can’t type in Japanese in the emails so I have it in Japanese (until I get very confused and put it back in English).

Friday 27th
School again in the computer room this time while my class did their exams and then the school day was over at like 10:40, I headed home and got changed into some warmer clothes and headed off for a wander… and what a wander it turned out to be, I grabbed some stuff for lunch at the department store and headed to the tomb of Toshinaga Maeda just because its marked as a tourist attraction on my map and I hadn’t been there yet. Went there wasn’t all that interesting but it was an a pretty park kind of place and some very nice random Japanese men offered to take a photo of me in front of it and I talked to them for a bit, and like all Japanese people atm after I told them I was from Australia immediately quizzed me that my house and all my friends and family were ok with all the “mountain” fires. Although this time it was purely in Japanese. After that conversation I felt great having actually had a conversation in Japanese, and not feeling like a fool. I then went across the road to the Hankyuji Temple which was really pretty but I felt like it was wrong me being there with not another person in sight so I didn’t stay for to long nor did I take pictures because I'm always really carful with going to all the temples and shrines that are tourist attractions, while they are tourist attractions to me to the Japanese they are places of worship and I really don’t want to offend them.
I then decided to go to Aeon again really not realizing how far away from it I still was. but I went none the less, wandered round there again for a bit and checked out the supermarket… wanted to see if I could buy all the things I need for a particular recipe I want to cook sometime soon. Turns out I can so Yay! And then I walked all the way home coz I'm to dam stubborn to catch the bus. Although I have no decided that that is a bad idea and you should only walk either to or from Aeon not both ways… unless maybe you go there to see a movie or something where you get a decent rest between the walks.
When I got home I crashed for about an hour until okasan got home. I told her what I had been up to and she just looked at me like I was insane… wish I probably was for that walk but anyway.
I felt really bad at dinner time, because her and Otosan had sushi with raw fish, which she had bought pre-made but because she knows I still have a bit of a mental block to eating raw fish she had cooked me a different meal. Sashimi (raw fish) doesn’t actually taste that bad and the texture of it is ok, yet I really struggle to eat it purely because of the thought of hey this is RAW fish.

Saturday 28th February
I'm gonna start by saying happy birthday to Felicia, Lucy, Jack and Aunty Jo. Hope you all had a great day.
School again today, this morning was the last of the exams and then we had home class which today was basically a really thorough clean as it is graduation ceremony on Tuesday. I found this really funny to watch because it was actually quiet fun, we had the teacher and some of the boys standing on the windowsills cleaning the windows and at one point some of the girls closed the windows and locked them shut leaving the boys outside. And then opened them and pushed them off the window sill, quiet amusing really.
I then had band which was pretty standard, except for this one song where the 4 boys from band dance to it instead of playing, I found that so amusing I don’t think I actually played at all in the song.
Came home and had a cup of tea and more cake. Yes I do still think that there is such a thing as to much cake!
I then came up to my room to sort all my photos out and get this updated. I have now backed up all my exchange photos so far to cd. And then did a few hours of Japanese study. It’s hard it really is but it is getting there a lot of the time I find that I know words but not phrases which means I can generally understand what is being said to me because I can pick up key words and the tense of the sentence. But it’s really hard to put the words together into a sentence to respond to them.

Sunday 1st March
It really doesn’t seem like 5 weeks this whole thing is going too fast.
Had band again this morning.
Um came home and mended some more of my clothes… one was a re-mend because what I did last time came undone.
Went out for lunch to a tempura restaurant which was interesting, shrimp, fish, and lots of random veggies (tempura basically means you deep fry it)
We then went up the mountain to the ski resort we were going to stay at last week but didn’t because Otosan was to busy with work. It was really pretty and COLD but Otosan kept saying there is no snow. Which I thought was really amusing seeing as it was all white but I guess he means relatively, as it is the end of the snow season and even up the mountains it is starting to melt.

2009-02-23T09:10:00.000+09:00

saturday 21st & sunday 22nd

had a pretty lazy weekend really.

saturday okasan and i went looking for phones and i found one i like and its not to expensive and its good value and what not but i havent actually got it yet.. its ordered though. we went out for dinner to the reopening of one of their favourite resturants, its moved from takaoka to the next town over (btween here and toyama) but i cant think of its name at all.

sunday i went shopping ... bought more wool i have a thing with making scarfs atm and im on my 4th one alllready. and then i went for another wander through the park... with the aim of taking more photos of the plum blossoms coz they are sooo pretty but by the time i got there the batteries in my camera died. i intended on going back out in the afternoon but got to caught up in teh book i was reading about the japanese culture. the weather was pretty good though 12 degrees which was really nice to not be freezing for a change.

jan/feb Rotary report

2009-02-23T09:03:00.000+09:00

So I've been on my exchange for about a month now and wow time really does fly when you’re having fun. In a lot of ways it doesn’t seem like I've been away from home for a month.

The trip to Takaoka was in itself a very enjoyable experience a one I could write a lot about. It went fairly smoothly in a since of the word. In fact our Singapore to Tokyo flight was a very rough one as we were flying through stormy weather. Landing in Tokyo it was -2 degrees but we didn’t have much time to actually experience the cold as we were swiftly met by the drivers who transferred 8 of us over to the domestic airport that’s about an hour’s drive from the international one. This was a beautiful drive as it was a clear day and we could clearly see Mount Fuji. We had a fair wait at Haneda airport and the 8 of us stayed as a group for probably the first 2 hours but it was a little impracticable so we split into smaller groups, making sure we stayed with the people we were on our next flight with. So I spent the time with Josh this was quiet nice getting to know him (he’s staying in Toyama itself which Is the capital of my prefecture and about half an hour away) and having someone to share the worry with as they kept announcing that our flight may have to be canceled due to snow in Toyama. Thankfully that was not the case and we made it to Toyama safely. To me Toyama really was a winter wonderland as I had never seen snow before and everything was white and covered it in. it even started snowing on our way home. I was met at the airport by all of my host families except my first mum who had stayed at home knowing that our flight may be diverted or canceled and it was only their home number I knew to contact them on. As well as my host families there were several other rotary members and even one of my classmates from school (who is going to be my host cousin in my next family).

I spent Australia day getting measured up for my Japanese school uniforms and buying my 2 pairs of inside school shoes. I still think the fact that I have 4 pairs of shoes for school is a little excessive. But I did hang one of my flags up in my room and sing our anthem (and the rotary one Thais and I wrote) and ate some of my vegemite.

The rest of my first week here was spent doing a mixture of sightseeing with my host mum, visiting my host grandparents and wandering the local area by myself when my hosts were busy. I think the stand out memory of the weeks sightseeing was when we went to Himi coast and I was standing on the beach amongst all this snow… that was surreal enough as it was but then it started snowing… talk about abstract.

Kojo park which I can see from my bedroom window was and still is one of my favourite places to wander and I'm lucky enough to walk through it to and from school everyday… doing so is a slightly longer walk than what I could do but the ever-changing sights are worth it. The zoo is also home to our local zoo which I was shocked to see has some Australian animals… an emu and some kookaburras and some sort of fish that I can’t remember the name of. Of course it also has Japanese native animals.

The Saturday saw me going to Toyama to meet a fellow in bounder but one who has been here for 7 months (I think) and is from Canada. (her host mum is my host dads sister) we went out for lunch with our host parents and we got along really well to the point that she invited me to spend the afternoon with her and her friends from school as they were going to karaoke and doing purikura(photos). This was such a fun day and it was great to be able to talk to someone who came to the country with no language skills and just see how far she has come. She was also able to give me some very useful advise on school and the likes that yeah its stuff that makes sense but it seems more real and worthwhile coming from someone who is here doing what I am doing but has a little bit more experience in it.

Had Rotary orientation the next day ironically it was held in a Chinese restaurant so we ate traditional Chinese food. Orientation here was nothing like back home. And nowhere near as much fun it was just a sit down here’s the rules thing. And I realized just how good a job the D9600 committee had done when none of the information was new to me and the 2 boys didn’t know half of it. I was disappointed to learn that there are only 8 in bounders to our district … the 3 of us Australians and 5 from America and Canada.

