Abbey's Japanese Adventure!

Last Day of School

2009-07-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-07-15T06:07:00.000-07:00

...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

2009-07-11T05:26:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-07-11T05:25:00.002-07:00

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

2009-07-11T05:25:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-07-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-01T04:28:00.001-07:00

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.

Too busy to blog -- Sorry!

2009-06-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in school (my only time in which I don't have much else to do) I write out blog posts and then just type them in later. Those are usually the posts that come up really late, which happens to be most of them lately. I wrote this one in school around the 15th of June, so it was a while back. Again, sorry. I am trying really hard to get my blog caught up, but keeping it up to date is a challenge lately.

This past weekend (June 13-14) was really busy, but it was a fun busy. Both Saturday and Sunday were full of activities, and a lot of them were with my host family. I really enjoy spending time with my host family so it was nice.

On Saturday I officially started at the Gym that my rotarian has a connection at. (Kato-san owns one of the gyms, which is a chain of them, but he knows the people who own the other ones around the area. This gym's owner is letting me come here. ) It is conveniently located about 2 minutes from my train station, which is awesome. I even have an appointment set up to get a personalized training program made for me! And I get to go for free! I wish I could have started this earlier.

Once all the talking was over I got to actually use the gym. I ran for a bit to warm up (the machines are so nice! They all have T.V.s and headphones attached so you can watch whatever you want as you exercise. Fancy!) and then I took the Zumba class. It was SO fun. Seriously,, I didn't think it was possible to make such a tough workout so fun. I loved it! It's a pretty popular workout craze in Japan right now. It is based on Latin-style dancing and a single 50 minute class burns about 850 calories. Anyway, I plan to take it again.

After I showered and such I met my host family at the station. We all went to lunch and then to my Rotary Orientation meeting together. I gave my speech that I didn't bother to write beforehand. I really don't think that I will ever have a problem with speaking in public in English ever again. It will be so much easier than Japanese.

After that I went to Cosmo World, an amusement park in Minatomirai, with my host family. It was really fun even thought the roller coasters aren't really built for someone my height. They were a bit tight on the shoulders and my legs are too long. After we rode all the rides we wanted and gave my host parents a chance to make fun of Manato and I going through a fun house (There are cameras so people can watch outside as you run into mirrors and go in circles. I didn't know.) we went to Okonomiyaki for dinner.

Abbey and Manato on the water log ride. Which we rode 3 times.

Wheeee!! My host dad forgot to take the picture when we were actually on the ride...
Sunday morning I got up early and my host dad drove me to church. The ward I go to now is an English ward. It was really nice to be able to fully understand all the lessons and be able to give input of my own. My entire brain switched over to English though. When my host mom picked me up I got into the car and she asked how it went. I started blabbing away in English until I saw her face. She just stared, looking slightly shocked, and said "nani?" (What?). I could have sworn she actually said what in English... After a slightly confused moment I realized that I was not speaking Japanese and started laughing.

My languages get all mixed up now. Sometimes when I skype with people at home all the words I think are in Japanese and I have to make a mental effort to change them to English before I speak. I even talk to myself in Japanese sometimes now, which is just ridiculous. I think in Japanese a lot without realizing it. I usually realize it when I start counting something and I get to 11 in Japanese. It's faster to say the English numbers from there and it bothers me that I am counting so slowly so I switch to English. I don't really have too many dreams in Japanese though. Come to think of it, I don't have too many dreams anyway and when I do they usually are set in America or at least not Japan. I have crazy dreams....

Anyway, getting back on topic... After church I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant with my host family and then went home to change my clothes. The neighbor family (The Ando family) and us went to Round One. Round One is a game/amusement center similar to Chuck E. Cheeze, but more for young adults than little kids. We had a fun time there and even took purikura. The moms didn't join us for that. I love purikura...

Misuzu, me, Kakeru-kun, and Manato
Once we got home Misuzu and I changed into Yukatas (a summer time kimono) and everyone went to an omatsuri. Omatsuri is a Japanese festival. Around the temple the streets were just packed with games and food stands. Lots of yummy things like tako-yaki, okonomi-yaki, yaki-soba, buttery steamed potatoes, and Japanese candies. It was really fun despite the rain. It was fun to wear a yukata to it too. An old man, whose stand we bought from soup from, was impressed to hear that I like Japanese food so much and asked if I also like sweet foods like crepes. I said yes and he walked away. He came back a few minutes later with a crepe for me. My host dad was like, not tell him you really love yaki-soba. ;)

Ando-san helping me tie my obi.

Me and Misuzu

Me, the Ando family and Manato. Kakeru-kun is 8 and Misuzu is 12.
The festival was fun, the food was great, and I failed at all the little games I played but it's okay. They let me pick a prize anyway.

Misuzu, Manato, Abbey, and Kakeru-kun trying to catch fish with paper-covered hoops. I lost but we still got to take about 9 sick fish home. One is still alive...

Wicked!

2009-06-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty busy day. In school I had calligraphy for the first two hours. I finished the project we had been working on, so that's fun. It's the kanji (Chinese character) for dream. Today I made the stamp for it out of a plastic eraser and stamped it.

夢 (Yume- dream)

My stamp. It says my name.

After calligraphy everyone ate lunch and then we went to Shimbashi, Tokyo for the musical Wicked! It was amazing. I knew we were going to be going to it so I made a point of listening to all the songs on YouTube and looking up the plot summary. Between knowing the story ahead of time and actually understanding some of it I had no problem keeping up with it in Japanese. I even bought myself the CD of this cast singing it. I just think it will be fun to have the songs in Japanese.

I got home from the musical around 5:30, ate my after school snack that was waiting for me on the table, changed my clothes, and left for Young Women's. I have missed having those activities. Today was the first time I ever went in Japan. We went to one of the leaders' house and had dinner. It was so good! And her kitchen was so American! It had a real oven. Not a microwave that gets really hot; a real oven. The girls and leaders here are all so sweet. I am really glad to have met them even though it just adds more people to my list of good-byes in a few weeks.

Kamakura-bori and Ajisai

2009-06-18T08:54:00.002-07:00

Last week my school had exams. They were from Monday to Thursday. I don't take the exams because of how difficult (impossible) it is for me to read Japanese to even understand the questions, much less know the answer to them. My teachers were very kind and planned some activities for me.

Monday I spent two hours in school researching and filling out worksheets (in Japanese) about Kamakura-bori and a temple in Kamakura, which used to be the capital of Japan and is just a bit south of Yokohama. On Tuesday Uchida-Sensei took me on a field trip there.

We got to Kamakura by about 10:00 in the morning and did a 2 hour Kamakura-bori class. Kamakura-bori is the style of wood working that was started in Kamakura. We carved these plates. Real Kamakura-bori has a pretty red stain and lacquer on it too, but we didn't have that much time. It was really difficult, but we had fun. The teacher was really nice and very talented.

Working hard.

My fingers hurt by the end of the lesson. That wood is a bit hard...

Uchida-sensei and I with our finished plates. I would like to stain mine when I get home.

After our class was over we went and found a bench on the side of the road where we ate our obentos (packed lunches). It was a bit strange to eat there as people walked past and staring at me. I would have preferred a park or something...

Next we went to see ajisai flowers (Hydrangea). Taking special trips somewhere to look at flowers is a very Japanese thing to do and there were a lot of people. The flowers really were quite pretty though. The colors are all different depending on what is in the soil. It must be pretty sensitive to the type of soil because the color of the flower would change from plant to plant even though they were right next to each other.

Ajisai

Uchida-sensei and I had a fun day and I really appreciate her doing that for me. It was much better than sitting in school alone all day. We even got purple sweet potato flavored ice cream! I love that stuff! But that's a secret. I'm pretty sure it is against school rules to buy ice cream while wearing school uniform.

I love Murasaki-imo ice cream!

Me at one of the temple gardens in Kamakura. I don't remember which one it was anymore.

After we said goodbye at the train station closest to school at 3:30 I went to visit "Mama" Umezaki, my second host mother. I am really glad that I got to visit with her for a few hours. It was so nice to talk to her. When I came in and called "tadaima!" (I'm home!) she ran over and gave me a hug and was almost crying. That house is really close to my school so I will have to go visit again sometime soon.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday working on a scrapbooky album of my exchange for the school. It is homework from one of my teachers. On both days I got out before lunch so I got to go out and get lunch with my host mom, who also had the afternoons off work. After lunch on Wednesday I met a friend in Kawasaki and went shopping. Thursday I went to a sport's club with my host mom and dad. One of my rotarians, Mr. Kato, owns the gym so I met him and talked about using the gym. As it turns out, the gym is a chain of gyms and there is one at my station in Tokyo! Perfect! Exam week was fun. I am lucky that my school and teachers are so willing to plan things like this for me.

Kabuki

2009-06-18T08:54:00.001-07:00

On the 7th (Sunday) my rotary district brought all of the exchange students to a Kabuki play. Kabuki is the traditional Japanese theatre. I'll be honest, I thought it was going to be really boring. This Kabuki, however, was really good. The story was pretty easy to follow without understanding all the words and lyrics. They also had an explanation of Kabuki for beginners and children so I got to understand a bit more about it before the actual play started. I enjoyed it.

