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
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
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