Sunday 23rd

Today is komori’s (one of Harukas cousins) 5th birthday. And for breakfast this morning we had natto (fermented soy beans)grilled fish , rice, ham and cucumber. It was a very intresting breakfast and I didn’t eat much, basically just the rice and the ham and cucumber. We just hung around home for while playing the hand clapping games again as well as playing on the electronic bucking bull…. They were very surprised that I could stay on at the highest level, my height and still being able to touch the groud when on it probably helped me with that). We then after many photos walked back to the main street of Shinjuku where we went up into the viewing platform of some government building. Where I brought a model shinkansen (bullet train) for kaleb. As well as several other gifts. The next place we went to was basically the Tokyo equilevent of the Brisbane science center…well that’s the best thing I can think of to compare it to. Anyway it was really cool. They had full body imprint pin boards and I got to be inside a bubble. And they had heaps of logic puzzles which were fairly easy. When we finially left there we went for lunch at an Italian buffet restaurant and then to a 100 yen shop and back to the dorm. It was a very fun filled busy day.


at breakfast

the giant impreasion pin board

me in a bubble :)
the goverment building that we went to, with the whole group for the day

Saturday 22nd

So today we started our true emersion into the Japanese way of life…. By going to school. Yes school on a Saturday something that is never done in Australia and thus a truly foreign experience for us. Our buddies collected us from our meeting room and took us ona tour of the school… their library is totally awesome, they have a set of tv’s to individually watch dvd’s on. As well as a big plasma for a small group to watch. We also went and saw the gym, Kendo and Judo areas. We then went to class. I had physics and English. We had a physics test today, on which I did alright on. And then in English the teacher just got me to talk to the class and answer their question about me and Australia. After class on our way to the lunch room we ran into niina, a dear friend of mine that I first met when she came to Australia in 2005. So as you could imagne I was very happy to see her. However I was disappointed at not havig found sachi (my host from last trip ) today. However niina says that I will get to see them noth on Tuesday… Monday is a public holiday. For lunch today it was mizo soup(of which I am not a fan) and pork on rice. After lunch and the official end of the school day, huruka had club… Badminton. The badminton teacher, Mr isoza spent the first hour trying to teach me how to play. He was a very good and paitent teacher so I gave him a present and something little for his 5 children to show my appreation. He then took me to watch some of the things that they kendo and judo clubs were practising, befor okasan (mum) came and picked me up. We caught a traint o Shinjuku and then a bus to closer to their house and walked the rest of the way. Once at home we spent some time sharing photos with each other, which really helped to stop me about being so nervious and broke down the language barrier. I was introduced to two of harukas cousins that live with them, they were sooo cute. They taught me a hand clapping game, like the ones I used to play when I was little, it was good fun.
We then went back into Shinjuku by taxi, met up with Haruka and her friend momuko and then we went to a resutrant in one of the department stores. They had “proper” shoe lockers (as seen in the photo above) and this was actually my first experience of them, you put your shoes in there and take the key out of the door. They key has a kanji on it and that same kanji is on the locker,to help you remember which one your shoes are in. we had so much to eat at the resutrant, all traditional Japanese foods, seaweed, egg and chese omlet, egg and pork, udon(noodles), squid, tempura, chicken kebabs, (raw) seafood platter, octopus dumplings, fried cheese… really nice, soba(different type of noodles), and more chicken. (the photos shows most of the dishes.... i think)
All of which I at least tried, the squid was the one I realy didn’t want to try but I did, however I know I wont rush back to eat anymore of it because in all honestly it was like rubber, hard to chew and very tasteless.
Soon after we got home, haruka, momuko and I went to the public bath. Which was a very intresting experience. After we had had our baths there we had a drink there… I think mine was tropical flavoured milk, which was nice enough till you thing about it.
We then came home and went to bed.