After the Kabuki we had a little good-bye party for Felipe who went back to Ecuador on Thursday. Having Iliana and Felipe leave really made me realize how fast my year is coming to an end. I only have about 6 weeks left.

Tateno Family

2009-05-29T01:34:00.000-07:00

On the morning of the 24th (Sunday) I said my goodbyes and thank-yous to the Umezaki family and moved to my third and final host family.

I am really glad that I got to live at the Umezakis' house. They were an excellent host family. I didn't spend a whole lot of time with Mr. Umezaki or Rika (29-year-old host sister) as they both have full-time jobs, but I got really close with my host mom. She was awesome! I always had good food and obentos. I got to help with dinners at night and after dinner she gave me Japanese lessons. They were all very generous and let me make whatever plans I wanted to on my own. I will never forget them.

My host father, host mother, me, Rika, and the dog (Nene).

I had not really met my third host family before that morning. I had talked with my host father for about 10 minutes at a rotary lunch two weeks earlier, but that was it. I was a bit nervous about switching.

The Tateno family pulled into the driveway at about 9:30 and I finally got to meet them .They are a young couple (early 40's) with one 7-year-old boy named Manato. We (both host families and myself) all talked for a while, loaded my luggage into the car, and said good-bye.

Hey, they got smaller since I last changed families...

My new house is in Tokyo, which is a kind of exciting. (Plus, we don't have to sort our garbage in Tokyo!!!) I technically live outside of my Rotary District now. My house is in a really nice neighborhood-- an actual neighborhood! I even met all my neighbors! My host family introduced me to all of them my first day there, probably so they didn't get worried when they see a random foreigner trying to get into the house. The house is small, but clean and it really feels like a home. There is not much privacy (seeing how I don't really have a room) but I don't mind at all. I feel the most at home in this family I think.

My house!

The living room and play/study room. I close those sliding doors (to the left) and set out my futon when it is time for bed.

From the other direction.

My host parents are both awesome. This is the first time they have hosted a students so I htink they feel like they don't quite know what to do, but they are doing a great job. My host father is a public tax accountant (or something along those lines), but he still spends a good amount of time at home with the family. My host mom is a nurse. She works at a small hospital so she gets Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays off and gets the afternoon off two other days a week.

I absolutely love my little host brother. I think we are going to be good buddies. He was a bit shy while we were talking at the Umezaki's house but as soon as we got into the car he warmed right up. He talks with me all the time and offers explanations for things I don't understand. For example, I didn't quite understand what my host mom was saying to me so he steps in front of her and explained it all in really simple Japanese. He also explained stuff around the house to me. In the shower room, "this handle is for the temperature. When you turn it toward this little red mark it makes the water hot..." We also play games on my iPod together. It was really cute when he told me that this is the first time he has ever had a big sister.

Manato and Abbey.

That Sunday, after stopping at the house for a little bit, we all went to a barbecue for lunch. It was my host father's high school friend and their families I think. It seems like they are pretty good friends and see each other a lot. The kids all knew each other really well, too. It was fun and the food was awesome. We had good bacon, beef, corn-on-the cob, onions, potatoes, and sweet potatoes cooked in tinfoil (the onions were so good!) over the coals, soup, watermelon.... It was like a 4th of July picnic without the fireworks! Then they brought out the squid (not bad) and turban shells (not my favorite) and I was reminded that this is a Japanese barbecue.

My host dad in the blue shirt, me in the back, and other people.

The little girl that is Manato's age. I braided her hair so we would match. She was so happy. :)

From there we returned home and then left a few hours later for the rotary family dinner party. I got to see all three fo my host families together! It was really nice. I was asked to five a little speech with about 30 seconds notice so I thanked my host families and rotarians.

My three host families together (well, parts of each, anyway). Papa Umezaki, Mama Umezaki, Mie Nakano, Masato Nakano, Toru Nakano, Wataru Nakano, Me, Manato Tateno, and Papa Tateno.
Manato losing rock, paper, scissors to the kid he tied with in BINGO.

On Monday I had no school because of my taiikusai on Saturday. The rest of the family, however, had work or school so I left in the morning when my host dad did. I went to see Angels and Demons with my friend Austin. I was the first one to get home, but Manato came home about half and hour later. We ate snacks that my host mom left out for us and then watched the Tokyo Giants baseball game together. After a while my host mom came home and we had dinner. I got to Skype with AnnaMarie a bit in Japanese before bed, too. I think Manato had fun with that. He thought it was quite amusing that Kaite calls me "Abbey-dabby" and I wouldn't be too surprised if he started calling me that.

I am really glad that I am fitting into my new family and their routine okay. I am excited to get to know them better. They really are so fun! The other day I almost started crying because I only get to live with them for 2 months then I have to go back home. They are so generous. They bought me two tickets for Tokyo Disneyland or Sea, tickets to a water park for me and some friends, AND they are taking me on a trip to Hokkaido!! I am so excited! :D

Taiikusai (Sport's Festival)!!

2009-05-29T01:32:00.000-07:00

I completely underestimated the taiikusai. It is way more important to the girls than I though it was and it was way more fun than I had anticipated.

Maybe the reason that I wasn't really looking forward to it during the week leading up to it was how busy I was. My taiikusai was Saturday (the 23rd) and on Sunday morning I was changing host families. Both of these events required a lot of preparation. As you can imagine, things got pretty crazy for a while. Every day for about two weeks I had to get up early to practice our mukade (literally means centipede) race and relay before school started. On top of that I had some very late nights trying to get all my laundry done, things packed, and information deleted off my family's computer. That led to lots of blog updates and attempting to update pictures to Michael's website because I had to delete them all. Phew!! I also had to have all my preparations done on Friday because I was busy with my taiikusai all day on Saturday.

I had a blast with the taiikusai! I didn't totally fail at the radio exercises (see older post) like I thought I would. I dominated the 400m dash. My team, that practiced so hard for it, won the mukade. We won the tug-of-war. Our relay got 5th of 6, which is quite an emotional story. We won the kaso (skit-like performance) in which Perry was a hit! AND to top it all off, my class won overall!

Waiting for their race at the gate that leads onto the grounds.

The track is just over 100m, so my 400m was three and a half laps. I ran it in about 1 minute and 23 seconds (haha! My coach would KILL me if I ran that time in a track meet) and the other girls were about a half a lap back. It was fun. I could hear everyone cheering for me. It's like I am famous here. A lot of the parents were even yelling my name...

Getting ready to line up for the race.

My next event was the mukade. All of our hard work paid off as the last two legs our our team (it's a relay) managed to overtake the other team. There were lots of screams, jumping up and down, and then tears. Then I started laughing... partly because I was happy but more because it was fun to see my friends so happy about it.

Mukade. Yeah, it was intense.

Celebrating after winning the Mukade.

The tug-of-war was intense. There must have been at least 50 girls on each side. I the second one from the front on our side. We lost our first one, but won the rest. The team that beat us got disqualified for something... so we ended up taking first over all.

Mano-san and I showing off our red ribbons during our lunch break. (red mean 1st place in Japan)

The final relay was the most emotional race I have ever been in. Our original relay team had two girls from the basketball club on it, and those two are fast. However, the basketball team qualified for a game that day so we ran with a different team. The relay was going to be tough competition to start with and now that two of our fastest girls were gone, there wasn't really much hope. There had been hope that the basketball girls would get back before the relay started, but as it got closer to race time they didn't show up. The rest of the relay team was crying before the race even started. The overall points were close, but they didn't have them up anymore so there was a bit of pressure on the team. We ran hard and tried our best. I actually think that that is the fastest I have ever run a 100m. It felt fast at least. At the end, it wasn't enough. We got 5th place. And then the girls really cried. I almost cried! We thought we had let our entire class down. Everyone was thrilled when they announced the final point totals and we had won first place. And, you guessed it, there were more tears of happiness.

Our Kaso also got first place. We had awesome costumes and the whole idea of it was really good, I thought. The other classes' were good too though. When I made my exit as Commodore Perry the crowd started clapping and I hear several "oh, Perry!"s. I couldn't help but smile. It was really fun, actually.

Me as Perry, Risako (left) and Shibu-chan (right) as my henchmen.

After the taiikusai I ran home, took a quick shower, and left for Yokohama station for our after party. We went to Shakey's Pizza, an "American" pizza and pasta buffet place. It was so good and I ate a ton! It was really really fun to see all the girls outside of school and uniform. Everyone took tons of pictures.

Shakey's pizza. And this wasn't even half of the girls.

I got home at 10:30 (the only time I was past curfew at this house... On the lastnight) but my host mom didn't care at all. I called her from the station to tell her ahead of time. Then I stayed up for a few more hours writing letters for my host family and getting stuff ready for the morning.

My only taiikusai experience I will ever have was a really good one.

Yay for blogging!

2009-05-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the scoop. I had been writing these blog posts (or parts of them) for almost the past month but never managed to get around to uploading pictures, so the posts didn't go up. Today I was really productive and finished writing them all and put pictures in. Phew!
(The first new one is from April 26th) They are still in chronological order.