Starting school was great. And I continue to enjoy every day of it. Of course it’s a challenge but it’s a good one and one that is becoming increasingly easier to face. I am getting used to the language and getting less and less nervous about speaking it and making mistakes and there are a lot of those. However I do toughly enjoy their English lesson which often leave me feeling very sorry for my class mates as sometime I think what they are doing is hard. However what they learn is technically correct English not the natural English we speak every day and its American so I am often amused by either just the pronunciation of things or what they are called. I'm still trying to convince my friend that what I wear to school is a scarf not a muffler… it is not a very successful argument I keep telling them I'm the one that speaks English I think I would be the one that knows the English word for it but anyway.

My school uniform is a typical Japanese sailor outfit but I'm used to it now however the first few days in it I did feel a little ridiculous however it is a little chilly on the half hour walk to school with just stockings covering most of my legs.

I have joined 2 clubs at school … the brass band and the English speaking club. Theses have seen me spending the entire weekend at school as well at the national holiday we had last week.

I take most classes with the exception of Kokugo (national language) as its traditional Japanese and not at all helpful to me when I'm trying to learn modern Japanese plus most Japanese kids find it difficult so I have no hope of understanding it at this stage. My Rotary club also provides me with a tutor at school twice a week to teach me Japanese I must say this is very helpful although at the moment I think she is still trying to establish just what I do already know. The other time I don’t attend class is when I am required to attend rotary meetings as my host club is a lunch time club. On those days I leave school early and walk to the meeting which is held about 5 minutes walk from my current hosts house. I am not required to go back to school on these days however so far I have because I have had club on those afternoons.

Rotary meeting over here scare me a little, they are very different to back home. Mostly in the fact that they are all male and my club here has about 50 members where as back home I came from a fairly small club. They sing/chant the rotary creed and the 4 way test to start and end each meeting. Other than that I don’t actually understand the meetings yet but it will get there.

My second weekend saw me taking a trip back to Tokyo this time on the bullet train rather than flying. And wow what a wonderful trip that was. my host siblings live in Tokyo and my host dad has a branch of his business there so that was the reason for the trip but a lot of sightseeing was fitted in for my benefit and that was the start of the already very many badges that are covering my blazer. Not to mention how flashy my hotel room was… I'm being told that it’s the same hotel that Hillary Clinton is staying in so that probably gives you some idea of just how flash it was.

I have also had the experience of trying on a full kimono... like all the under layers the collars the whole deal at my host grandparents kimono shop. The process of getting it on is a very long and lengthy process and one that you really wouldn’t be able to do by yourself very efficiently even if you did know what you were doing and wow I knew kimonos were expensive but the one I tried on was about $4000 just for the outer kimono itself that is not including all the other layers the ties, the obi or any of that sort of thing.

I have already attended 2 festivals both held in Takaoka on valentine’s weekend. I am extremely lucky to have come to Takaoka this year as it is the towns 400th birthday which means that it is hosting a lot more festivals than normal. The first festival was a light up of the most famous temple in the area and the second a food fair of a lot of the foods that this area of Japan, in particular the west half of the Toyama prefecture are famous for. I have also experiences Setsubun the start of spring according to the ancient Japanese calendar which involves throwing beans around the house yelling “devil go out good spirits come in” and then you are also supposed to eat the number of beans that is your age and this will bring you good health for the following year.

I love the Japanese style of bathing and enjoy it every night, though I do still feel a little guilty at the amount of water I'm using. But they have a lot here it has never been an issue and my classmates really struggle to understand the concept of a drought and only being allowed 3 minute showers.

As far as my host family is going seeing as I haven’t really said much about them yet. I get along with them fine. My host dad annoys me from time to time as he always speaks in English to me which yes at times is helpful but I didn’t come here to speak English I came here to learn Japanese. My host mum is awesome and I do a lot with her, mainly because shes home a lot more and I think she really enjoys having me around. She was absolutely shocked that when we went shopping I went to carry the bags …. Even when what we brought was my school shoes or something else of mine. Apparently kids just don’t do that over here. My host mum is really understanding of what its like to be away from home and everything I'm used to after all I am the 10th student they have hosted and their daughter went on exchange to America a few years back. So although she has never done it herself she has had a great deal of experience with the program.

It is very almost the end of school year here so I have very little to attend at school over the next few weeks as its all tests and I am not doing them. So my host parents have planed a trip to a ski resort not to ski but to just see the views and to go to the onsen (public bath) up there. There is also a rotary trip in our school holidays to Hiroshima, Kyoto and surrounding areas. I am greatly looking forward to theses trips and everything else that I am yet to be faced with in the year ahead.

2009-02-21T16:34:00.000+09:00

Monday 16th à Friday 20th February
So we had snow again this week and I enjoyed that thoroughly but not the cold of walking to and from school in my uniform. I didn’t have club at all this week which is unusual but it’s because they are all preparing for their exams next week nor did I have to go to rotary this week. Ahh it really hasn’t been that much of an interesting week. The weeks highlights at school were Tuesdays TT lesson where they had to present their advertisements that they had been working on in English. The English in them wasn’t bad… but the ideas and concepts of what they were advertising was quiet entertaining my favourite would have to be the group that was advertising a bad memory eraser which was literally a huge eraser that you rubbed on your head. Sooo funny. I think the other really funny thing would be playing fruit basket in home class on Friday. This is a game where there is one less chair in the circle than there are people and whoever is in the middle says for example people who have glasses and then everyone with glasses has to move. If they say fruit basket everyone has to move.

photos photos and more photos

2009-02-19T18:35:00.006+09:00

the rather complex rubbish system ...we sort it into 9 catogries the middle of my school

front of school (taken from student entrance)

dont think you can see it extremly well but the ducks are soo much cuter just sitting there covered in snow

walking home. around the park

advertisments in tt this one was for a bad memory eraser

practising for tt

haha this is the barrier to the construction site i walk past to get to school

my house

from my room one night

plum flowers in the park

in the Kimono in my host mums parents shop

2009-02-15T19:36:00.002+09:00

with the Takaoka mascot the light up festivle

making the cake for my welcome party

and the one youve all been waiting for ... my lovely school uniform

Tuesday 10th February
So I wore my uniform for the first time today and I'm sick of people telling me it looks cute. But sigh. Had a day full of spares today really, because my class had a day full of tests, but I still had to come to school for my Japanese lesson and club after school. So I went to the liabary for a bit and studied and then had my Japanese lesson in the computer room. At lunch I went back to the classroom to spend it with my friends then back up here to the computer room it was to catch up on emails and the like. I'm sorry if I haven’t got round to replying to you yet I'm trying but it takes time which I don’t really have much of at the moment. Went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner tonight, was fairly nice …. I like shark soup

Wednesday 11th February

National holiday today from my understanding it’s the national day. But I could be wrong there. So there was no school as such but I still had brass band club. Um got home from that and had lunch slept a bit read a bit um went to the shops with okasan not a lot really a bit of a lazy day which was good.
Also just a random fact today marks the longest time I've continually been in Japan.
Thursday 12th February
School um yeah not much to say at all. Except I think that the way they teach English is hard. Like really hard.

Friday 13th February
So I've decided that from now on the Monday – Friday week (while I'm at school) is going to be done in one entry unless something really exciting happens during a week. But I doubt it.
Anyway school again today and gosh sooo much cake, because it’s valentine’s day tomorrow and they do is somewhat differently here. Girls give gifts on valentine’s day to all of their friend’s yes this includes boys. And then a month later on white day (the 14th of march) boys are required to give presents back to anyone who gave them a present and then anyone else they may want to.
After school today the English speaking club threw me a welcome party which was really cool. We made cakes and cooked some other stew thing which was nice but as with most things it was all fish. The alt (assistant language teacher… she is American) and I then started joking that the cake was made of fish as well and of course this very much confused all the Japanese girls that were listening to us. I gave them all pins and key rings from my huge stash of Australian stuff.
I did a load of washing tonight, not that you really need to know that and I'm currently waiting for the dryer to finish so I can go to bed. Because I have band tomorrow and on Sunday.