Friday 21st ~ harajuku, Meji jingu

I actually got a decent nights sleep last night for the first time in ages. Got up at 7, had breakfast and went for a walk with Mrs Hutchinson and the people that had to get money out, but we got sooo lost trying to find the 7-11 because Japanese maps don’t include all the streets and stuff like that, if they aren’t proud of it… its not on their maps. Makes it soo hard to find anything. I ended up asking a police man where it was and he got us to one … but it wasn’t the one that we had intended on going to so we got lost again trying to get back to our hotel… smart chickens we are. We asked a lot of people for directions… but the other issue with the general public here is that even if they have no idea they will tell you something anyway coz they want to seem helpful. Gah don’t they realise that telling us they don’t know would be more helpful.
Once we finially got back to our Hotel we had a short time to go shopping in the totally awesome shopping street, I brough some more pressies for people and after that time was up Mr Ishiyama was ready and waiting to take us to Nichidai. We were all presented with 2000 yen (about $20 AU at the time) worth of their school travel cards or use on the trains and some local busses. We then had several trains to catch to get to nichidai, which proved slightly intresting with all our suitcases… at least it wasn’t peak hour on the trains.
Once at Nichidai we had a short break in the common room of the dorm and were given our schedule for while we are here. We they went on the trains again and went to Mejijingu shrine (a huge shrine in the middle of the city, where I went on Thursday the 8th of my first Japan trip… probs a couple of better photos there)
From there we went to Harajuku, one of the main teenage shopping street, not the one I went to last time, Harajuku is a suburb so to say rather than a street name which is what I had thought. This particular street wasn’t as intresting as where we went last trip, and againt he map we had was very much not to scale and left things off. James and I had lunch at maccas where I got a happy set (meal) with a PDA hello kitty toy. .... not that much diffrent from our maccas are they?
After shopping for a while at Harajuku we traveld back to Nichidai for our welcome party.
After our welcome party we chose our pairs from rooms and then our rooms were assigmned, I am in room 103 with rosie. Tomorrow night we will be doing a one night home stay with our school buddie, so I will get to meet harukas family ( haruka was the student that we hosted earlier this year) and see her house. I can’t wait!
For dinner tonight we had rice, Chicken, and spaghetti bolognaise

The bathrooms here are very big, it has ten showers and a nice sized bath. Rosie and I are still the only 2 that are doing the communal bath thing properly, everyone else is still wearing togs. ….why the heck would you come to Japan if you are going to so blatantly refuses to try their customs and traditions out.

the bathrooms at nichidai... you can see the bath in the reflection... im sorry that i dont have a better photo, but it was a difficult place to photograph.

Saturday 24th september~ home again

When we landed Mel and I went to the toilets and she said “ I really hope they had western style toilets here” me “Mel of course they do we are in BRISBANE” and then when we were washing our hand we realised that we had also semi forgotten about taps…. We were just waving our hands under the tap and expecting it to start.
Mum and dad took me to Strathpine straight away and I so got cultural shock or reverse culture shock which ever you want to call it, when I realised that I could read all the sings and understand everything that was being said to me. i was shocked at our sever lack of culture like there is in japan.
I had a absolutely great time and I think this will have been the first of many to Japan, such a beautiful country.

in the car i started unpacking the bag of presents i had taken aboard as hand luggage and givign them to mum and dad, i was so excited about being able to share my wonderful experiance with others. i couldnt and still cant wait to get back to japan and continue my journey in the land of my heart. God truely did provide for me while in Japan and has given me an incredble passion for the country, the culture, the language and the people.


i hope youve enjoyed reading my journals of japan trip 05 as much as i have enjoyed going over them and reminissing on the trip.

Friday 23rd September ~ Kamakura

haha yet again my lazyness prevails.

on this day, our last in Japan was a school holiday, what the occassion of i really cant remember, but the school had aranged a bus for us, and our host families to go to kamakura for the day. kamakura is basically the hostorical centre and is famous for its woodworks and carving. it is also the home of the biggest outdoor budda, which you can climb inside of. after going to that temple and the surrounding area, and witnessing a Japanese wedding we were free to wonder the area with our hostfamilies.

we left kamakura on the bus to the airport where we had to get of the bus leaving our host families. for me this was a really difficult time as while with this host family i had struggled alot because of the language barrier and being really homesick especially during the 2 days we wernt at school, where i had no contact with any fluent english speakers but as i said God provided for me and brought me through it and it was a strengthiening experiance that i really felt a few more days in and i would have really started to actually enjoy myself instead of using all my energy just on understanding them and what was going on around me and being so stressed about not comprehending. also at that point of time i didnt believe that i would ever see them again as i didnt see it as a reality for us to contine communication once i had gone home because of the language. but it was something that had to happen, and i was given 2 very long letters written by them when we left, that i had to get mrs forman to read it to me, as it was all in japanese, simple japanese as far as the words go but they still used kanji, that once mrs forman had told me the reading off i could actually understand the most of it.