-Abbey

My Seventeenth Birthday!

2009-05-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I turned 17! For my birthday, I got packages from home! Dad was smart enough to send me my birthday package, which was stuffed with all sorts of fun American candies and snacks, about 3 weeks early so my host family would know it was coming. My host mom absolutely loved the trail mix Dad sent and is sad that they don't sell it in Japan. I did point out that they sell peanuts, m&ms, raisins, and cashews in Japan and you just have to mix them together...

On my actual birthday I didn't expect much to happen at all. My host mom had explained ahead of time that the week is busy so we would celebrate on the weekend. My friends at school had asked me when my birthday was in like September, but hadn't mentioned it since. I was quite surprised when all my friends came over to me carrying a present and card and started singing happy birthday. It was so sweet of them! They got me a really good gift too: a digital picture frame. You just insert an SD card and it will do slide shows and you can play music and movies on it too. They made me a card and everyone signed it in Japanese (I still have to sit down and figure out what they all wrote). Risako even made me cake! She actually made a tea cake, forgetting that I don't drink (or eat) tea, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

When I got home, my host mom had bought a little cake for us to share. It was a yummy strawberry cake. :) And then she took me out to dinner at a family-style Japanese restaurant. My host mom is so thoughtful.

I wish I could have taken pictures of my birthday. I woke up, realized it was my birthday, and decided I should take my camera to school just in case. I try turning on my camera to check the battery and it makes a horrible sound that cameras are not supposed to make! I am not sure what is wrong with it, but it won't focus and the zoom doesn't work. Basically, it won't take pictures. It was quite sad.

So I got to spend my birthday and my month's Rotary allowance on a new camera on Friday. The good thing is that I really like my new camera (Sony Cyber-shot W220)! It takes much better pictures than my old one did and it has lots of cool features, including in-camera-editing. Fancy stuff. When I got to Yodobashi Camera they told me that the camera was about 60 dollars more expensive than it had said on the website. When I asked about this they said, "oh, we have it in Japanese too." The exact same camera cost an extra 60 dollars so the menu and instruction booklet would be in English. Way to rip off the foreigners! I bought the Japanese one.

On Saturday (May 16) my host mom, Rika (my host sister), and I got in the car and drove to Kawaguchiko Onsen, an onsen town near Mt. Fuji. We spent Saturday night at a hotel there overlooking Kawaguchiko (Lake Kawaguchi) with Mt. Fuji not too far beyond the lake. Unfortunately it was really cloudy and rainy so we couldn't see Mt. Fuji at all. The scenery was absolutely beautiful though! There were so many trees and green hills and mountains. We spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning driving around the area, looking at the lakes. In Japan Fujigoko (Mt. Fuji's five lakes) are pretty famous. They are really beautiful, too! It was almost like being back in the the UP...

Rika and my host mom. Just look at all those green trees!
This is at a touristy traditional Japanese culture place. It's the kind of place where you can dress up like a samurai! But I didn't want to do something so ridiculous.

Dinner and breakfast were at our hotel, New Century Hotel, but I didn't really like it. It seems like they go more for quantity than quality. And I was really in the mood for a good pizza to just be delivered to the room. This was our dinner and our breakfast looked pretty similar so I didn't bother to take pictures.

Rika, my host mom, and me. That food is only for me and Rika. You can't see my host mom's plates.

A nice sashimi boat, which was actually good quality I guess. I wasn't really in the mood for raw fish though.
Especially once I saw this guy staring at me. And those shrimp with the eyes and heads! No thanks!
The little trip was really fun. My host mom planned it just for my birthday. I had a really nice birthday this year. It was better than I expected it to be, but I did miss the awesome cakes that Daddy makes for me. I guess there is always next year... :D

This is the view from our hotel room. That darker grey part is Mt. Fuji. It would have been an awesome view on a clear day.

Iliana

2009-05-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

Iliana is pretty much my best friend in the whole world. We have had a lot of good times together. We have also helped each other through a lot of hard, stressful times, too. We have talked a lot about everything and I think she knows me better than most of my friends that I have been in school with since I was 5 do. It's really hard to realize that we have only known each other for a little more than 8 months. And it is even harder for me to realize that she is gone... I just don't believe it.

Today at a little after 1 o'clock I watched her being driven away from the Breezebay Hotel in Minatomirai. But, I guess I should go back and blog about yesterday.

Yesterday (Friday, the 8th) I had school in the morning. We didn't really even have school. The other girls just had physicals at school. I didn't take the physical because I told them I didn't want to and my teacher said that it was okay for me not to take it. School started at 9:50, so I got to school at 8:30. We had sport's festival practice in the morning. Then at 10, all the girls go to take their physical. I go to study on my own for an hour. At about 11 I told my teacher I had to leave to go to my Rotary Club lunch. (I usually leave at 11:30 for it, but I had extra stuff to do yesterday so I told them I was going at 11.) I walk home and drop off my school bag and my host mom took me to a picture shop where I dropped off a picture for them to print out for a gift to give to Iliana. Then I went to my Rotary lunch in Yokohama, which went fine.

My rotary lunches are all pretty much the same. Yesterday I wasn't asked to give a speech, so that was nice. I got my allowance and ate my obento. The obento was pretty good this time, too. Then after the meeting I got to meet and talk with my 3rd host father (Mr. Tateno) for a little bit. I was actually surprised because he is really young. We discussed the day I will change to their house, but that is about it. I guess they have a middle school aged child (boy?), so it will be interesting to live in a family with that age kids.

Anyway, more on host family number three once I actually know something about them. I went home from the meeting, changed out of my school uniform, finished packing my bag, and left to meet Iliana at Yokohama. When I got there she was in the T.G.I. Fridays with Ruan and Felipe so I went there to meet them. Then after a little bit the guys left and Iliana and I got to have some time with just the two of us. She wanted to go shopping in Yokohama, so we did. After she was done with that we went to her house.

I stayed the night there for her last night in Japan. I watched (I tried helping, but I didn't know how to do it the way she wanted it done) her pack up her bags and helped her go over everything that she needed for today. We had a nice dinner of yakitori, koroke, and sushi with her family. Then once everything was set for the morning we just talked. We finally went to sleep around 3 in the morning, but it was so fun to talk.

We thought about all the good times and hard times we have had and about how much we have learned here. We remembered our first weeks and the stupid, embarrassing things we did because we didn't know how to do it correctly. And we talked about how it will be to go home and plans to see each other again. But I still couldn't believe she was going to leave.

I remember the first time I saw her after our language classes were over in that first week we were here. It was on September 12. I was on my second week of school and as I was riding the train home I was thinking about how I wanted to do something that weekend. But the only people I knew at all were the other rotary students. We didn't have cell phones yet and I didn't know how to get a hold of any of them. Then as I am spacing out Iliana pops up out of no where and is like, "Abbey?!" What are the odds that she was in the same car of the same train as me? It was meant to be. Anyway, from there we made plans to meet on msn and hang out that weekend. It was funny because I didn't even talk to her that much at the first week of Japanese classes. From then on we have hung out almost every week. Or at least talked. Once we both had cell phones we text messaged almost every single day. I love that girl! We got to be really close friends, and we knew that if we ever needed anything here the other one was there for us.

This morning we got up at 8 and had omelet rice (Iliana's request) for breakfast. Then we made sure everything was ready to go and left for Sakuragichou Station to meet other people. Iliana had invited all the exchange students and some adults she knows here to meet her there to say goodbye. We (the exchange students apart from Iliana) had our rotary orientation meeting starting at 2 in the Breezebay Hotel anyway. We got to talk and take pictures and hang out for a couple hours before her host parents came to the hotel (which we walked to once everyone met up with us) to pick her up. We got to take pictures with all 8 of the inbounds of District 1590 for the year 2008-2009 for the last time.

Camille, Katja, Vincent, Ruan, Iliana, Abbey, Felipe, and Korn.

(From top to bottom) Ruan, Abbey, Vincent, Iliana

When her host brother came in to tell her it was time to go we all said goodbye. Some people cried a little, but I didn't. She got in the car and drove off. And then she messaged my phone like 15 minutes later.

Me giving my speech with no notes!

The meeting went well, and then I hung around Minatomirai with some of the other rotary students. Finally, as we were sitting on steps by the bay eating our combini food for dinner I started to cry. I know I will see her again. I know it's not good-bye for ever; just see you later. But it still sucks that my best friend is going back to Mexico. And I won't see her for at least a year. (Hopefully she will come up to Ironwood for my graduation next year.) And I will be the last exchange student to leave Japan from my group. I get to watch everyone leave, one by one, before I actually leave myself.

Needless to say, I am very tired now. Today was very emotional and I didn't get enough sleep last night. I miss Iliana already! And she is still in the airplane. It's time for me to take a hot bath and go to bed.