Saturday 14th February ~ Valentines’ day
Had band rehearsal this morning. And I was given another 3 cakes for valentine’s day by people in band as well as some cookies and some lollies. I swear that in the 3 weeks I've been here I've eaten as much cake as I would at home in a year. Anyway band wasn’t to bad spent over an hour doing warm up exercises and what not but I intend on doing a band write up in the near future so I will leave the details for that.
After band I came home and we had lunch and a bit of a rest then okasan and I went out for the afternoon. We first of all walked to the train station and she taught me how to read the bus maps and what not, so we caught the bus to Aeon which is kind of like a Westfield but also somewhat reminds me of the Myre centre and went and saw mamma mia which was cool, its audio was in English which made it awesomely easy for me to watch, but it had Japanese subtitles so I actually spent half the movie reading them.
We are going back to the movies in 2 weeks to see Australia which I think is really ironic, but you know.
After the movie we had an ice-cream because we were actually kind of hot, as we had a heavy jackets on coz we were walking a lot of places today and the shops are heated that you don’t at all need them.
We then walked to Zuiryuji temple (yes the same place I went to on the 30th of January) because it had a special light viewing thing tonight and a huge markets in front of its gates, was really cool but very crowed though it was beautiful and a wonderful atmosphere we bought dinner there but came home to eat it as we also brought Otosan’s dinner, but he didn’t come out with us as he has a cold.
Got band again tomorrow and I'm not really looking forward to this next week, they aren’t expecting it to get above 5 degrees the entire week.

Sunday 15th February

So band again this morning not that intresting at all. Home for lunch which was pizza, which for some reason really reminded me of Abbey (my grandma) I guess they were like the pizzas that we sometimes have at her house.
Okasan and I then went for a walk to the trainstation the arcade where the 100 yen shop is had all these random shops on the road today …the reason we went to the trainstation is there was a food of takaoka market there or something like that is was food from this reagion well that’s what okasan said. After that we walked back home had a drink and then drove to toyama, Okasan showed me where she went to school and then we went to her parents kimono shop where I met her mum and little brother. I was shown around the shop and got to try on a $4000 kimono (actually more atm that’s working on an easier better exchange rate) and that’s just the kimono itself not any of the other stuff you wear with it like the obi or anything and let me tell you they don’t go on fast at all. And they didn’t even do my obi properly just so it stayed for the photos and looked good from the front.
I then went to the department store for a wander while okasan did what she had to do at the store with her mum. We then came home and I decided to type up today’s entry before I add the last few days of my blog and as I type this its only 5 degrees outside and just 12 in here in my room because I haven’t bothered turning my heater on as shortly I’ll be going downstairs to put this on the interwebs for all of you to read.
And as okasan pointed out to me it’s been 3 weeks since I got here. Wow it really doesn’t seem that long. So that also makes it the longest I've ever not seen my family for, with the previous being at Googa were we saw each other at the 3 week mark on family day.
oh and i had eel for dinner tongith it doesnt taste to bad and not very much like fish at all which is ftw

2009-02-10T13:40:00.001+09:00

Sunday 8th February
So today Otosan and I headed to Yokahama,　we went to a park where you could see the whole bay and omg its huge and very busy…. And you can see all the way back to Tokyo (Tokyo tower) and its all just like our inner city buildings, but this is a fair distance away… I’m guessing anyway considering it took us over 30min on the train to get there. After we had finished there which was basically after I had taken a lot of photos we went to china town, yeah that’s right I’m in Japan and I spent half a day wondering through china town. It seemed a lot more real than ever before … not like I really know having never been to china but just the fact that everything thing was run by and most of the people in the streets were Asian it seamed lot more like I would expect china to be.
We then walked back to the bay and went aboard the NYK Hikawamaru ( a huge ship) which has had a very interesting history and played a vital role in the history of Japan and its relations with other countries especially of that whit America. For more info see http://www.ssmaritime.com/hikawamaru.htm

After which we went back to the train station but discovered we still had time so we went up the landmark tower, which is basically a lookout point like Tokyo tower but is a lot less well known. This is where I made the mistake again of ordering an iced coffee I had done this before in Japan and people had already on this trip warned me about it however I forgot. Iced coffees here are just that coffee with ice in them, with absolutely no milk content at all.
Anyway after that it was pretty much head back to Tokyo and wait for a bit then head back to Takaoka so I won’t bore you with those details
Monday 9th February
School today. And I got to officially decided my timetable so yeah I now don’t go to kokugo ,,national language but instead I come up here to the computer room or go to the library and do what ever I feel like.
After school okasan and I went and picked up my school uniform, I think it’s a bit silly but anyway ill get used to it .

2009-02-09T20:14:00.003+09:00

the replica statue of liberty in tokyo

the front of a kabuki theater

showing how they did special effects in the kabuki theater

woodblock printing

kabuki theater

tokyo tower at night but i think you probebly allready figured that out

the bath im my hotel room ...it was spa bath..very vey nice

the rest of the bathroom

from the door the bedroom

the kitcheny area and closets

telling my class all about australia

my school

Tuesday 3rd February
Not really much to say, (I say that and watch me ill write a dam lot you know it)
School again today. Had Japanese 1 which is I think a lot more like what we did in English in Australia unlike Japanese 2 which I had yesterday which was more um ancient Japanese language regardless I still understood nothing, especially as for this lesson I had nothing to be trying to follow, most other teachers have given me a photocopy of the text book. I'm not getting this year’s text books coz its sooo close to the end it’s not worth it but I will get the 2nd grade textbooks when the time comes to it (I think and hope anyway). Then had English 1 which is more language vocab rather than English 2 which I did yesterday which is English grammar. This lesson made me laugh several times as we were listening to the CD read the passage purely because it’s American and the person had a really strong accent.
Um I then had my first special Japanese lesson with Ibata sensei in the library and she taught me all about Setsubun which is the special day that it is today which marks the end of winter according to the traditional Japanese calendar so you throw these special type of beans around yelling devil go out good spirits come in. and then you are supposed to eat a certain number of beans depending on how old you are. So I being a 17 year old ate 17 of them.
Ahh world history. I never thought I would enjoy a history lesson sooo much but alas I did this teacher is awesome; really lively and what not. A teacher that every student at my school wants to have. For those of you who know Grace Teachers combine Mr. Carter, Mr. Hilford, Mr. D and Mr. Larsen and that’s pretty much this teacher… well from what I have experienced of him anyway.
It was then TT time… I really don’t know what TT stands for as in why this subject is called that but its English conversation taken by one of the English teachers and the assistant language teacher who is American for me this was actually a very boring lesson because it was the classes last lesson on the group project they have been doing and it would be unfair for me to join any one group in that I would help them too much.
It was then pe… pretty standard except for the weird stretching routine at the start but meh.

This evening okasan and I had to go get some passport photos taken for my alien registration forms which was just a short walk away but in the dark and the rain was very cold.

