Last Day of School

On my last day of school (Wednesday, July 15th) I got to school early. At 8:05 I had to give a little speech to all the teachers in the teachers' lounge. I had prepared really well by jotting some ideas down on my palm that morning before I left the house. It wasn't supposed to be very long anyway. In the middle of that I started crying... and I knew today was going to be a long day.



I ran upstairs to my classroom and quickly changed into my sport's uniform before my class started at 8:15. It wasn't just a normal day of school. No, I had to have my last day be even more hectic by throwing in a sport's day. Kyugitaikai-- ball-sport's festival. A school-wide competition of volleyball, badminton, basketball, and Japanese-style dodge ball.



I was on the volleyball team. My games were right away in the morning. I had a fun time playing even though we lost both of them. They were pretty close though, if that makes a difference. Luckily, the other High School 3rd Grade volleyball team got second overall, so we still got points. Then it was my duty to cheer for my classmates as they did their sports. Which I did.



After lunch, my very last obento (-.-), I went to find my teacher about getting my scrapbooky album that I was making for the school done. I still needed to print and insert a few pictures. I was almost done getting that taken care of when my teacher decided that I need to get back to class (cheering for classmates). GAhhhhh!



As I was cheering (not very enthusiastically because of my rather stressful last day worries) I somehow got roped into playing in the last game of dodge ball. Now, for those of you who have never played Japanese dodge ball, it is a bit different than the dodge ball you know. You have to worry about a basketball(ish ball) slamming into your face and getting trampled by your teammates all at the same time. The rules are pretty hard to explain, but you have people from the other team around the whole perimeter of your side and only one (hard, painful) ball being whipped back and forth between them as they try to get you stuck in a corner so they can hit you. I wasn't very good at it.



After dodge ball was over we had the closing ceremony. Our class had won the festival! :) Everyone insisted that I go up and accept the trophy for the class. It was the first time that I have ever accepted something like that for a big group; it was nice. Then our class did our closing prayer for the day. The girl who said it thanked that I could have been in their class for the year. Well, I think that was where she was going with it before she started crying. Then (surprise!) I started crying too. It was really sweet of her.



But that was too early for tears. Next we had a Senior 3 girls vs. teachers dodge ball game. It was a lot of fun, actually. After that was over we all got juice or tea to drink as we quickly changed back into our uniforms. As I was running around like crazy trying to make sure my speech and stuff was ready all the other girls besides 2 of my friends, who were taking their sweet time with me, disappeared.



I walked into the auditorium where my speech was going to be to see all the girls applauding as I walked in. There were a few girls from the orchestra playing the graduation music in the corner. I took my seat and then the principle called my name just like they do at graduation and gave me my diploma. I started crying again. My classmates wanted me to graduate with them, but since I will be gone, I graduated early.



I gave my little speech and then they gave me gifts. They must have put so much work into all of this, because it was amazing. I got pictures and albums and, my personal favorite, a Japanese flag that all of my friends signed. That will be going up in my room as soon as I get home. They also made a video of all the teachers being interviewed about me.



After that was all over I took pictures with people. Then I finished my album for the school. Finally, I gave the teachers and principal one final thank-you and left St. Joseph's High School.



My friends waited for me as I did this whole process and we went home together. In the bus we all started crying like crazy. I cried pretty much all the way home, saying goodbyes to people as they got off the train at stops before mine.



It was a tough day because I think it was the first time that I really realized that this year is ending. School was an important part of my year. Of course it was. I made so many friends and learned a lot there. There was also a lot of school-related stress. Having school be done was a mixture of emotions. I am so relieved to be done. I can start focusing on really getting ready to go home. At the same time, however, it was the first big "sayonara" I had to make. I am glad that I got to go to the school I did go to. It was way more strict than what I am used to, but I had a good experience there.

You know you are tall when...

...You can change the light in your bathroom without using a stool. Or even standing on your tip toes. :D

Today was my last day of school. I will probably blog about it tomorrow before I leave for the Mt. Fuji Trip! But we will see.

Horseback Riding

Today I had nothing planned and I was ready to enjoy a day off. My alarm didn't go off and I ended up sleeping in until almost 10:30 (oops) which felt wonderful. I have been so busy every day that I was just drained. It was good to sleep as long as I wanted. Then I got to skype with Dad, Christy, AnnaMarie, and Katie. That was fun.