Golden Week

2009-05-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

Golden Week is a 5 day holiday (From May 2 through May 6 this year) in Japan that includes the Showa Day, Constitutional Memorial day, Greenery Day, and Children's Day. I actually didn't hear of any of them besides Children's Day before I looked it up on wikipedia. They only one anyone actually celebrates is Children's Day. The government kind of made up holidays to put around it to make it a long break to encourage travelling and help the economy. Smart, huh? And I didn't have school! Which was the best part.

My Golden Week was really, really busy. On May 2 (Saturday) I hung out with my host sister for the day. We went to Rippongi Hills in Tokyo. It's a pretty cool place, but I hadn't been there before as it is most famous for the clubbing. And that's not really my thing. Besides, even if it was, I am underage. Anyway, she wanted to go to this flea market that was being set up by a radio station she listens to every morning. There were supposed to be some singers or someone famous there, but I guess they were coming later.

So we wandered around the flea market for a little bit, not wanting to buy anything. Then we decided to go to lunch. Rika suggested that we go to Hard Rock Cafe. That was really nice of her to treat me to that. I would never go there if I had to pay for it myself. Neither of us could decide what to eat so I ordered the pulled pork sandwich and she got the beef brisket, then we split half and half. It was so good! I don't get real American food like that too often here. And we both ate almost all of it!

Before:

After:

Then we went up in the Sky Building. We just wanted to see the view from the top, but you had to buy a ticket to the art exhibit to go to the top. Dumb rule if you ask me. So, we ended up going to a stupid modern art exhibit. It was fun though. I just don't understand modern art. Luckily, Rika feels the same way as me so we just made fun of stuff as we went through.

The view from the top was really pretty. It was a nice, clear day so we could see a lot.
After that we managed to find enough room in our stomachs to eat crepes. I LOVE crepes. I wish they sold them like this in America... They have pretty much whatever you want inside and are wrapped into a cone shape so you eat them with your hands. They are so good! I am going to make them someday when I get home.

We finally got home at about 5. We were too full to eat dinner that night. But it was a really fun day. My host mom left that night with my host dad for a trip to Niigata prefecture.

The next day I got to go to church for the first time in almost a month. That was really nice. Since I am moving families and will go to a closer church soon it was probably the last time I will see some of these people.

After church I went to Kawasaki to meet my host sister. We had plans to go to the movies. We saw Goemon. It's a Japanese movie. I actually really enjoyed it, but I don't think it was actually supposed to be funny. My favorite thing about the movie is the fact that there are only like 5 people still alive at the end of it. Goemon 2 is pretty much impossible. No, for real, it was fun. I really liked seeing a Japanese movie. I was the only foreigner in the entire theatre.

After the movie we went to a Korean barbecue for dinner. Then we went and got crepes again! Two days in a row... that was bad. These crepes were also good, but not quite as good as the ones from the day before.

On Monday I went to Lena's (a girl from Russia) going away party. We all went to the beach in Hiratsuka. It was really fun. We played beach volleyball and didn't use sunscreen. I only got a little burned. I really should buy sunscreen, but it is so dang expensive! The cheapest I can find is like 8 dollars for a tiny 3 ounce bottle. I think I will have to buy some at some point though.

Rina, Lena, Abbey, Annie, Slyvana, and Katja

On the 5th my rotary club president, Mr. Inukai invited me, my host families, and a couple of my friends to go cruising with him on his boat. My host sister and I woke up early to meet him at KeiKyu Shin-Koyasu station at 8:30. I invited Iliana ad Felipe to go too because they don't have a lot of time left in Japan. My host parents were still on their trip, so they couldn't come.

Felipe, Iliana, Abbey, Rika, and Rotarians in the back.

From that station we walked into the most run-down part of the city I have ever seen. This sketchy-looking harbor was not quite what I expected for my rotary club's president. We all followed him until he met up with another man none of us knew and then got onto the boat. It was a pretty small boat. We put our life jackets on and set off.

Nice harbor, huh?

Iliana, Abbey, Felipe

I did get to drive it though! That was really fun. We went right down the middle of Tokyo Bay, past the Minatomirai area, and to the open ocean. It was really really cool to see the city from this new angel. And Iliana, Felipe, and I had a good time talking. I can't believe they are leaving so soon.

Well, it turns out that that boat was not President Inukai's boat. It was his friend's boat and we were just going by boat to the other, much nicer-looking harbor. At this harbor we met my first host family. I was pretty excited to see them again. Mr. Nakano and Toru came, but of turns out that Wataru had the chicken pox so he and Mie (my host mom) stayed home. On the boat there were a couple other rotarians too. This boat was pretty nice. It could probably fit 15 people pretty comfortably. They had sandwiches, chips, little pieces of steak, and onigiri for us there for lunch.

Minatomirai

I think that the original itinerary had a destination, but Toru got sea sick so we ended up turning around and going back early. The day was still pretty fun, though.

We got back to the harbor by about 12:30 and from there Mr. Nakano drove us to the station. But first we got to stop by good old Radiant City to see Mie. Iliana wanted to say goodbye to her before she leaves Japan. So It was nice to see her again. Then Mr. Nakano drove us to Kanazawa Bunko station.

Wednesday, the 6th was my last day of break. I just took it easy, slept in, and relaxed. My host parents got back from their trip that morning so I talked to my host mom about that.

Golden week was really fun. And it's always nice to have a break from school.

Influenza...

2009-04-30T22:27:00.002-07:00

Well, I am sure you have all heard about the pig/bird/people flu that's going around. I guess WHO has said it is now at a level 5... which roughly translates to "not good". And it may take up to 6 months to come out with a vaccine. I have been keeping an eye on the news about it (I know, amazing. I never read the news.) for a couple of reasons. Okay, mostly because I wanted to know how much it was going to affect Iliana and her return trip that may or may not be scheduled for next week.

Anyway, the reason I am blogging about it is because I though Japan was doing pretty well. Nobody has it here yet! Well that's what I though until home room at school today. Apparently there is a high school boy here in Yokohama who is suspected to have it. He was on a school trip to Canada a little while ago and is now at a hospital here with flu-like symptoms. If it is confirmed to be the pig flu, all the schools in the city are going to be temporarily closed. Not that that will keep it from spreading if anyone else gets sick. I believe Yokohama is the most densly populated city in Japan. Everyone that works in Tokyo lives in Yokohama. I am so glad I am not riding the trains or buses to school now. The normal flu season was bad enough here. What takes 3 weeks to go through Ironwood cycles through the Yokohama/Tokyo area for 3 or 4 months.

Hopefully it is just a false alarm. Everyone is so worried about this virus that people are over reacting to mild symptoms that could be from any number of minor illnesses. But if it isn't, I hope all his classmates from the trip don't have it too. I should probably start drinking more orange juice...

Luckily it's already cool to wear those masks here!

DISNEYLAND

2009-04-30T22:27:00.001-07:00

I love Disneyland.

Iilana's rotarian, Kodama-san, invited Iliana, myself, and Ruan to go to Disneyland. It was very generous of her. I think she did it because Iliana is leaving so soon. I asked my club, and they granted me permission to skip school for the day. My host mom wrote a note to the school telling them that I had a "rotary function" to go to so I would be taking the day off.

Me and Mary Poppins! I had a really hard time speaking to her in English for some reason. I kept wanting to use Japanese and we all know Mary Poppins does not speak Japanese.

It was so fun. We met at Sakuragichou station at about 1 o'clock and Kodama-san drove us there in her car. We went on most of the good rides, saw the electric parade, and ate lots. The three of us shared a smoked turkey leg (it was huge), and we also had popcorn, frozen ice pops, pizza for dinner, and then a snacky sandwich before we left.

I believe this is Mickey's car. Iliana, Ruan, and me.

My favorite ride was Splash Mountain. I even bought the picture at the end of it. I know, I know, it's a rip off. But it was a good picture. Ruan is absolutely hilarious on the rides. He had our entire log (?) doing different things. I actually didn't like Space Mountain that much. It is so dark inside and all you can see are little lights that spin around like crazy as you race through. I got a little bit of motion sickness on that one. But the wait for it was fun.

The three of us on Big Thunder Mountain. You can tell the ride is pretty intense. I even pulled out my camera in the middle of it.

We ended up doing rock, paper, scissors in Japanese to decide who had to sit alone on the ride. Iliana lost and then refused to go alone. I ended up going alone anyway. (I'm such a good friend, huh?) Anyway, there was a group of Japanese girls behind us in the line and they thought our random Japanese comments thrown into an English conversation were pretty funny. We ended up talking to them a little bit. As we were about to get into our car (we decided to go as a group of 6, because there were three of us, and three Japanese girls), they say to me, "You are so beautiful. Like, really pretty..." in English and then Japanese and then English again. Japanese girls are so funny. haha. I was like, "aww, thanks!" Then at the end of the ride they all said thanks for riding with them.

Waiting for Big Thunder Mountain.

Oh, and Iliana and I also wore our Minnie Mouse headbands. I had to get some as soon as I got there because I regretted not getting them at Disney Sea before. It was a really fun day. I ended up getting home at about 10:30 after trying to figure out and then explain how to get to my house which is not very close to any train station and it is on a tiny street with no name. And Kodama-san could not understand me telling her to go on the big street that we went over when we crossed the bridge. Is my Japanese really that bad?! That was an adventure and Iliana and Ruan both got a good laugh out of my directional retardedness.