Wednesday 4th February
School for 3 lessons this morning. Kokugo…. National language so Japanese which is incredibly difficult and I will be dropping as of next week when I get to chose which subjects I will actually attend on a regular basis. Then double ongaku… music! This I am doing as an extra arts subject so I'm not with anyone from my regular class but hey I made friends in this class soon enough! They all play alto recorder and I'm not sure if I'm expected to get one to or what but for today I played on my flute. And that’s basically all music was … playing through these three songs with the teacher playing the piano as well. Much fun had by all. Plus the teacher is awesome the same one I have for band but that’s later in the day. He is cool reminded me very much of Mr. bell and a bit of Mr. whiting was a nice reminder of PA back at grace which I do miss because is so much more complicated and stressful here and I really don’t understand it.
After that I was off to the rotary meeting which starts at 12:30 so I have an hour 10 to get there and it’s only a 20 maybe 25 minute walk away and I walked very slowly. Got down there with way too much time left so just wandered the streets for a bit getting orientated with that bit of Takaoka as other than going to the meeting last week it was an area I had yet to explore.
The meeting confused me almost as much as last week expect that I was expecting it this week which made it a lot better. I payed in my 30 000 yen emergency fund (so that mum stops asking me). As it was the first meeting for the month they celebrated everyone’s birthdays that are in February and something else as well I think it may have been the annerverasiry of when people joined the club I'm really not sure. But it also meant that I got my 15 000 yen allowance for the month.
After rotary we came home for a short time… and a cup of tea ahh I have been drinking way to much tea! And then we went to city hall to place my alien presence notification thingy. I have to go back in 2-3 weeks to get my id card from them and then I won’t be required to carry my passport showing that I have a current visa. Um after that it was back to school for me. Just for club really. Because yes I was crazy enough to join the brass band club. Had a 3 hour rehearsal this afternoon, and really that is run pretty similarly to band back home it’s just a little more intense and whenever the conductor says something to us we have to all I'm time say yes sir… at times he conducts us saying it its quiet amusing really.
Thursday 5th February
School again math and science first up then shyodou … calligraphy which was kind of hard to do correctly and I was doing my own thing not what the whole class was doing, I do appreciate the teachers sometimes for this in that they are trying to help me but sometimes it just makes me feel even more alienated than I am. ,
Japanese (national language not my EnglishßàJapanese lesson) blegh so glad I'm going to be dropping that subject very soon. Then English 2 this today I actually found hard at times so I feel really sorry for them trying to do it. They were given part of the sentence and the rest of the words in brackets and they had to un-jumble them, it sounds easy but sometimes no matter how you arranged them it just sounds awkward to say in English, so maybe it’s not actually that hard for them because 90% of what they say in English sounds awkward. My class then had a math test so I was off to the room I go to when I don’t want to be in class … a tiny computer room. But it’s warm there… most of the time so it’s all good.
After school and we had done all the cleaning I went home briefly basically to dump my school bag and then I went out shopping again. I brought the stuff I need for the month that my allowance is given for, just so I don’t go wasting it on other things first…. Not that I would but you know it’s done now and I fell a little better because I'm carrying that much less cash on me than before.
Japan is mainly a cash society and plus I get charged like $4.50 every time I use my card because a it’s not my banks atm and b the conversion fee from Australian dollars to Japanese yen thus I have a fair amount of cash on me, I brought about $250 with me originally to get me started, and to buy my phone … which I still haven’t done and then I got another $150 out to check that my card does work. And my allowance is equal to $250 so I'm carrying with me roughly $600 in cash and this is coming from someone who at home hates having more than $30 in cash because when I have cash I have a tendency to spend it a lot more where as I hesitate to use my card. Thus I like spending it not only because I enjoy the actual process of walking to the shops and doing the shopping and walking home again but it means a little less cash on me :D
One of the things that I bough was a little blanket for school now that may sound stupid but all the girls have one as our skirts are only to our knees and legs freeze … I'm saying our but I don’t have my uniform yet so I'm wearing my black pants to school with another layer underneath that so I'm actually quiet warm atm.
On Monday I was presented with a stack of letters, one from everyone in my class telling me their name, birthday hobbies and then one other interesting thing about themselves (in English) so tonight I sat down and wrote back to all of them (in Japanese) this was a very long process as I have 40 people in my class but I felt good about doing it and I know the effort will be appreciated by them when I give it to them tomorrow. And guess what we ate out for dinner again: P what a change…. But I'm still managing to lose weight but alas I am doing a lot more walking and physical activity than at home.
Friday 6th February
Today at school was a bit of a mix up because they swapped lessons around because of the test yesterday and preparing for it. But in the English class for which was have our home class teacher I talked to the class about Australia, and I had all of my Australian animal soft toys which got passed around, my huge flag and one of my maps on which I have written things like where I live where I was born where my grandparents and cousins live and how long it takes to get between the places. I also showed them a map of Australia which compares the size of Australian to a lot of other countries and my toy Aussie money (thanks Aimee and Tammy one of your “useless” things came in handy) I left school early again today because I went to Tokyo (I'm sorry tenses are going to be muddled as I'm writing this whole weekends blog on Monday back home in Takaoka from the notes I wrote down on the weekend).

When I got home from school I was delighted to have another letter from Abbey and Granddad … thank you so much which included a post card of their town which made things a little easier to explain about where they live. We then walked to the train station and got on the shinkansen bound for Tokyo, well actually somewhere else coz we had to change trains half way through and where we did was really deep in snow and it was still snowing. I was glad to see the snow again I miss it here I mean we have remnants of snow but not much and it’s not at all snowing anymore.
When we got to Tokyo station we caught a taxi to where we stayed, it was in the toranomon residential tower which as far as I can tell is part of the Okura hotel, and it has one guest room in it which I stayed in, My host parents have an apartment here which is where their daughter lives so that’s where they stayed. My room was fantastic and I don’t have the ability to describe it at all so you’ll get lots of photos (soon… I want to get the writing on the blog updated first) I could see Tokyo pretty dam well Tokyo tower was the main viewpoint and it felt like I could almost touch it I was that close to where I was staying.
We walked to Tokyo midtown which was interesting past a lot of nightclubs where they were A LOT of African Americans outside inviting everyone in in both English and Japanese gosh it was odd hearing an African American speaking Japanese they just had this unique tone of voice that you really don’t expect to hear speaking Japanese. After that was taxied it back to the hotel well actually to a different hotel where we had a drink, I had a $15 milkshake and ok the exchange rate is bad but even at the best rate I've seen it was over $8 sooo not worth that much I mean I was nice I was really nice but not that nice and it was really small as well.
I returned to my room to enjoy a very long hot bath looking out at the sights of Tokyo by night. It was amazing really it was word cannot describe it and do it justice.
Went to bed around midnight after a long and tiring but very exciting day.
Now some of you will know how I hate being alone by myself even during the day time but especially at night, now here I was in this room in a city that’s population is bigger than the whole of our country in a country where I don’t really speak their language (yet) alone at night. Yes I was little freaked out but alas I think I may be well on the way to getting over that fear.

Saturday 7th February
Both my host parents were busy so I armed with my trusty map went for a wander. My first port of call was working out how I actually get to Tokyo tower, I didn’t want to go up but I figured that if I got lost I would easily be able to find my way back there and then I would be able to get home to the hotel. Didn’t find much interesting as this area of Tokyo is really glitzy so mostly hotel and restaurants and highly expensive stores. But I did go into a book shop where I found the book “the 5 people you meet in heaven” which I had heard about before and had been wanting to read so I bought it and I can say it’s worth it, I don’t believe it and I really hope that heaven will be very different to what that book portrays however it gets you thinking and its well written, an enjoyable read to say the least.
The afternoon saw me going to lunch with my host parents and their daughter misako I would say host sister but that the one and only time I've seen her and I didn’t really talk to her that much so to me she is just their daughter not a host sister, I hope that makes sense. After that Otosan (dad) and I went to the Edo museum (Edo is what Tokyo used to be called and is a period in Japans history) where I learnt a lot more about Japanese history and felt great to be amongst a crowd with about the same ethnic mix as you would find in Brisbane because it feels weird in Takaoka to go days without seeing anyone who isn’t Japanese and that I have people going oh it’s THE Australian or one of the aliens, in all honesty I think I've seen one other “alien” here in Takaoka and that’s a teacher at my school. After the museum we went on the sea bus (river cruise) then the monorail to odaiba (I think) where they have the imitation of the statue of liberty. And then back on the monorail to our hotel. Briefly before going to the train station where I met up with Haruka (I hosted her in 2007 and then stayed with her on the Japan tour that year) it was great to see her again, then the 4 of us (host parents as well) went out for dinner to this restaurant that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere but really nice for a 6 course dinner.

But I got a hug! You are like yeah whatever but I hadn’t got on in 2 weeks since I left Australia and that little bit of personal contact with someone I actually know well meant a lot