During lunch my host mom said that once I was ready we could go. Go where? Horseback riding! :D Last time we went down to Yokosuka to go it was rainy so we couldn't ride. Today was good weather and we didn't have plans so we went again.

This girl gave me a lesson on how to ride.

It was really fun and I think I did pretty well. I rode for about 30 minutes and managed to get up to a fast trot. The horse's name was Cody, in case you were wondering.

My and Cody. I look pretty good, huh?

Then we played a nice game of baseball with the family. It was me and my host mom against my host dad and brother. The boys dominated, but I tried my hardest. :P Maybe a little too hard, actually. Manato is really quite good at baseball so I kind of forgot he was only 7... not that he wasn't way better than me anyway. I can just run faster. I feel a bit bad for it now. He still got home like 5 times though.

After that we went to sushi, which was really good. Yokosuka is right next to the open sea so the sushi there is a lot better than the sushi in Tokyo. That's what my host parents say anyway.

It was a fun day. However, I didn't get around to some of the stuff on my "to do" list that I had been planning on doing on my day off. One of those things is updating my blog. Hopefully I will get my Hokkaido and Disneyland posts up soon. They will show up beneath this one.... sorry.

3 weeks from today. :D

I Love Disneyland!

Last Wednesday (July 8th) I got to skip school to go to Disneyland again. I love Disneyland. :) I went with my host mom, Manato, and Vincent. Vincent was not in the original plan, but he called me Monday night telling me that his family had given him money to go to Disneyland and begging me to go with him (paying for myself) that Saturday. He didn't want to go alone. I didn't want to go twice in one week or on a Saturday. I asked my host mom if he could tag along and she agreed.

It was a really good day to go though. Due to the fact that it was a Wednesday afternoon and the weather wasn't too great it wasn't very crowded at all! It was a bit rainy throughout the morning, but since it was still warm I didn't bother bringing my umbrella along. The lines were so short it was great! For the majority of the rides our wait was like 5 minutes. Right in the morning we had to wait maybe 20 to 30 minutes for the more popular ones, but that wasn't as bad as the 70 to 90 minute waits they have on weekends.

We even rode our favorite rides twice and did the rather obscure ones, like paddling your own canoe, that I didn't know were there. The shows were awesome! They are better than the rides in my opinion. We saw a nice dancing show with all the Disney princesses and Mickey Mouse. There is a summer splash show they do now where they spray tons of water out into the crowd in front of Cinderella's castle. That was really cool, but I didn't know they were going to spray us. I got very wet on a rather rainy day. It would probably be more fun on a hot day. At the very end of they day, before the Great Electrical Parade, we saw a show that they just started that day. It was awesome! It was about Monsters Inc. The music was really fun and the effects were amazing. They had fire and a green laser and disco balls and a projector projecting stuff onto the whole castle. And They shot water out at the crowd again. It was SO COOL!

For dinner we went to a Polynesian restaurant there and had a 3-course dinner with a show. It was pretty cool. My host mom reserved that for us which was so nice of her! We also got to eat the yummy popcorn from Disney. Probably my favorite was the caramel, but we also tried honey and sea salt. I wanted to try the curry flavor... I think it would be good.

At night we saw the Great Electrical Parade (for my 3rd time-it never gets old, but that song sure does). It was pretty much the highlight of my day. I am pretty sure I had more fun with it than most of the little kids. I waved at all my favorite characters and some waved back! :D Wendy (from Peter Pan) waved to me and blew me a kiss. And, the best moment of my day at Disneyland... Prince Charming looked at me!!! I mean Cinderella's Prince Charming made eye contact with me and smiled at me. It still makes me happy to think about it.

Anyway. Disneyland was a lot of fun. I am glad I got to go again and I think we picked the perfect day to go.

(Pictures will come another day. Time for me to get some sleep.)

Hokkaido

On the first weekend of July (July 3 to 5) my wonderful host family took me to Hokkaido (the northern island of Japan). It was so fun! Hokkaido was perfect. I was kind of hoping I would get the chance to go to Okinawa this year, but I think Hokkaido was better. We had beautiful weather, delicious food, and a fun adgenda. The weather was very similar to Ironwood, actually. Maybe that's why I liked it so much there. It was cool enough in the mornings and evenings to wear a sweatshirt and warm in the daytime. Without the humidity.