We got to meed Mickey! Ruan, Mickey, Iliana, Kodama-san, and me. Mickey even gave me a kiss!

Odaiba

2009-04-26T05:25:00.000-07:00

Today I went to Odaiba with some of the other exchange students. Odaiba is right in the middle of Tokyo, located right on Tokyo Bay. It was really fun. The weather was beautiful and we just hung out at the beach all day. I really would like to go back there sometime to swim. It was really clean, especially considering it is in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world.

We also saw the Statue of Liberty.

And the boys decided to try out windsurfing. They told the people at the shop that they had done it before. Apparently not. They barely got the sail out of the water. The rest of us just hung out at the beach and the shopping area that was close by. I guess that's about all there is to say about it though. Here are some more pictures.

Tokyo Bay

Sylvana (Germany), Katja, Iliana, Me, and Lena (Russia)

The water was warmer than Lake Superior ever has been. I wanted to swim!

Sunset

8 months!

2009-04-23T03:32:00.000-07:00

As of Monday, April 20th, I have officially been in Japan for 8 months. So that's exciting. Definitely the longest I have ever been away from home... by like 7 and a half months. Everything is still going well. I can tell that my Japanese has been improving, especially in the past couple months. My host mom gives me Japanese/Kanji lessons every night and they have done wonders. Last night, for example, she tested me on all the kanji I have studied up until then. All 300! And I only got 3 wrong. 99 percent!! whoo hoo! She has me studying like crazy. I am learning 10 new kanji every day and she tests me on them. We also write a little journal each day in Japanese and combine kanji I know to make words. It's all quite exciting. I really appreciate all the time my host mom takes to teach me each night. My goal is to know 500 kanji before I change families in a month. Which I should be doing with 10 a day anyway...

In other exciting news, I will have a host sister when I get back home! We are going to be hosting a Rotary student at our house starting in August and this week we found out who! She is a Japanese girl, from somewhere around Hiroshima, named Hikaru. I even emailed her in Japanese. All by myself!! :) So this is very exciting. I will get home August 1st and later in the month she will come! I hope I make a good host sister for her and I hope I don't speak Japanese with her. I want to help her learn English.

Speaking of host families, I have information about my third one now! Well, not really information about the family. I just know when I will be changing. May 24th. The day after my sports festival. It's going to be a crazy busy time then. May 23rd is my sports festival. That will go into the early evening. At some point that day (Saturday) my stuff will be sent to my third host family's house, but I will still be staying the night at my current house. The 24th is a family rotary dinner. I will go to that with the Umezaki's and go home with my next family. Around lunch that day my school friends want me to go to a party that they are having to celebrate the sports festival (?). Hopefully I will be able to go to that too, but we will see.

Preparation for the Taiikusai (sports festival) is really starting up now. My whole class is just so excited about it. You can feel it in the air. And we are still a month away. I have a feeling that this is a bigger deal here than anything we have in America for schools. This is bigger than Homecoming, which is the only thing that I can think of to compare it to. They are talking about strategies for the races, discussing the opening skit thing we will do, brainstorming ideas for t-shirts and costumes, and talking about the competition in every spare moment they have. Japanese girls hardly ever run, and more than one girl was telling me that they started running to train for this. We are going to have practices before and after school for the team events. I am starting to feel the pressure. I found out today that I am in the first heat, lane one of the 400m dash.

Oh, and going back to the opening skit... I saw the one from last year and it is more like a dance or show than a skit. There is no speaking in it. I guess the theme we picked for it this year is like time travel or something along those lines. Because this year is the 150th anniversary of Japan opening trade. Thanks to Commodore Matthew Perry. Guess who is going to be playing Commodore Perry in the skit? Yep, the American. They almost cried with happiness when I agreed to do it. For this whole taiikusai I have just decided that I will do anything they want me to do. I am going to have so much fun with this even if I have to dress up as a man and dance in front of a huge crowd.

I mentioned before that my Japanese has gotten better recently. Well, lately I have been understanding more of what goes on around me because of it. This has resulted in me finally being able to understand what people say about me, which is quite amusing to listen to. I always try to listen for comments when I walk to or from school now because I pass a lot of other students, most of whom are younger than me, on my walk to school. I hear lots of people I pass whisper dekai!(huge!) or sugoi!(wow) as I pass, but a few cuter ones happened today. I was leaving the school and there were three middle school girls sitting on a bench. One calls my name (maybe to see if it was my name) so I look back and smile. They all go "kawaii, ne?" Then as I was walking down the street there was a group of maybe 7 middle school girls walking a ways in front of me. One of them saw me and whispered, but I could hear, that I was behind them. Some of them turn around so I smile and wave at them. They all say, "Abbey wa kawaii, ne?" (Abbey's cute, huh.) and "amakunai?" (Isn't she sweet?) That made me laugh. Apparently middle school girls think I am cute and sweet.

RYLA... and stuff

2009-04-21T01:21:00.001-07:00

Saturday (April 18) I went to RYLA. RYLA stands for Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. We were told about it in our district meetings at the beginning of the months. Each of the exchange students had to pick a food from their country and we were told we would be teaching a group how to make that food. It didn't really sound too fun, to be honest. Even the rotex people said they didn't think it was going to be very fun.

... but it was awesome!

We all met up at Kanazawa-hakke station. Well, that was the plan. A few of the other exchangers were late and met up with us a bit later. From there we went to the center RYLA was being held in. It was pretty much a big cafeteria with a huge kitchen. The ingredients for each meal were out on tables. Each of us had been assigned to a group of about 12 people plus an outbound to our country. Vincent and I had been told that we would be working together because we were both from America, but they ended up splitting us up. We just combined our groups. Let's be honest, hamburgers and cheeseburgers are practically the same thing. We had planned on doing them together anyway.

Eventually all the RYLA participants show up. This RYLA was for 17 to 30 year olds (as opposed to the RYLA I went to in America that was for high school students). Perfect. I get to teach a group of 24 people, all of whom are older than me, how to make hamburgers (which I have never actually made myself before) in Japanese. ...all right. The groups were seated by tables and they introduced us to our tables one at a time. When I was going over to my table I heard a couple of the girls at it say "oh, kawaii!". That kind of made me laugh...

My table with our food. That is Maki across from me.

Anyway, the guy in charge kind of babbled on for a really long time explaining each of our meals. He took like 3 minutes to explain what a hamburger is. Then another 3 to explain the cheeseburger. Just in case someone didn't know... Finally we all get into the kitchen. Vincent, Kouhe, Maki, (Kouhe and Maki are both going to America this year) and I look at each other. Now what? ...

Vincent, Kouhe, and me. I'm not sure where Maki was...

After a slightly awkward pause with everyone staring at us, I go... "Okay, we are going to need people to cut vegetables, people cut the buns, and people to make patties..." I was mostly just thinking out loud in Japanese, but people started doing what I said. It was amazing. I was totally in charge! haha! After some group effort to find all the knives and cutting boards and things they just got to work. They would ask me how I wanted the various veggies cut and then they did it. Wow, I love being in charge of big groups.

Don't get me wrong, this was a team effort. Technically, Vincent was just as much in charge as me. But he has this idea that he can't speak Japanese so I was the one talking to the group. Kouhe and Maki were really good for helping translate or explaining what I was trying to say. Vincent did an awesome job of giving them examples of how to cut stuff and how to make the patties. I really didn't do much at all. There was just nothing else to help with so I supervised.

French Fries!

And the burgers.

In the end we made some delicious hamburgers and french fries. Seriously, they were good. The other inbound's meals were all good too. I tried them all! And ate way too much. I got to try ceviche for the first time. Iliana (Mexico) and Felipe (Ecuador) both made it. Iliana also made tacos. It was really good! I really love my rotary group here. I can't believe that this was our last activity all together. Iliana and Felipe will both leave early next month.

What a fun group

The camera man got to have one too. Well, there is a reason the camera man is eating our burgers. Vincent stole one before we were done. It was a doulbe decker. He tried it and said it was really really good, and that I had to try it. The camera man sees Vincent trying to stuff this huge burger in my face and comes over to take a picture. Next, Kouhe got to have some. Then we asked the camera man if he wanted to try it. He ate the rest. hahaha
I hope we get copies of his pictures...

Because Iliana is leaving so soon we decided we needed to have one last sleepover before she goes. Saturday night I stayed at her house. It was really nice. We got to talk a lot and I had the best night sleep I have had in a long time. Her bed has a real mattress and we slept in until 8:30!

On Sunday we went to an Odori at the National Theatre of Japan in Tokyo. My rotarian, Mr. Yoshida, invited me to go see it because his wife was in it. He gave me 3 tickets and told me to bring 2 friends along. I brought Iliana and Katja with me. It was really pretty cool. I am glad I got to have that experience. The dancing is very slow and the music is very traditional, but it was a really good cultural thing to see. The kimonos and costumes were beautiful! I enjoyed it. His wife was in two of the songs, including one with the huge wigs like in the picture below. I couldn't take pictures of the actual performance, for obvious reasons, so I found this online.