2009-02-02T20:10:00.000+09:00

Sunday 1st February
Had rotary orientation today and it was nothing like our orientations back home and I felt really out of place and uncomfortable, mainly because I didn’t think about it before hand in a lot of ways I wore what is comfortable and warm and the level of formalness that was appropriate for our orientations in Australia and not thinking about the fact that it was a lot more likely to be much more formal here. And the other 2 had obviously thought about this as they were wearing their formal uniforms like what we wore when we arrived. Not only that but even still I completely forgot to take my name badge. And like a lot of rotary things will be this year I was the only female as Japanese Rotary is male only and there are only the 3 of us new in bounders to the district and 8 of us in total with only 3 girls in that mix. I was also fairly disappointed to learn that of the 8 in bounders there are the 3 of us Australians and the other 5 are from us and Canada. So, not nearly as a diverse group of people as we had in D9600 which was something I was looking forward to.
Orientation its self wasn’t at all bad I guess because D9600 had done so much with me before I left Australia I knew many of the rules already. But they went over some of the fine points which relate especially to Japan. And of course the fact that I’m not allowed to wear any jewelry to school, which I’m not entirely happy about having to take my cross off but anyway.
The other thing is I’m still not at all sure who my counselor here is supposed to be and yes I have asked and I have a name on a piece of paper but that is entirely no help to me what so ever at the present point in time.
And so people stop asking me yes there are things I miss about home already, but they aren’t vital things, and I’m enjoying myself here too much for them to really matter. I miss being warm I miss being able to wear the same cloths inside and out and not freeze or be stinking hot in one case. I miss having a fluent conversation about anything even those little petty things that would come up with a customer at work. I miss being hugged. Any of you who know me remotely well know I’m a huggy person and in general the Japanese society isn’t and as I am yet to make good enough friends with any of them or with any of the other exchange students a hug is something I have not received since saying goodbye to my family in Brisbane. So yeah I miss friends and family but I’m forming friendships over here so it’s not the contacts really it’s the intimacy of the contacts that I miss. I know that these things will most likely all seem very trivial to you and if you would have told me 2 weeks ago that a week into my exchange that they are the things I would miss I would have laughed at you. I mean I knew that I would miss friends and family at points thought the year I didn’t really think that it would come this soon but alas it has.
I am happy here I really am and I am very excited about the fact that I start my school life here tomorrow, I have to be at school by 8:15 so I have to leave home at about 7:45 which is a lot earlier than I have been getting up so I should really give myself an early night tonight though I have been saying that for the last couple of days as I keep feeling really bad about getting up so late but with all that I’m doing I am getting really tired.
Monday 2nd February
so I started school today and ahh what to say, it was in most ways a fabulous day I really enjoyed being around people my own age and I felt like I could finally talk in Japanese and not be judged for what I got wrong which seems really weird I know but I think that they can all appreciate how hard it is for me and that I am really trying and that is what they care about not that I may forget the odd particle or put to words around the wrong way in a sentence pattern but it will get there, although I must day I am now doing myself introduction without any thought like it completely fluent I'm not even really thinking as I'm saying it what the English equilievent is just that I'm doing my intro. All the people here think that saying Sharnelle is very difficult so everyone is calling me Nelly, except the few teachers which are doing for me what they do for all the others in my class and calling me by my last name but again they are saying it wrong… ahh when will people learn.
So I'm in year 1 class 2 so basically the equlivent to our grade 10 back home but I'm fine with that. Especially as it is almost the end of the school year and then I will move up to 2nd year with my class. The subjects I had today were history, home ec (which I swear was actually commerce but anyway) and then math’s which was sooo easy but then again its yr 10 and I think the work was stuff we did about half way through yr 11 but regardless it was stuff I had previously done. It was then lunch time. After lunch we had English which I found strange they are learning what I'm gonna call proper English but it’s not exactly what we use that and it’s American English so they spell things strangely. So if I start spelling thing the American way I'm sorry but it’s my schooling over here. This lead to a few interesting convos with the teacher about why they teach that way and not how we actually speak but it was really funny coz she herself can barely speak English just what she teachers.
Um just a few points about my school over here.
· Yes I have a shoe locker because you don’t wear your outside shoes inside and vice-versa we have shoe lockers at the student entrance to the school where you keep your other shoes
· I think it’s very odd that I walked to school watching the sun rise and home watching it set
And I went to school just in time for lessons and stayed about 40min after lessons finished to get a few other things organized.
· Not only are our classes numbered but so are we as the students within those classes. For example I am student 41 within my class
· Yes classes are that big mine with 41 students now that I'm in it
· Unlike in Australia where we the students move around to our different lessons the students have a room which we stay in and the teachers come to us. There are of course some exceptions to this like for home ec today we went to a different room and we will for science and pe lessons.
· The school doesn’t employ cleaners we the student body do it all ourselves. In a special time slot at the end of the day.
· The 3rd graders (seniors ) only have lessons in the morning and spend the afternoon at school doing self study to prepare for their exams
· School is all one building, well 2 but they have built in corridors between them. All the first years study on the 1st floor the 2nd year students on the 3rd floor and the 3rd year students on the second floor
· We eat lunch and spend lunch time in our classroom or in the other classrooms of our grade/ our friends

2009-02-01T21:27:00.000+09:00

Thursday 29th January
A bit of a non eventful day really. I went for a walk in the morning surprise surprise but this time the 100yen shop was actually open. So I bought a lot of the things that I need that I didn’t bring to Japan because of weight restrictions on my baggage and I knew I could just as easily get them here. And an alarm clock because I need to actually get up on time next week when I start school over here. Oh and I bought wool so I can make another scarf as I only brought one with and you really need one all the time when your outside. Um walked through the park as well and then home. Otosan and I went for a drive to Kanazawa this afternoon; really pointless I thought coz all we did there was stop at a service station so he could take a photo of it. And we are going there on the weekend for rotary orientation so I don’t see why that couldn’t have been done then but anyway. Then went for another walk... back to the 100yen shop to pick up something I had forgotten to get this morning and then visited the zoo again. Okasan got home really late so we went out for dinner to an Indian restaurant which was really good. A bit too spicy for my likings but anyway. So yeah that was my day.
Friday 30th January
Ok I actually have something interesting for you to read about again today. Yay! The morning was pretty boring really, did a load of washing, and vacuumed my room and the rest of the upstairs part of the house. And then figured out why the alarm clock I bought yesterday didn’t go off this morning. Turns out I hadn’t set it properly but hey I was reading all the instructions in Japanese and all it was, was that I had the words for right and left the wrong way round in my mind.
Okasan and I then went to the post office… she had some stuff to do there anyway so I used the opportunity to buy some stamps for the letter I had written and a stash for when I write some more. Also the atm is located at the post office so I used the opportunity to check that my visa does work over here after all the drama of being told it wouldn’t coz I need a 6 digit pin and various other things, I’d like to let you all know that it does work. We then visited the other supermarket okasan frequents and so I had to be introduced to all the checkout ladies there Yay! So by the time we returned home Otosan was home for lunch already.
Today we ate out at a ramen restaurant. Ramen is basically noodles in a soup I’m sorry but I’m too tired to explain it anymore than that and it isn’t ever 8 yet. We then came home and okasan and I just pottered for a bit before going on a sightseeing trip. First we picked up yet another pair of shoes for school. I need 4 different pairs because of the Soto and uchi rules … inside and outside and how you can’t wear the same shoes in both places and then just everyday ones and sports ones for each of these.
We then went to Zuiryuji temple. This is a Japanese national treasure. From there we went to Himi coast to a very popular lookout spot where you can see a little island. It’s hard to explain so just look at the picture. The most surreal thing though is standing on the beach amongst snow I really is I can’t begin to explain it and I don’t think it’s something you could appreciate if you haven’t experienced it anyway, no matter how well I explained it. The next stop was the Himi botanical gardens which were amazing. There weren't really any overly special plants there it was just that they are all like tropical kind of plants and there we were in the snow looking at these. Obviously in glass houses and what not but still amazing. And I managed to get a few really good photos there. We proceeded onto the Himi port which was basically a huge indoor fish market so hmm interesting but not all that great. That basically wraps up my day but I’m insanely tired I think it’s from all the Japanese I’m still not used to it and I don’t think it will be for a while yet but it’s getting there.

Saturday 31st January
Now that I sit down to write this I think wow I don’t really have that much to write but it’s been a great day. To start the day off we realized that one of the pipes that run through my bedroom floor was leaking and dripping through the ceiling onto the piano downstairs with all the rain we had last night okasan was also very worried about the roof in the front room which has also been known to leak at times. And as this is where her kimono is kept it was a huge concern for her. But after that was sorted we went into Toyama to meet with Riley one of the other inbound exchange students to our district. Riley is from Canada and has been here almost 6 months already we went round to her first host families house as her first host mum is Otosan’s sister. We then walked to a really nice little restaurant for lunch and then back to her house. Riley then invited me to hang out with her and her friends from school for the afternoon/evening so I did. We went to Karaoke which was great fun. 800 yen for unlimited time, in our own little room. We had so much fun and sung any and every sort of music in both English and Japanese. After several hours of this we went and did some purikura (photo booths) which was also great fun. We then went out for dinner at a restaurant which is a very popular one amongst the teens in Toyama as it is incredibly cheap and nice food. Unfortunately it was then time for me to head home but it was a great day and we shall be doing it again sometime soon. Especially as school holidays are coming up. Ha-ha I’m looking forward to them already and I haven’t even started school over here yet lol.