once checked in we had time in the airport befor we could bored our plane, we had dinner and looked around at a few of the shops befor moving down to the depature lounge and location our gate.

at one point we were rather worried about not getting out of japan that night due to the weather conditions, an oncomming typhoon but we did get out befor it hit and only experiances little turbulance. but i discovered that i do not like overnight flights, i could barly sleep and i hadnt packed much in my hand luggage to keep me entertained as i had though that we would be getting he little screens again, though this was not the case.

its hard to define the diffrence of days here because of the lack of sleeping and a true night but i will finish this log here and put the jounal of arriving home in a seprate blog

Thursday 22nd September ~school

at school again today and again my lazyness lead to not much journaling at all, and some of this stuff im chucking in here not sure if it was this day or the day befor but we visitied izumi jnr high school, the closest jnr high to nichidai, im not sure if it has any connection to nichidai like if its a feeder school or something or if its just coz we decided we would like to visit and jnr high and it was the closest here we each had a group of about 5 students that we just had time to play with and talk to, my group and i did some origami and they showed me a few other traditional japanese Games. (me with my group at izumi)


this arfternoon we set up the canteen area for our farwell party, we hung streamers up and decorated teh table with the left over little giveaway gifts we had brought with us and at some point during the day we made cards for our host families to thank them for letting us stay with them.
(yup mel put the koalas on her ears, well alot of us did but i believe she started.)




this evening my host family took me out to a special resutrant as my birthday present, it was an itialian resturant and its where they go for all of their birthday celebrations. i belieive that it is owned by my host mums brother or something like that, if i understood correctly. (at my birthday dinner)

Friday 16th September ~ the born again city

Got up really early this morning so we were to early tot have breakfast at the hostel so we brought breakfast at Kyoto station and ate it on the Shinkansen. Today we went to Hiroshima Peace Park. It was extremely touching and words are simply not enough to describe the anger at my heritage that I felt for what they had done to the people of Hiroshima in the war all those years ago, the fact that it wasn’t only the soldiers that at least had some idea of what the war was that were killed by this brutal attack but that it killed many people My own age and younger, they stood no chance. It was a very harsh reality that museum and what is on display there. Again no photos were allowed inside but it is not the kinda of thing you need to take a photo of because it will stay in your head forever.
I really liked this poem that was carved into a stone just inside the entrance to the museum

War is the work of man
Was is destruction of human life
Was is death
To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future
To remember Hiroshima is
to abhor nuclear war
To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace

Once finished in the peace park we went as a group to an お好みやき（okonomiyaki ~ fried savoury pancake, literal translation is fried things you like） then we did a bit of shopping before heading back to the hostel just in time for tea then free time, showers ect then bed at 10

Wednesday 14th September ~Kyoto

We (the group) meet at the train station on plenty of time so that we wouldn’t have a repeat of our leaving Tokyo. When we had to leave, some of our families came onto the platform with us (they had special platform passes) Yui gave Jon a letter (she likes him) just before we got on the train.
When it was time for us to change trains I think most of us freaked out a little when Mrs Forman said “ ok bye guys ill see you at dinner tomorrow night “ ( her and Mr Stolz went on to visit our sister school in Hakata)
Mr Swindles and Mrs Cooper were now in charge of the group and managed to get us to out hotel with eh help of Jon’s navigational skills and Kate’s language skills. We left out bags there and headed out again. This time all the girls were in one room and I was nominated keeper of the key.
We went to the kinkukuji (golden temple) and we were supposed to stay as a group but as usual Jon, Mel, Tom and I walked to fast and got way ahead of the group. we got some photos with maiko (apprentice geisha) Jon then got me started on my obsession with melon fanta … its GREAT its just a great pity you cant get it in Australia.
From there we went to Nijojo castle, which was really cool coz it has mocking bird floors and absolutely wonderful Architecture. But as with a lot of the amazing places here we couldn’t take photos. The 4 of us had a great time mucking around in the common room and we scored many a strange looks from the teachers and brad… they were looking in on us every few minutes

koto playing

as i said in the previous blog, we were lucky enough to hear some beutiful koto playing, this video isnt that great as visuals, but the sound is awsome, mabey not great quaility but the music i love.

Tuesday 13th September ~ school!