This dance is called the Renjishi. They are playing lions.

From there Mr. Yoshida and his daughter took us to Kaiten-zushi!! (conveyor belt sushi, which is pretty much the best invention ever.) Katja had to go home early so she couldn't join us there, but it was fun to see her during the day. I had a very busy, fun weekend.

Question and Answer

2009-04-17T00:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently my blog has become a question and answer wall now. :) But it's good. Sometimes I can't think of things to write about and it is hard for me to figure out what is interesting from my everyday life. So, if anyone has questions drop me a comment and I will try to get back to you in the next post.

These are also from Abbeyfan...

Q: Do you walk to school?
A: Yes, I usually walk to school. If it is raining I take the bus, though. But I really don't like taking the bus because there are so many people on it.

Q: How far away is it?
A: My school is about one mile away. And on the way there it is all uphill... a really steep hill. It takes about 20 to 25 minutes to walk there.

Q: Is it further away to your school there than from your house to the IHS building? (Maybe you could walk to school here, too....)
A: Haha! That's a good one! Why would I walk when I will have such a willing father to drive me? Besides, you are forgetting the part where walking to school in Ironwood means walking in below freezing weather for half the year.

Q: Do you do any cleaning up around the house, or does you hmom do it all?
A: Yeah, my host mom pretty much does it all. Except for my room and my laundry, obviously. Although sometimes she comes in to vaccume my room for me... I have offered to help, but she always tells me to just go relax. I guess she has her system and I would probably get in the way anyway.

Q: Do you help her cook?
A: Yep! I usually stir stuff. haha. But lately I have also gotten to help by cutting things, too! I'm moving up on the level of trust here. She let's me use knives... But seriously, I like helping her cook. Maybe I will be able to take a few recipes home. :)

Q: Do you watch television?
A: Yes. Sometimes, but only with my host family. I never watch it when I am home alone.

Q: Do you get to watch any Japanese game shows on television?
A: Sometimes I do. Japanese T.V. is pretty rediculous in general, but the game shows are just strange. Nothing has come close to that human tetris one from YouTube though... I wish that was on T.V. here.

Q: Have you been to a sumo wrestling thing yet? Are you going to?
A: I haven't gone to one, and I don't think I will be getting the chance. It is not one of the Rotary trips that have been planned for us.

Q: So for P.E. what else do you do besides get ready for the Sports Festival by marching to the radio? (What's up with that???)
A: Well, to start off with, we don't march to the radio, silly. We to the streching routine to the radio. We march to... a marching song with a really quiet percussion part. Other than that, I am not sure what we will be doing this year. Last year I did volleyball, badminton, and ping pong for about 2 months each. Friday's gym class is volleyball though. I'm not sure why, but I think it has to do with some competition at the end of the year before they graduate. That's what I understood from the lecture, anyway. I understood something along the lines of "you have to learn the rules of the game because we (teachers?) are worried that you will lose because you don't know the rules." But then again, the next thing I understood was about how we represent our school when we wear our uniform outside of school and everyone knows the uniform. So maybe I'm wrong.

Q: Did you switch to your summer uniform yet?
A: No, not yet. I guess we will switch in May. Which means I am going to send a box with my winter uniform and jackets in it home before I switch families again.

Here is a link to a YouTube video of the radio exercises. The one my school does is the level two part (when they are wearing red shirts). Now imagine hundreds of japanese girls that know this by heart and then me trying to follow along in the back. In front of all the parents and school staff memebers... oh, boy.

School (again)

2009-04-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I am going to write anther post about school. Sorry for being so boring, but Abbeyfan asked about a million questions in the comments of the last post so I figured I would answer them. :) Anything for my biggest fan.

Question: What do you do in cooking class?
Answer: I don't know yet. Cooking class is on Mondays and I was skipping school last Monday to take AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie to the airport. I will be sure to let you know if it is anything interesting though. I hope we learn to cook Japanese food.

Q: What do you do in your social studies class?
A: What do I do, or what does my class do? Those can be very different things. (haha) From what I can understand, which isn't a lot because this teacher talks really fast, it is... yeah, I don't know. I think it is mostly Japan, but he did ask me if we have any "coming of age" traditions or holidays in America. We don't. Or else I lied to my whole class... Anyway, during that class (the 2 times I have had it so far) I either try to pick out words that I know or I study my flashcards. The listening practice usually lasts about 10 minutes before I get sleepy or distracted. Then I just study on my own. At least I will learn something that way. The teacher doesn't seem to care what I do anyway, so that's nice.

Q: In counseling, do you learn counseling, or do you get counseled?
A: I get counseled. I guess. The American teacher here has kind of taken to being my counselor in the lessons we had last year even though I don't need it at all. We just talk about stuff and if I had any problems I could talk to him during that time. We usually end up studying Japanese anyway. My life is always perfect.

Q: What religion do you study?:
A: Well, I attend a Catholic school, so I am assuming that that is the religion we are supposed to be studying. But yesterday we studied Pablo Picasso. I couldn't figure out the tie to religion myself, but it's okay. The only lesson that I remember actually being about the Catholic religion was the one that was on the parent open house day. Parents could come in and watch the classes. The class is usually pretty fun though. If my Japanese is good enough that day to understand the jokes.

Q: What do you do in PE?
A: I believe I gave a rather thorough answer to this in the last entry... I am not sure what sport I will be doing when the Sport's Festival is over though.

Q: Do you get to show off your massive athletic skills?
A: hahahaha! Only my massive ping pong and badminton skills...

And I will sure try to get around 58 seconds in the 400... haha. Yeah, right! I'll be happy if I get under 80 seconds! If I get worse than that I think I might be banned from joining the track team next year. Oh, and I am runner number 7 of 8 in the 8X100m relay. That's almost the anchor. :)

New School Year

2009-04-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

The new school year in Japan sure has a different feel to it than the new school year in America. Maybe that is because they lack the 3 month break from studying that we get in the summer. But, regardless of how it feels, a new school year is here. That's right, I am a senior.

The only things that have changed are these: My classroom moved over 2 classrooms. My grade, which is split into classes A and B, was all shuffled up. I now have some new classmates mixed in with old friends that are still in class A with me. I got a new and improved schedule. And I love my school for it.

Third graders at my school are expected to study so hard for their pass-or-fail-life college entrance exams that they get tuesday and friday afternoons off! And that includes me! My schedule for the rest of my stay in Japan is the following:

Monday: English 2, Japanese Expression, Japanese Lessons, Study Hall, Lunch, Cooking for 2 periods.
Tuesday: Japanese Lessons, Social Studies, Calligraphy for 2 periods, Lunch, Go home.
Wednesday: Japanese Lessons, Counseling, Social Studies, Religion, Lunch, P.E. for 2 periods.
Thursday: Japanese Expression, Japanese Lessons, Calligraphy for 2 periods, Lunch, Study Hall, Long Home Room.
Friday: Japanese Lessons, Study Hall, P.E., Japanese Lessons, Lunch, Go home.

Japanese Lessons are just me and one or two other teachers, which change each day. Study Halls are just by myself to study or do homework that may be assigned in my lessons. Seriously, my school is awesome for doing this for me. These teachers definitely have other things they could be doing besides tutoring me in Japanese. All the other classes I have are with my classmates.

Calligraphy, for example, is just me and two other girls from my class. It was actually really good. I think that the 3rd year class is the teacher's favorite class to teach because it is so small and girls aren't in it just because there is no final exam. I am really excited about this class. Starting tomorrow I get carve the stamp of my name that goes on my final works. Out of granite.

Today, P.E. was preparation for the sports festival coming up at the end of May. We practiced marching (lucky I have had all that marching band practice!), then we practiced the "Radio Stretching" routine to music. After that we decided who is going to do what events in the festival. I was chosen/ volunteered to be in 4 events. Which is the maximum you can do. I will be in the 400m dash (my goodness, I hate that race), a massive game of tug-of-war, some crazy one where 6 people link their arms through the person-in-front-of-them's shoulders and then run together (I have a feeling I am too tall to be helpful in this one), and I am also in the big relay. It is the last and most important event of the day. A relay with 8 girls, each running 100m. I have had girls asking me all week what my 100m dash time is. Unfortunately I am too slow to run it in high school track so I have no idea. We did do a practice run and they all started cheering like crazy when I started running. Then everyone told me I am so fast! haha. I guess they have never seen a real track meet, but I don't mind. :)

AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie

2009-04-14T01:50:00.000-07:00

Well, the day I have been waiting for for so long finally came... and went. AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie came to visit! It was so good to see them! I can't believe how big Katie has gotten. Last time I had seen her she was just learning how to walk on her own, only managing to take a few steps before falling over. Now she walks, runs, dances, and talks like crazy. My host family, especially my host mom, thought she was adorable. My host family's dog also liked her... but I don't think that one went both ways.