2009-01-28T17:32:00.001+09:00

again i cant move the photos down sorry
pengiuns at the zoo really ironically this was the only enclouser which didnt have snow in it at the time

the emu which i felt really sorry for especially coz he s alone

badger

in the park on the way to the zoo

flamingos

sitting in the lexus in the show room

my hot coffee in a can

little girl and mum making a snow man it was soo cute

in the park

on the way to the park, thats the main bridge into the park

Tuesday 27th January
So today both my host parents had to be at work or at least out doing various things, so I was given house keys a map of the area and told to have a great day, so I decided to go for a wonder through the park which is literally about 200m away as the crow flies but to get there it’s about 600m not really far at all, and seeing as I got kind of cold yesterday with just my jacket on I decided to wear my ski suit today and I wondered around for almost 2 hours and was fine, except for my face it froze it truly does amaze me that parts of your body can be so numb from the cold while others are almost to the point of being hot. I really don’t have much else to say on the morning’s activities, just a wonder in the park.
Otosan came home for lunch and had brought 6 packs of sandwiches, a little but too much, I really haven’t had much of an appetite recently, I don’t know, I’m eating enough because I’m not hungry I guess to me it just seems like I’m not eating much coz it’s all different and I’m not used to it all. But the sandwich I had today was interesting, potato salad in a sandwich, and then like fried pork in a sandwich.
Otosan had to go into Toyama this afternoon and asked me if I wanted to go with, even though I was really tired and wanted to go sleep I went with… I think I slept most of the way into Toyama anyway. But he has land there that used to have a KFC on it but they didn’t want to renew the lease so the building is being demolished and he needed to go check up on that, we then went and visited the Lexus showroom, where Otosan bought his car from. Now as you all know I’m not much of a car fan but I know enough and was told enough times by people that saw the picture of my house and noticed that my host dad has one of these cars to have already realized that these cars were very ritzy, but wow wow wow they are amazing, I got to sit in the convertible and make the roof go up and down, the people there were really formal about everything they said and did but I actually understood everything that they were saying to me.
They then ushered us round into a lounge room and gave us hot drinks and biscuits, which Otosan made me bring the ones that we didn’t eat home, but they are really nice so it’s probably a good thing.
When we got home okasan and I went out and picked up my inside sport shoes which we ordered only yesterday so I was really amazed that they were there already, we then went to the supermarket, I had been to a Japanese supermarket before but this one still surprised me its more or less the size of an IGA store so fairly small but still very different, while our supermarkets sell or sorts of things from stationary to hardware to toiletries this one basically sold food, and mostly fresh food at that, so a lot of veggies and meat and then a bit of packaged stuff, and a very small toiletries section.
For dinner we had a dish called shabushabu which involved a pot of boiling water on a heater in the middle of the table with veggies in it (cabbage, shallots, and a few types of mushroom) we then had a plate of really thinly sliced meat which we had to pick up and put in the pot one slice at a time. And it cooked very fast. It tasted fairly good, but I was always scared that I hadn’t cooked my meat enough.
After dinner Otosan and I went to the big shopping centre Aeon as he wanted to go to the bookshop and I was being a good exchange student and not saying no to an offer to go with. I went into tower records and I was considering buying the Japanese soundtrack to wicked the musical; however I thought it was a little expensive. I then looked at mobiles because I’m told that I will really need one once I start school but they really confused me. So okasan and I are going to go shopping for one later in the week.

Wednesday 28th January
I had another opportunity to walk around this morning and I made the most of it to get used to the area, so I started my walk by going to Takaoka no eki (Takaoka train station) in doing this I walked past the department store where the 100yen shop is and I intended to visit in my walk this morning however the department store was closed so obviously I couldn’t do that. Down at the train station not many things were open yet so that was a bit of a boring walk. However there was one or 2 shops which were interesting to window shop in. after wondering around the station for a bit and getting a feel for it I headed back towards the park and today I explored the area that I didn’t yesterday. Today I visited the zoo. Now this is a pretty small zoo and it’s just part of the park so you are free to just wonder in so I did, grabbing a coffee from a vending machine on my way. Now you may think oh yeah coffee vending machine we have that here in Australia but ha-ha this is different, this is just from a standard vending machine that also sells cold drinks, but the coffee and other hot drinks that you can buy from the vending machines over here come in cans, just like our soft drink cans.

In the Zoo there were many animals; flamingos, monkeys, cape hyrax, porcupine, ring-tailed coati , Badgers, raccoons, raccoon dogs , mara , miniature horses, sheep, dear, penguins !!!, and lots of other birds but their cages had plastic around them to help protect them from the snow so you couldn’t really see them very well. But I know that there was kookaburras there coz the lady who was also looking knew I was Australian and made a big thing about showing me them as well as the emu. Now the emu I felt really really sorry for, I suppose the kookaburras as well but they at least had a decent shelter and don’t get snowed on, however this emu doesn’t and i felt sorry for it because its not an animal that is apt for the snowy conditions and it was growling the whole time I was there and once I realized it was the emu I also realized that it is the same sound I heard while in the general area of the zoo at the park yesterday. So I really don’t think that the emu is happy there.
I then came home and got ready to go to my first Japanese rotary meeting, now that was intresting, its within walking distance of home, and school and once I have started school I will be skipping school on Wednesday arvos to go to rotary and after rotary I can go back to school or whatever I want. He reason I guess I felt so awkward at rotary today was that it is a male only club so sitting in a room for 40+ fairly old Japanese guys was weird. However I did meat Yoshi’s Grandfather and he seams fairly nice. But they also sing a rotary song and then some other song at the start of their meetings. I had to introduce myself and do a bit of a speech. And then I swapped banners with then.
After rotary Otosan and the president of the rotary club took me to visit my school. Where I was shown around and told that I will have my special Japanese lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. i met the school nurse and the PE teachers. I will start off in year 1 (yr 10) class 2 but the school year is almost over so I will move up into year 2 (yr 11) in April when the new school year starts.

my first 2 days in Japan

2009-01-26T20:18:00.004+09:00

ok gonna start with pictures coz i cant get it to move them however they may make more sence if you look at them after youve read it haha one of my only in japan moments

my sports uniform

at the big buddah which i still cant figure out where it is in relation to my house *is very confused as to how i can miss it but hmm*

what i saw out my berdrrom window when i woke up on monday XD

my welcoming party at the airport the girl next to me is a classmate on the other side is the club president and next to him is my host dad view if all the snow in toyama

mount fuji taken out the plane window

the 4 of us queenslanders going to japan

last family photo just befor i left

Sunday 25th January
So I’m finally here, I am finally in Takaoka, my home for the next year, and its dam cold. But I am glad to be here, especially after so long traveling.
Had to be at the airport at 11:30am yesterday, we went through the gates about 1 and of course I was a bit teary, but who wouldn’t have been in that position. Simon, one o the others flying with us soon proved to me a bit of a problem maker, first of all holding us up with his hand luggage being significantly over the limit so we had to wait as he repacked and found another bag to put the excess in.

Once that had been done we proceeded on though security check, and they decided to do a random frisk search on Simon but as he is under 18 as was our whole traveling group we had to wait for almost half an hour for them to find someone to observe the search, which in the end took about a minute.
By this time that had not only done the first but also the final boarding call for our flight and had started calling us by name to our gate to leave, luckily we still managed to get on our flight as the people on the gate had heard about our hold up at security.
On the plane I sat with Rochelle (spelling?), who is also now in Japan, she is in Gifu. (Pretty much in the centre of Japan.)
Once in Singapore we looked for the Belgium tour guide who wasn’t actually at the airport yet so based our group at the internet café and went wondering in small group from there, this ended up being the place that they ran into their tour leader and us to the others heading on to Japan.
While on the internet café there I ran into Sam (guy from school) and his family as they were in Singapore on their way home… what a small world it really is.

We then boarded our flight to narita and I had a very long and restless flight.

In Narita we quickly got ourselves through customs and immigration, and met with our drivers who transferred us onto Haneda airport. Leaving the airport I had my first of what will no doubt be very many only in Japan moments. Only in Japan do they pay someone to stand at the gate and put your ticket in and money when you could just drive 20cm closer and do it yourself. During our drive to Haneda airport we pasted Disneyland and the Disney hotel. We were also lucky enough to see Fuji Sama due to it being a fairly clear day. Although I was able to enjoy better views of Fuji later on my flight to Toyama.

Haneda airport was yet again a another long and boring wait where we literally had nothing to do so josh and I sat up on the roof out in the cold for a fair while just watching the flights

Josh and I then boarded our flight to Toyama, but we weren’t sitting anywhere near each other, although it was a fairly empty flight. I could have moved to sit with him however I had a window seat and I spent the trip being delighted by the sights and my first glimpses of the snow!!! XD
Touching down in Toyama was the most amazing experience, and one I will never forget. We got off the plane, and I spotted both of our welcoming parties waiting for us, however we couldn’t go straight out to them as we had to wait for our luggage to come off the plane first.
I was introduced to a lot of members from the club, mainly the president and yoshi’s mum and cousin (who will be a class mate at school). And while this was happening josh left, so I didn’t actually get to say goodbye to him, but we apparently have a district orientation on Saturday so I will see him there.
Otosan then drove me home, about a 40 minute trip where I experienced my first snow, and again an amazing experience. Once home I met mum and was shown to my room where I started unpacking. Which I must finish before I got to bed tonight.