Today we sent our suitcases back to Tokyo as they are not coming to Kyoto with us. This is my last night with this host familyL. When I get home I will have to send Yui a birthday present (her birthday is the 20th)

This morning we went to the bank and cashed in our travellers cheques in. (walking to the bank “so I’m swapping my host mum for my real mum” – Shona) then we were back at school and actually attending lessons … what and odd thing to do at school.
First I went to a calligraphy class which was rather messy and we had a really crazy teacher… one of those people that talks with their whole body (although it did probably help us to understand him a bit better). * if you can see in the picture, the one in front that is numbered was the teachers way of trying to get me to use the correct stroke order... not something im very good at doing, usually coz i cant remember it*
After that we went to writing, basically English grammar, it was SO BORING so we (Brad, Melanie, and I) played hangman which lead to some amusing moment
“ how do you draw it?” – Mel
“Simpons” – Mel
_ _ _ _ / _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ = home and away – brad
We were then supposed to spend lunch with our writing student but they had club so we went back to our room instead. After lunch we went back to our writing room to help with the afternoon cleaning. After we finished our cleaning we had another class, this time I went with Melissa and Reece to a brale class, it was rather interesting the teacher seemed to think we would have known English brale and was teaching us the differences between English and Japanese.
Everyone then went the tatami room for a cultural display. We then had to wait for a while, while our welcome party was organized, rather ironic that the last thing we would ever do at Fujimi was attend our welcome party. At our welcome party a group from the band played (tuba friend = Rie) and we got to have a go at playing koto (Japanese harp)

Monday 12th September ~ Fujimi school, Maroyal visit and shinto falls

We went to school today, we even had our own, named, shoe lockers. After meeting in “our” room we went on a trip to visit the mayor of Fuji, (as in Japan it is the mayors that run the schools and as we are visiting a school in his district that is the socially correct thing to do.) we all received presents from the council (a CD of Japan photos, a set of Fuji post cards and a heap of information booklets of the area.)
After we had finished our duties at the council offices (including being photographed by the newspapers) we headed to some really pretty falls on the side of Mount Fuji. After we had battled to communicate while there…. Not because of language… just because the water fall was so loud I could barely hear Mel when she was standing next to me yelling, we headed off to Jusco … a huge department store… kind of like the Myer centre.
Back at Fujimi (our sister school) we were presented to the school at a special assembly held just for us. There we got given another present … which in fact will be shipped back to grace, as it is to big for us to pack in our suitcases (about shoebox size each) but one was opened to show us what we were receiving, it is a cool bamboo structure that has a well in the middle and two branches on which dragonflies balance.
After school Yui had club again so after i had had a look in hte band club room and played with them for a bit while waiting for Oksan to pick me up she took me shopping and she brought presents for my family and friends she wouldn’t let me pay for anything … in total she spent about 20 000 yen which is about $250 (80 yen per dollar)
Just after I had a shower mum and dad called. It was good to talk to them but made me kinda homesick.

Sunday 11th September~ ice caves

Yui had to go to school today so Okasan and Mel’s Okasan took me and Mel(Bevan) to the ice/lava caves and to grape picking and lake district where the water from Fuji flows, it was cold there we had peach tea. Okasan gave me an origami safe trave charm.
*sadly I have no photos of this day, coz my camera wasn’t working properly and okasan had just told me we were going grocery shopping (well that’s what I though she said anyway)*

Saturday 10th September ~ host family

(8:40 pm)
I didn’t get up early to go for a walk this morning as there was no walk on so I hadn’t set my alarm Lana’s (the only other one in our room) did not go off for some reason, so when we were supposed to be down at breakfast, but hadn’t turned up we got a very nice little wake up call for the manager (who spoke no English – very amusing) I have never seen 5 teenage girls get dressed so quickly. After breakfast we packed up and left the hotel. Lana , Mel and I went to the べんり(benri~ convenience )store to buy lunch that we could eat on the train we spent over ½ an hour there just taking in the marvel of a Japanese supermarket. We then walked around the temple gardens and Mel and I both brought yukatas Lana brought her choc banana we then got the Shinkansen to Fuji and meet our host families. I had some difficulty explaining a comment to my host mum that she had overheard about me being late to breakfast, she though that we had missed breakfast and hadn’t eaten all day, and immediately started to try and find food for us, twas kinda amusing.