It was really nice to be able to talk to family members in person again, especially AnnaMarie. I can't believe it had been over 7 months. At the airport the first thing Kaite did when she saw me was say "Abbey" and then she just let me hold her. She was pretty out of it at the time. It was, after all, about 2 in the morning their time.

Showing off my Japanese skills was also pretty fun. AnnaMarie's Japanese is still better than mine though, even though she hasn't had a chance to use it since college. It was really fun being able to use Japanese together, and we will definitely have to come back to Japan together someday.

My host family was amazing for letting them stay at the house here. It made it so much easier (and cheaper!) than finding a hotel and trying to meet up every morning without cell phones. I think my host mom had a blast cooking for the extra people, as we were never hungry and we usually skipped a meal when we were out on our own.

In preparation for AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie coming, I discovered something about Yokohama: There are not very many touristy things to do here. Unless you want to do shopping, which they are going to do when they get to China. Good thing Yokhoama is so close to Tokyo.

They flew in on Thursday afternoon (the 9th) and we got back from the airport by 6:30. Then we had dinner with my host mom at home and they all got to bed early. I stayed up a little and had Japanese lessons with my host mom.

Our first day (Friday) was the only day that was actually well planned (sorry guys!). We went down to Kamakura and then to Enoshima. My host mom went to Kamakura with us and we also met her friend who works at the tourist information center down there. They took us to the bamboo temple (at my request), the big famous temple that I can't remember the name of, and the Daibutsu (Big Buddha). My favorite was the bamboo temple. The cherry blossom petals were all falling off the trees and it was so beautiful. And Katie had a blast trying to eat all the rocks and picking up the little petals. Enoshima was nice too, and there were lots of stairs for Katie to climb.

Saturday was supposed to be our Yokohama day. Because AnnaMarie's computer wasn't working and I didn't have a very good plan anyway, we decided to change plans. In the morning we had a picnic at the park with my host mom, who made an awesome obento breakfast for us all. Then we went to Shibuya to find the Apple Store. From there we found the Children's Palace, where Katie had a good time once she woke up. For dinner that night we went to my first host family's house. I hadn't seen the Nakanos since I had come to the Umezaki's house so it was nice to see them again. Although Toru did ask his dad "why?" when we all got in the elevator to go up to their apartment... hmm...

Sunday morning we said goodbye to my host family and thanked them and went on our way. We stopped at Shinagawa station (on the way to Tokyo) to put the suitcases in lockers and then went to tour the city. We really should have dropped our bags off later so we wouldn't have had to double back, but it all worked out. We went to Asakusa, where there were tons of people because of some ceremony going on. We did end up finding a little temple (?) that was out of the way where Katie had a blast chasing some pigeons. After that we went to find the Emperor's Palace, where we walked around some of the gardens. Katie wanted to stop at every single bush and pebble she noticed so it was slow going.

From there we went back to Shinagawa, and then up through Tokyo again on the way to Narita. We found our Hotel and got settled in. Monday morning we took the train to the airport (the next station) and we said goodbye. I miss them already. Especially little Katie. She is such a fun, energetic girl! Everyone that saw her smiled or said how "kawaii" she is. But I will be home before I know it and they will be living in Minneapolis so we can visit a lot! Thanks for coming guys! I love you!!

Picking them up at the airport on Thursday.

Katie in front of a cherry blossom tree at the bamboo temple

Me and AnnaMarie

Me, my host mom, AnnaMarie, Tyler, and a not-so-happy Katie.

Tyler and Katie playing with cherry blossom petals at the Emperor's Palace.

Hanami

2009-04-05T20:58:00.001-07:00

It's sakura season in Japan right now. Yesterday was the best day for viewing the cherry blossoms because all the trees were in full bloom. They have the updates on them every day in the newspaper and news. They sight out the best places to go to hanami and tell what day is the best to go for different areas of the country. If you don't love sakura, you are not Japanese.

Sakura Blossoms close up

They really are very beautiful. I went to hanami with my host parents on Saturday morning and then again with my friend on Sunday (yesterday) afternoon. Hanami is like a picnic. You go and sit under the sakura trees and eat yummy food and a usually people drink.

It was such a beautiful morning

I woke up on Saturday morning at about 7:45 and wander downstairs. Breakfast is usually around 8. I'm still in my pajamas and my hair is all crazy and my host mom (who is up at 5 every morning) is like, "Papa and I are going to go to Hanami for breakfast. Want to come? We are leaving in 5 minutes." My reaction "....huh? (I had just gotten up like 3 minutes ago) ... okay." So I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and put my hair up and we went to hanami.

Me under the Sakura trees.

It actually turned out to be really nice. I got to take some pictures with my host parents finally. And the blossoms were beautiful. We went to a park called Mitsu Ike Koen (3 Pond Park). It is so named because there are three ponds there. It was only like 8 in the morning, but there were already tons of people. I probably should have put something nicer on.

Me and my host mom and dad

On Sunday I went with my friend Rina. We actually ended up going to the same park, but I like it. And it is pretty close to my station. I met her at Tsurumi Station on my way back from church. I love when I get to go to church here. Anyway, we had our lunch and a nice chat and then we wandered through the park.

Rina and myself

There is this huge roller slide there. It's amazing fun. Yes, we decided that we weren't too big to stand in line with a bunch of little kids for ten minutes to get our turn.

This is us at the very end. Yeah, we got a few funny looks...

After that we ended up trying to find purikura, but failed. I can't believe there are no purikura places around Shin-Yokohama Station! But we did find an imported foods store. Those are always fun to wander around. They even had root beer, but I didn't buy it. That is one thing I can't wait to have when I get home. Root beer and pizza. Yum....

Just Me and My Host Mom

2009-03-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

I got back from my rotary trip on Saturday night. Sunday morning I left for Yuzawa in Niigata Prefecture of Japan . It is on the western side of Japan. I repacked my suitcase and we were on our way before lunch. There was nice weather, so we ended up driving rather than taking the bullet train. But it was nice. It was only like a 4 hour drive and I slept for most of it, so it wasn't bad at all.

My host family has two separate apartments in Yuzawa, which is an onsen and ski resort town. Yuzawa is so beautiful! It is right in the mountains and everything is white from snow. The ski hills are still open, for the most part. There is this tunnel about 6 miles long that goes through one of the mountains. When you get out on the western side of the tunnel the whole scenery changes. It goes from spring colors of green and brown to the snow covered, wintery mountain scenery. It was so cool! Outside the window of the apartment we slept in there is this river running by and mountains all around.

The view out the window of the apartment

We went to the other apartment too. It is about 3 minutes by car. I guess they have two so when they bring friends to Yuzawa their friends stay at the second apartment. The second apartment had a nice gym that I used and really nice onsen because half of the complex is a hotel.

My host mom and I just spent three days relaxing, working out, going to onsen, and studying Japanese. It was awesome. And I love onsen! It really is something that you have to accept as Japanese culture before you can see why they enjoy it. For those of you who don't know, onsen are public baths in Japan. It's almost like a huge hot tub. You just sit and relax. At first the water is really hot, but once you are done it feel so good. You still feel warm a few hours afterward.

At the gym I got to use actual workout equiptment for the first time in forever! My arms are still sore. But it felt so good to work out.

Eating Tako-Yaki (Octopus Balls) in the car on the way home. Yummy!

It was a really fun little vacation. My host mom is so nice for taking me with her. It was also fun to go just the two of us. Host-mother-daughter bonding. I got back from that yesterday. Today I am taking it easy and starting tomrrow, the rest of my vacation is going to go so fast! I am busy every day.

And in one week from tomrrow, AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie come! I am so excited to see them! Plus I really need some new shoes (thanks AnnaMarie!).

Oh, and my newest news. I am probably going to have a thrid host family! I guess one of the rotarians in my club wants to host me. I am going to meet him and his family and talk about it on Saturday. Wish me luck! Meeting your new host families is a little scary. I am sure it will all work out fine, but so much of your exchange depends on your host family. I hope my third is as good as my first two have been. From what I understand, the one thing that makes this a maybe is that they live a little far from my school. They live in Tokyo. But it would be closer than the my first host family's house was, so it would be okay. And for about half of the time I would be staying with them I would be on Summer break from school anyway. So, we will see.

Rotary Trip!

2009-03-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

My Rotary District (D2590) and the district south of us took a trip together. We went to Hiroshima and Kyoto. It is such an awesome experience to get to see other parts of Japan. And I don't think you could ever find a group of people that are more fun to travel with. There were outbounds, inbounds, rebounds, and rotex all together! It was really fun to get to know the outbounds and get to know everyone else a little better. I had met most of the other district's inbounds before, but there were a few new ones too.

Ruan, Vincent and I at the airport. It was pretty early but I was so excited!

Our flight from Hanadea Airport left at 6:55, so everyone had to be at the airport at 6. I had to get up at like 4:15, but that wasn't too bad. I am lucky enough to be living pretty close to the airport. I planned on sleeping on the plane, but I ended up sitting next to Ruan. That was the end of that idea.