On Friday the 3rd, I got done with school early, went to the gym, and came home and packed for Hokkaido. We left for the airport by 4. We flew into a city called Chitosei and took the a train to Sapporo. I think Sapporo is the prettiest city I have ever been in. It's very clean and the air is fresh and everything is built in a nice grid system so you can see down one street forever. It was so much different than Tokyo! We ate the freshest sushi I have ever eaten for dinner. The tuna, which is my favorite kind of sushi, was so good! The raw sea urchin was still disgusting. My host dad was like, "but this is Hokkaido's! It is really good. Totally differnt than Tokyo's. Try it." (Then again, my host dad also said that you are supposed to eat the raw shrimp's brain as you pull off the head. He then proceeded to suck it out of the head. That's just sick.) I just cannot handle that mushy, squisy, slimy texture. I have now tried sea urchin sushi 4 times. I think I am allowed to say I don't like it. :) We also saw the famous Tokeidai before heading to our hotel. Dinner lasted until almost 10:30. It was a late night. The hotel was really nice, including it's onsen.

Saturday morning we got up and had the continental breakfast at the hotel. I got to eat a real american breakfast (almost) and it was awesome. :) (My host mom's breakfasts are also really good, it was just the first time I got to eat cereal in a while.) Then we were off to the train station. We rode the Zoo train to Asahiyama!

Asahiyama Zoo is the most famous zoo in Japan. We had a fun day there. I didn't really take pictures as animals pretty much look the same no matter what zoo you see them at. By about 3:30 we had seen most of the animals and were ready to go to our hotel in Asahikawa. We napped for a bit and then went out for dinner. We had jingisukan, which is mutton barbecue. I think it was the first time I had never had mutton before, but it was really good.

Back at our hotel we all played games, including UNO together for a while. It was really fun and it really felt like a family. Those kind of moments have been pretty rare in the last 10 months or so. It was nice.

On Sunday we rented a car and took a little road trip. The scenery was so beautiful! My host mom got really excited when we saw some cows in a field on the side of the road. I laughed at her. I guess I haven't seen cows in Tokyo either...

We stopped at a little shop on the side of the road to get melon (Cantelope) and ice cream (both famous for being good in Hokkaido), which were dang good. Melon flavored ice cream. Y-U-M. We also stopped to see a "recycled house" which is the old set for my host dad's favorite drama. It was pretty interesting.

Lunch was at a cheeze factory. They had pizza made fresh in a big stone oven. It was probably the best pizza I have had in Japan. Then we went to the Flowerland. Hokkaido is also famous for it's lavender fields. We ate ice cream there, too. Lavender flavor. What does lavender taste like, you ask? It's not as good as melon.

Then we went to the airport and flew home. Back at Hanedea Airport we got ramen and udon for dinner and then came home. It was such a nice trip. I had a lot of fun and I am so grateful that my host family brought me there. I am such a lucky exchange student. :D

(I will get pictures up on here later, too. A lot of them are on my host family's camera.)

One Month and Counting...

Today is July 1st. I go home in exactly one month. My last day of school is in exactly 2 weeks. I don't really believe it

Over the last few weeks I have had mixed feelings about leaving, which I wrote a bit about in the post below this. Usually, depending on the day, either excitement or sadness is more dominant.

Today, with exactly 31 days left I feel excited. I am so excited to see my family! I want to see my friends again. I'm excited for camping and learning how to drive again and the fresh air of the UP. :-) Of course I still feel sad about leaving so soon, but I am more excited.

My schedule for the next month is packed, but it is really good. I feel like I have everything I want to do before leaving scheduled. I don't think there will be anything I feel like I have left undone at the end. I think I will be ready to leave. Still sad, but ready.

Now for a quick update on what I have been up to lately. For Father's Day, the whole family went to the movies. We saw Rookies, which had pretty typical Japanese drama-type acting in it. But it was fun.

Last Friday (the 26th) I skipped school because there was just a Catholic mass at a church pretty far away. I went shopping with my host mom, which was nice. We got stuff for climbing Mt. Fuji. My rotary club insists that tennis shoes are not good enough and gave my family money to buy me proper hiking boots. Either I am way underestimating this 6 hour hike or Japanese people just like to exaggerate it. I will give the shoes to Rotary. Maybe an exchange student next year can use them. That evening I went to a Rotary dinner with my family. That was my last meeting before my farewell party at the end of this month. I received my very last Rotary allowance.