I then rang home to Australia, helped okasan with dinner, did my first night questions and gave them some of the presents I brought with.

I think the I don’t know thing I found out in the 40 questions that I guess I am struggling to understand is that I have to do my own washing, I will have to talk to okasan about that some more and actually learn how to do that here in her house. It’s not that is something I can’t do, nor was it completely unexpected it’s just different and will take some getting used to.

I have a few times this week where I will be doing things at school getting ready to start there, but I officially start on the 2nd of February, so in just over a week’s time.
Anyways I’m off to keep unpacking and making my new room actually fell like its mine: P

Monday 26th January
So my first full day in Japan, i was going to say my first full exchange day, but Sunday was technically that. And what to say about it, I feel my English is getting poor already, my hosts do speak English but aren’t unless it’s really needed which is great because I know it’s helping my Japanese immensely.
This morning I woke up to look out my window to see it snowing, like actually snowing, I thought what I saw yesterday was pretty amazing but I now realize that that was almost rain and only just snow, kind of like it was spitting, only it was snow, but this morning it was really heavy and the little ledge out from my balcony had no snow when I first looked but snow about 3cm deep when I next looked less that 30minutes later. I swear that I stood there for ages just watching the snow in amazement
Today was the day that okasan had set aside to get all of my school uniforms organized. So we went for a walk this morning to get this all started. But we first visited the big Buddha which is literally a minutes’ walk from home. Okasan then went into the temple under it to pray to Buddha that I would have a good year in Japan. I know that that Is obviously there religion but it felt weird and wrong to know that someone was praying for me but not to my God. I respect her right to pray to her Gods but it did make me feel a little awkward, but I know there will be many more times throughout the year where I feel put out in a bit of a religious point of view.
From there we went to the department store to get my formal uniform fittings done. I had to try on the uniform for another school in the area because they didn’t have any from my school there, but my uniforms have to be specially made for me anyway because I am too tall and big for the standard sizes. So I will get my uniforms in about 3 weeks, until then I am expected to wear my rotary blazer to school. We went into the 100yen shop there and I bought some stationary and note books as I didn’t bring any with me to Japan and I realized that I really needed to be writing down all the new Japanese words that they are teaching me.
We then went to a sports shop and ordered the indoor sports shoes that I need for school, after they had fun telling me I have huge feet for a lady my age. But hmm I guess to them I do.
Okasan then showed me the Takaoka eki (train station) and wanted to show me the library but it is closed on the fourth Monday of every month which just so happened to be today. So we went to the basement level of another shopping place and got some fruit and veggies, then brought some okonomiyaki to take home for lunch. Generally I like okonomiyaki but I didn’t particularly enjoy today’s, I don’t know if it was just coz I was feeling kind of sick from all the walking around out in the snow and how cold I was as I didn’t wear my snow suit just a heavy jacket because when I went outside for a few minutes it was fine, but once out in the cold for a long time it wasn’t really good enough. Or maybe because this time the okonomiyaki didn’t have the same atmosphere as eating it at an okonomiyaki restaurant. It could have also been that okonomiyaki varies from area to area and I’m really not sure what was in this one, but the meat was really chewy and I don’t like chewy meat.
After lunch it was out again but this time in the car, to first visit my grandparents (dads parents) they were very nice and their house is very traditional. And a lot of the outer walls were glass windows to their backyard and thus their house was a lot cooler than it is here at home where I can comfortably walk around in a t-shirt and jeans ( when the heaters are on).
From their house we drove past my school on the way to buy my gym uniform for which we went to a warehouse, they go to the schools at the beginning of each school year but as it is currently in the middle of a school year we had to go there. I tried on the uniform and it fits pretty well. But I fail to see how the tracksuit does anything to help being warm in this weather. They then embroidered my name onto all 4 items I could choose if I wanted it in katakana or romaji, I chose katakana as it is my Japanese school uniform I figured my name may as well be in Japanese.
While waiting for the embroidery to be done, okasan told me a lot more about my school, the most interesting thing is that rotary has organized a Japanese tutor for me 2 times a week, for which I will be pulled out of whatever class I have at that time.

From there we went to the shopping mall and I had another only in Japan moments when I went to the toilet, a picture in the western toilet cubicle demonstrating how to sit on the toilet properly. It was also one of those things that made me think, how many people have to have done this that they put a sign in there, it’s like Mr. Carter said with all the stupid warnings such as on a packet of nuts Warning contains nuts, people actually have to have done that stuff for them to put warnings on it for everyone else.
We then came home and soon later okasan went grocery shopping and I opted to stay home, because right now I don’t want to go out in the cold again, especially as it is now dark and I’m guessing somewhat cooler than it was at lunch time. So I’m at home by myself writing this.

had some very strange things for dinner tonight, the main was a prawn, which was offered to the god of study earlier in the day, well to its statue in our house, so that was kind of weird for me, but also coz I have never eaten prawns before.
We also had buri which is a type of fish and many Japanese vegetables, daikon which is a white radish and then a veggie stew which had lotus roots and some other veggies I can’t remember the name of but we don’t have them in Australia anyway, to be perfectly honest with you it was kind of tasteless and had an interesting texture to it but its full of fiber and thus very good for you. So I ate it anyway.

in singapore

2009-01-26T20:16:00.000+09:00

so yeah im im singapore on my way to Japan and for some reason this wont let me log onto my blog from where i am.... on the free internets there, so i will transfer this to my blog at a later date when i have internets that lets me have more than one window open at a time. we very almost missed our flight out of brisbane after some of us (not me) had way to heavey hand luggage and then one persn got frisk searched for drugs and bombs and we had to wait ages beofr theyfound anyone over 18 to be in the presence of it, coz none of the 11 of us in the traveling group to here is over 18. 4 of us from thsi group are goign on to japan together and 3 of us are doing the transfer to haneda aiprot in tokyo. its an awsome experiance already and ive only ben gone 8 or so hours and im less than half way through my travel time to my host family. random and kinda freaky note, i ran into someone from school here, who is on their way home, they wer also on the free internet things. i will try and let you all know when i get to my hosts if not when i get to tokyo seeing as i have ages to eait there, and jsut th e3 hours here, so i should probs get going and find my gate and what not so we dont very allmost miss this flight as well

GOODBYE

2009-01-19T20:32:00.003+09:00

so im off in 5 days time, how do i feel about?
i wish i knew, im excited, im scared, im worried, and somewhat stressed. but yes this is something i want, i have never doubted it. I know that this is a part of what ever it is that God has planed for my life, this is a part of it. and probebly a big part. at least it feels like it at the moment. im worried yes, but not to much, i know God will always be there with me and he will not put me up against anything im not ready or able to face, with his help.
scared yeah, im scared that my language skills are gonna be good enough and when i get there on Sunday im not gonna understand a word of whats being said to me. but it will come, if i understand everything at the start it wouldnt be as big a chalange for me and i wouldnt grow as much from the experiance.

so yeah ive said goodbye to alot of people in the last few days and there will be a lot more in the comming days.

so to you all, thankyou for your suport in this, thankyou for loving me and letting me know that you will be there for me, even when im half way round the world, and that your prayers are with me, it means alot.

Kanamori- first host family

2008-12-28T14:27:00.004+09:00

Packing

2008-12-26T15:56:00.006+09:00

yeah yeah i have ages left befor i go.. thats what you all keep telling me, but to me 29 days is not ages, its 4 weeks, and its allready been 2 since i came home from safari and that has gone so fast i cant believe that i only have twice that time left. also because of baggage limits i will be posting some of the stuff over ahead of me, and i want to get that posted asap so it beats me there. however the amount i send its important. dont want to be over on the baggage allowances coz its really cheap, but posting its not all that cheap either, just cheaper than the $40/kg on one of my airlines.

so thats a photo of all my Aussie stuff to take to japan

from top left we have

- 2 Australian Flags

- 4 Aussie animal bookmarks

- lots of postcards

- a book of aussie animals

- my 3 bags

- 2 Aussie caps ... the second of which has a built in bottle opener *wtf mate*

- benie (not even aussie colours ... not impressed )

- Australia Jacket (got it on melbourne tour :D )

(and now back to the left middle)

- 2 Australian maps

- Aussie wrapping paper, some flags, some plants and animals

- journal that was given to my by my yr 9& 10 Japaneses teacher ( thankyou )... i know its not particually aussie but its in the picture.