Thursday 8th September

I got up early this morning and went on a walk to Sensoji temple which we are going back to (a different part) tomorrow. After breakfast the guys (- midget) went to studio gibely, while the girls (+ midget) went to Meji jingo shrine (picture)where I brought talis present. We then went to snoopy world and then to a big shopping street. (Lana (rana)got her name in katakana on a bracelet) we then met up with the guys and got our rail passes sorted out. Then had tea in another shopping street and then headed to Akihabara ara (electronics district). Back to the hotel where I had my first communal bath with Mel.

*it’s a wanted man sign… thought it was interesting...they were every where around the shrine/ harajuku area *

communal bathing ~ Japanese style

in my last post i said that out hotel had a communal bath but on the first night we all went in sepratly... that was a rare oppotunity that we could... yes on other occasions i have been in the bath by myself but that was by pure chance, but as it happens the hotel we were at in tokyo was a firly small hotel, that is designed for overseas guests, in fact it wont accomidate native Japanese people there. and because of this they assign a time to each group that is currently in the hotel, so us Grace girls had an hour and a half where it was only us that could access the baths. the fact that they allocate times like that is to make people feel as comfortable as possible, as they know that many non-japanese arnt overally comfortable with communal bathing.

but enough of that, i thought i would take some time to explaine the porccess of Japanese comunal bathing.

first of all the Japanese おふら(ofura~ bathroom) is actually made up of 2 rooms. the first you enter through a big (usually blue) curtain that has the character ゆ(yu) on it the ゆhas become a symbol of a bath house... i believe that it is a　ゆ character because it is the　first character if the relavent God's name or something like that (im not entirly sure, that is something i should find out more about some time) but anyway the first room you enter, the "dry room", has little lockers or pigion holes (it varies slightly dependign on the size of the bathhouse and area of Japan that you are in, for example the one i went to with my host family the locer had a key that was on a piece of elastic that you wore as a braclet while in the bath itself) these lockers are there to put your dry stuff in and your main towel. this room usually only has some sinks and mirrors. (again depending on where you are there are sonetimes washing machines to was the clothes you had on while you are in the shower, rather handy in some cases) so once you have taken off all your clothes and stuff that you want to stay dry and put it in the locker you take with you your little (tiny really) modesty towel (i dont really see what good they do but hey) and your soap and what not with you into the wet room.

Once in the "wet room" you get a stool and a little bucket and find a spare shower, these are just along the wall, with movable heads and you do your washing thing... making sure you have removed ALL of the soap suds ect from your body you may then get into the actual bath (leaving anything you took into the wet room at you r shower ~so like shampoo, conditioner ect). As these baths are extermly hot there are taps that you can use to put in a bit of cold water, but you must use this sparingly as the bath water is only changed every week or so (again depending on the size of the bathhouse, some places it is alot more frequent than this, this is also the reason you have to be totaly clean befor you get into the bath tub. the baths have heating much like swimming pools do that keep it as it constant temp which is why they really dont like you putting in to much cold water.

these baths can range in size dramatically, i have had the wonderful experiance of goig to one of the bigest bathhouse in Japan that the bath was literaly like a big swiming pool, seriously it was deeper than me at some points.. and im actually reliativly tall in japan. at the above mentioned bath house the bath itself was also actually(mostly) outside, so it provided a great atmosphere... i would really love to go back there in the winter, it had a mini water fall and everything.

you may enter and exit the bath tub as many times as you like, usually getting out and cooling off under the cold water in the shower

once you are ready to leave, you ring out your modestly towel and get as dry as possible with it befor you go back into the dry room. once there you dry and dress and what not. if you are actually at a bathhouse rather than a hotel or whatever there is usually a cafe at the exit where it is not uncomon to enjoy a cool drink befor returning home.

i forgot to mention that most places will provide you with towels when you enter the bath house, there is then a basket in the wet room for you to leave theres befor you go.

i personally love the Japanese bathing system and have no issue with the communal bathing, i mena after all your not actually that likly to ever see those people again are you. and quiet hosnetly i think that their bahting is not only about getting clean but also focusu alot on relaxation is just one of the many beautiful things of Japanese culture.

the relaxatin side of it is SO im portant that on my first night with my host family in Fuji (2005 trip) i got yelled at for not spending long enough in the bath ... how totally weird .

ok i think thats enough on my insight to japanese comunal bathing