Last Saturday I went to see Manato at his school for the open house day, went to the gym for Zumba, and then went with my host mom to a friend's house where we made Japanese pizzas for lunch, a Hello Kitty shaped cake, and big sushi rolls for dinner.

Japanese pizza. Probably my favoite was the tako-yaki one. Tako i s octopus.

Hello Kitty!

These rolls were so pretty! I can make them when I get home. Look, flowers!!! Mine are on the left.

On Sunday I went to church and then went down to Yokosuka with my host family. The plan was to go horseback riding, but it was too rainy so we ended up getting lunch, shopping, and then going to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Yokohama. My host parents got me a cute shirt too! (It was a buy-two-for-a-lower-price kind of deal and they were already buying one so I pretty much had to pick one out.) Ruan, from Brazil, also came along for dinner because he had called me asking to hang out and everyone else was busy so my host mom invited him to join us.

This is my host dad's horse. I forgot the horse's name though...

Me, Ruan, and Manato

On Monday after school I went to the grocery store with Manato and we made chocolate-chip cookies together.

Yesterday (Tuesday) school got out after lunch like Tuesdays usually do and I came home and changed my clothes. Then I went to Yokohama to meet my Calligraphy teacher, Morita-sensei and calligraphy classmates. The class is only me and two other girls so Morita-sensei took us out for Okonomi-yaki. It was so nice of her! We all had a really good time and we even took purikura. I am pretty sure that was a first for my teacher.

Arisa, Mika, Abbey, and Morita-sensei

Arisa, Sensei, Abbey, Mika (I decorated this picture!)

Today I just had school and then went to the gym. Phew, all caught up! :-)

Rotary Graduation

This post was written a few days after the graduation meeting. I am finally getting it up now.



On June 20th I had my Rotary Graduation. It was also my last district level rotary meeting. Except for the Mt. Fuji trip, which isn't really a meething. There is one last orientation meeting on July 3rd, but I will be in Hokkaido with my host family.

Tateno family. Papa, Me, Okasan, and Manato

The graduation felt like such a formal ending, but I still have over a month left. It was still nice though. All the inbounds gave our last speeches (except ones for school and rotary club meetings) Then we recieved these nice honorary diplomas. They played a slideshow of all the pictures the rotarians took of us through the year. That was really fun. It seems like so long ago that we were at those Japanese lessons and not understanding a word people said to us. Our teachers from that first week also came. It must have been pretty cool for them to see how much we have learned since then.

The incredibly akward moment when the Japanese person goes to shake the foreigners hand and the foreigner bows. Hand meets face.

All of my host families came too. It was really nice to see them all again.

Nakano Family. Mie, Masato, Me, Wataru, Toru.

Wataru, Toru, and Me.

Umezaki Family. Papa, Abbey, Mama, and my rotary president, Mr. Inukai.

After the meeting there was a little party with food and very few chairs so you had to go socialize with other people. It was a nice opportunity to talk to people and lots of pictures.

I love Katja!

Yay America!! Vincent, Maki-chan, Ota-kun, Abbey. (Inbounds from America and Outbounds to America)

Before the meeting my host mom brought me to the salon to get my hair cut a little bit and curled. I felt so pretty. (>.<) I just love getting dressed up. After the meeting was over the exchange students went to take purikura with our Rotary blazers. It was fun. Then we wandered around Yokohama and Sakuragichou for a while before heading home.

Katja, Sylvana (from Germany--not rotary), Vincent, Korn, Ruan, I can't tell who is hiding in the back, and Abbey!

The 20th was also the 10 month mark for me being in Japan. I am still so amazed at how many awesome opportunities I have had and how much I have learned. I have done more than I thought possible to do in 10 months. Going on an exchange has been an experience of a lifetime and I wouldn't give up this experience for anything. There isn't even a way to put it into words; it is just something you have to experience to understand

I am excited to see what the rest of my time in Japan has in store for me, but I am sad to see it come to an end. I am happy to be going home, but I don't want to leave. I want to see my friends and family in America, but I don't want to say goodbye to my families and friends here. Sometimes it is hard for me to know how I feel about it all. I try to think of it as two separate things: leaving Japan, and returning to America. Sometimes I just think of it as inevitable that will happen no matter how I feel, so I might as well not think about it at all. It really is a bitter-sweet ending. But the end isn't here yet. I still have over a month left!

Well, I have some pictures to add to this, but blogger won't upload them for me at the moment. I will try again tomorrow if I have time.