my first 2 days in Japan

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.