-Kangaroo road sign

- boomarangs on the kangaroo tea towel

- pencil case and stationary

- kangaroo dinner bell

- flag t shirt

- Aussie Flag toothpicks

- wallet

- letter opener

(back to the left, bottom)

- pile of Aussie animal soft toys... contains, several koalas and kangaroos as well as at least one of each of the following; wombat, echidna, emu, kookabara, platapus ect...

- the clingy koalas

- opal kangaroo/ koala necklaces

- aussie flag charms

- facewasher

- phone charms

- massive pile of keyrings

- gold palted Australian Crest plate ... another melbourne tour bargian

- flag stickers

- tattos

- koala pins

- massive bag of kangaroo pins

- 4 aboriginal paintings.... they are all diffrent ... yet another melbour tour find. + the little one and the one on a magnet.

there are then also some other pins that pookie and i are making. photos later i guess ... when they are done. ... most if not all of that will be in the package i post to Japan, purely 'cause i wont need it straight away and it is heavy... well heaver than you would think.

did a prastice pack of my suitcase today. it fits easially ... well yes easily with the help of a few space bags, but easily non the less however its way to heavy. so now got to re go through everything and decide what i really want with me and what could be left at home. so that its light enough. ... wish me luck with that.

sunshine Safari

2008-12-17T13:02:00.003+09:00

the 20 of us Exchange Students. :)

so, we had another orientation weekend, which was good fun, and it was great to see all the exchange students and commitee members again. but the real point of this blog is what followed that weekend. as our training and information sessions about our exchange wraped up. our excitement grew, as we were about to hop on the bus for what would turn out to be one of the best weeks in our lives. we were embarking on SUNSHINE SAFARI.

Sunshine Safari, was a week long trip with 19 of us exchange students, the 15 inbounders and 4 of the 5 of us outbounders, and we trecked around our district 9600.

on this trip we did many fun things, we did a highropes course, absaled down a cliffe face, went on a 25km canoe up the upper noosa river, went to kondallila falls, and mary caincross national park. as well as many other things i cant think of at the moment. the majority of our meals were catered for us by the rotary clubs we visited, and a huge thankyouto them for that. the rest of our meals were organized by russ and merilyn our leaders on the camp. a huge thankyou also needs to go out to Andrew our awsome bus driver. Last but not by anymeans least thankyou to all my fellow exchange students for making our week absolutly brillient.

if you have not been part of this sort of group, of international students i very much doubt you know what its like, but when we split up our group on saturday afternoon as we all went our seprate ways to go home, it was a very sad time, because while i dont for a moment doubt that i will most probebly catch up with all of them at some point or another, for us to ever get all 19 of us from 10 diffrent countries (Australia-4 , Austria-2, Brazil-3, Canada-1, Denmark-3, France-1, Germany-1, Japan-1, Sweden-1, switerland-2)together as one group again it will be a major feat, and that knowledge that our group that had grown so close was spliting up was very hard and emotional for alot of us.

anyway picture time

kathi and I

the cliffe that we absaled down.

Takaoka, Toyama, Japan

2008-11-11T18:51:00.003+09:00

so i finally found out where i am actually headed next year. its a town called Takaoka which is in the Toyama prefecture of Japan, below is a map, where Takaoka is in the top left corner where the marker is and in the bottom right corner is tokyo as to put it in a bit of a perspective as to where in Japan it actually is. I havent looked up much information about it yet, but apparently the prefecture is well know for bronze statues and works, and there is a huge fishing industry within the toyama bay. I am so much more excited now that i know where i will actually be, its made it so much more real.

wednesday 3rd and Friday 4th

2008-10-05T18:17:00.004+09:00

as i said in the last blog that was really our last day in Japan, the wednesday was spent traveling, from hiroshima back to tokyo by shinkansen, then back to to nichidai dorms to pick up the stuff htat we had left there and to repack our suitcases, then to the airport, we had a flight that left at 10 at night or somethig simlilar and got into brisbane the next mornig at 7ish, but more or less that sums up japan trip 07

Tuesday 2nd ~ Hiroshima and Miyajima island

2008-10-05T17:44:00.007+09:00

again i wrote nothing in my journal for this day. the rest of the group went through the Muesum in the peace park, but as i said in the blog about last time i had gone there, it is an extremly touching place, and where i was at that point in my life, just being back in the city was enough to bring back very vivid memories of what i had seen inside that building so i made the desision not to go in, thus i had time to my self (a real rare thing on a trip like this) and i just wondered around the peace park and the surrounds cintimplating what it all ment and why it happened, and again that we here in Australia are so lucky to have not suffered like this as many other countries have.
the arch, peace flame and in the distance the A-Bomb dome a statue of a mother, trying the protect her children, and cart them to saftey. sadiko's Memorial, with thousands of paper cranes in the 8 boxes behind it, sadly they can no longer be layed at the base of the memorial for enviromental reasons, but the boxes have heavy plastic sides, which easily enable you to add your own cranes to the collections.
from Hiroshima we then went across to Miyajima island, which i must say instantly became on of my favourite places in Japan, there are many hikes around the island that we could have done, but after the mornings activitives many o the group wernt really in the mood, so we jsut hung around the main area, which is somehting i regreat, but i know i will go back there one day and explore it some more, anyway i will explain with the photos.
the shrine "gate" which floats on the water, its really an amazing site that the photos just dont do it justice. the second photo was taken by one of the other girls on the group who was actually did do the hike up the mountain, i think it would have been way more than worth it. i intend to do so next time i get the chance.
looking back down on the shrine and part of the village from the short walk that we did.
we were lucky enough to be able to witness a wedding at the shrine, i didnt actually go and look, as i had that privlage last time i was in Japan, at Kamakura, but i did take a few shots of the whole wedding group.as you can probebly tell mostof the women were in traditional kimono's while the men wore a more westen suit, which is something i found quiet intresting at both the Japanese weddings i have seen. the other point i want to make here is that the people in the photo was all the people that were at the wedding, which by all the weddings ive seen and been to here, is queit a small group of people, but i am lead to believe that it is quiet often the case in Japan, as when we hosted both Haruka and then Ayana this year and as part of their homework we had to tell them about australian weddings, when we asked about Japanese they couldnt tell us, as they had never been to one and they were shocked that we had been to as many as i have. i relise that many places in japan are pushed for space, yet at both the places that i have seen weddings they could have fitted in alot more people than they did and not have been cutting off access to these places for the genral public. it is definatly somehting i would like to find out more about, as to why they have so few guests.

that night being our last actual night in Japan we again went to dinner as a whole group, to a fairly nice buffe resturant, i was kinda disapointed as it didnt have much traditional food but was more like sizzlers, and i would have prefered to do somethign more culturly enriching on our last night there.

Monday 1st

2008-10-05T16:14:00.006+09:00

at this point in the trip i got really lazy and didnt write anything really, my entrie for this day was purly KLANCY. Klancy is a good friend of mine who was at the time 8 months into a 1o month exchange in Hakata, on the lowest of the main islands of Japan, and as this particular day we were going to Hakata to visit our sister school, i aranged to meet up with her. that was really all that we did on that day, left kyoto went to Hakata and then back up to Hiroshima on the shinkansen. here comes the photos.

the 4 i hung out with most of the trip; Rosie, James, Jess and BB
our sister schools band, their baton twirling team also did a demo for us, fantastic entertainment.
Klancy and I
at the Okonomiyaki resturant, where we all went as a group for dinner that night. Okonomiyaki, literally means fried things you like, basically its a savoury pancake based around cabbage, but whatelse is put in the standard changes depending on the area of japan that you are in, here i think from memory its bacon and lots of herbs, but i could be wrong, i did eat alot of okonomiyaki on the trip as i really like it and the diffrent variations of it. as you can see they cook it infornt of you and the hotplates actually extend around the entire resturant, so you sit up to the hotplate and eat it straight off of there, it is indeed an intresting dinning experiance.

シヤーネルさんは日本の中ですよ。

Monday 16th à Friday 20th November

Saturday 21st, Sunday 22nd and Monday 23rd November (labour day holiday)

Tuesday 24th à Friday 27th November

Saturday 28th & Sunday 29th November

Monday 30th à Friday 4th December

Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th December

Monday 7th – Friday 11th December

Saturday 12th December

Monday 9th à Friday 13th November

Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th November