We arrived at Hiroshima Airport, got on a bus and went to the Gembaku Dome and Park. An atomic bomb survivor spoke to our group (in Japanese, so I didn't really understand much of it), and then we went to the Atomic Bomb Museum. It was very sad, and I pray that nothing like this ever happens again. I have now had the opportunity to see both of the atomic bomb sites and museums in Japan. I am glad to have this opportunity, but it is still hard to see it.

You can see the Gembaku Dome in the back there.

We all ate obento in the park and then got back on the bus. It was one of those tour busses with the lady talking and talking and talking about who-knows-what as you drive. It was in Japanese, too. You can imagine that we all paid a lot of attention to her. The bus ride was fun though. One of the brazilian guys brought his guitar. He was really good, actually.

The bus dropped us off and we waited for the ferry to take us to Miyajima. Miyajima has this beautiful temple that is on the shore of the ocean. At low tide you can go up and walk under it, but at high tide it is standing in like 8 feet of water. Its quite famous. We took a little tour of the island, went to the temple, and then went to the hotel, which was on the island. After dinner we had free time. At some point we all took a walk back to the shrine and saw it at high tide. After that we had until 11 for free time. We all hung out in each other's rooms, played those crazy games that always come up at rotary conferences, and went to onsen! At 11 everyone had to go to their own rooms. I went to bed pretty early that night.

On the ferry to Miyajima

Ayumii, Lena, and I at Miyajima at low tide.

Here it is at high tide.

Friday morning we had breakfast and took a ferry back to the mainland. Then we went to the train station to ride the bullet trains! Bullet trains are amazing. I loved it. It's like an airplane. Without the uncomfortable pressure in your ears. We were in Kyoto by lunchtime. I got to see Osaka as we went through, too. Kyoto is a very beautiful city. It used to be the capitol of Japan, so there are a lot of historic places there. Our group went to Nijyou-jo, which is this huge fortress place. It was so awesome. It's one of those places that make you wonder how they built it. I can't imagine building it today, much less hundreds of years ago. Then we went to the Kiyomizu Temple. Japanese architecture is so cool. There is so much detail in it.

Our group (most of it) waiting for the bullet train to come.

Part of Nijyou-jo

When we got to our hotel we had dinner, then the talent show. I really dislike talent shows. Well, only when I have to be in them. I ended up singing the YMCA with 5 other inbound girls. It was pretty embarassing, but it's all good. There is no way to sing the YMCA and look cool anyway. Some of the other talents were pretty good. The boy that is outbound to America did these amazing card tricks. It was really magic! There is no other way he could do that. haha. The room had a stage, karaoke, and a good sound system. After the show was over we were allowed to use the karaoke still so we had a little dance party. I love Rotary converences. At 9 we had to get out of that room so we went back to our rooms and all hung out. At some point some of us went to onsen. Then at 11, the responsible rotex members sent us all to our rooms. At about 11:30 everyone else showed up in our room. Nobody wanted to sleep that night. We had a good time. At about 6, we sent everyone back to their rooms. Then we went to breakfast. After breakfast I got to sleep for about 20 minutes before the bus came to get us. I was soo tired!

Everyone hanging out in the hotel room

On Saturday we went to see the silver temple (which is on the back of the 10 yen coin) and the gold temple. We also went to this famous bridge and souvineer shop in Kyoto. It's famous to Japanese people at least. I had a really good time there. The bridge and river were so beautiful. Sometimes living in Yokohama makes me think that Japan isn't a beautiful country, but it really is. After that we took the bullet train back to Shin-Yokohama Station. From there I took the bus home, had dinner, and went to get some much needed sleep.

The Gold Temple in Kyoto

The trip was so fun! Especially just getting to hang out with the other rotary people and getting to know them. I am so excted for the Mt. Fuji trip now! It will be with the same group of people. It is so nice of Rotary to put these trips together for us, and I am so grateful that they do.

Mt. Fuji! Taken from my airplane window on the way to Hiroshima.

Spring Break

2009-03-31T16:44:00.001-07:00

I love Spring Break. This year's Spring Break is definitely the best one I have had so far. I have done lots of hanging out with friends, relaxing, and traveling. I have gone bowling, wandered around various parts of the cities, and even studied with friends.

Yeah, I think that was a gutter ball...

The Friday before last (March 20th) I got the surprising news that my friends were coming to Tokyo! Hanley and Yuzuha were coming to Tokyo with their Rotary District! I had met Hanley back in America and we ended up flying over on the same flight. He is in the same district at Yuzuha, who was inbound in my Rotary District last year. Their district people said it was okay for me to meet up with them. It was so fun to see them again! We went to Akihabara (famous for technology and anime) and then went to a museum on the Edo period of Japan. They are from way northern Japan, so I didn't think I had any chance of seeing them this year. Yay for facebook and knowing what all your friends are doing!

Yuzuha, me, and Hanley
On Monday (March 23), my host mom had planned a little tour of Kamakura for me and my rotary friends. My host mom's friend works at the tourist information center down in Kamakura and gave us a little tour. Her daughter and two of her daughter's friends also came. Camille, the girl from France, came too. We went to this zen garden and did a tea-ceremony. Then we went to a bamboo forest. It was so beautiful! We had Udon for lunch and then went to small, out-of-the-way temple to sit and chat. It was lots of fun. We even got to buy Murasaki-imo (purple sweet potatoe) ice cream! I love that stuff!

Zen Garden

Bamboo Forest

The next day I watched the WBC Championship game. Japan beat Korea! Yeah! Japan is number one!! And the last pitcher was so kakko ii. haha.

I also took a few days easy because I was a little sick. I wanted to get better before my rotary trip, which I did. My host mom has started giving me Japanese lessons, too! I love them. My host mom is so nice and she really does so much for me. I just hope she realizes how grateful I am. We have been reviewing the Kanji I used to know (how did I forget it all so fast?!) and have worked a little on grammer. She gives me little tests each day, so I have insentive to study. I have no problem studying for school back in America because I have always had a test or goal or some kind to work toward. Something definite. And once the test is over, you are done. Studying Japanese on your own every single day is so difficult! There is no end. No matter how much I study I still feel like I can never know enough. That makes it really hard to keep motivated and not just get frustrated with myself. So I am really happy to have these little lessons and tests. I hope we keep doing them once I get back to school.

And now for the big news that makes me so happy to think about. AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie are moving to St. Paul! AND AnnaMarie is pregnant again! :D I am so excited about this. It means that next year they will still live close enough to visit every once in a while. PLUS, Michael and Caroline will be living there, so we can all see each other! Now if only Marianne and Seth moved there... haha.

SPRING!

2009-03-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

I am loving the spring weather here! This whole week it has been up toward 70 degrees and sunny. It's almost hot today! Sunny days just make me so happy. It's only March and it feels like Michigan's June. I'm not really looking forward to the summer heat here again. But I love spring and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

People here are still wearing jackets and long sleeves, which is crazy. Only foreigners are wearing short sleeves.

Today was my last day of the school year. I am now a third year student! That means I'm a senior! Today was just a closing ceremony so I got back home by 11:30, which is nice. Now I am going to go get combini food for lunch because I am the only one home. Then I am going to Yokohama Station to meet friends and go bowling. :D Hopefully my score will by higher than 38 this time...

So I am now officially on spring break. And I have a busy one planned, so I am very excited.

Akira's Wedding

2009-03-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

Akira's wedding was wonderful. His family was really awesome, too. I don't think I could say enough about them. They were so generous and welcoming to me. My flight got into Fukuoka at about 6 o'clock on Friday night. Akira's dad picked me up at the airport. He had a little sign with "Miss Abbey Moore" on it so I would know who I was looking for. We then drove to their house.

I had been a little bit nervous about going there because I really don't know anyone. The only person I had ever met before was Akira, and I hadn't heard anything from him since I was 6. There was no need to worry, though. Everyone was so excited to see me. I felt so at home with that family. I didn't seem like they were strangers at all. Pretty much the first thing Akira's dad asked me was how AnnaMarie was doing. At the house I got to talk with Akira for a little bit. We looked at pictures from when he was in Ironwood and ones that I had brought with me of the family now.

Akira, Me, and his 3 nieces.

The whole family went out to dinner at a curry restaurant and we all talked. It was a rather confusing mix of Japanese and English. But it was fun. It was so awesome to talk with Akira about what he remembers. To be honest, he probably remembers more about how it was at our house 10 years ago than I do. He had some really funny stories, and good memories of Mom.

After dinner they brought me to my hotel and checked me in. I think Akira felt bad for sending me to a hotel, but there was no room at the house. Wedding times are so busy anyway that I think it was way better for me to be out of the way. The next day was the wedding, and they picked me up at the hotel at about 8:00.

Akira and Miyuki

Me, Akira, his brother and sister-in-law, and his 3 nieces.

The wedding ceremony was really interesting. It was all Japanese Shinto style. The wedding itself was only family and really close friends. They were so kind to invite me to it. The reception started at about 11. There were over 300 guests present. And everyone was served like a 9-course meal. It was really good, but there was so much food! I didn't even eat half of mine and I was so full. First they had like 4 or 5 Japanese-style dishes, then western-style dishes, then dessert.

Sake-barrel-cracking ceremony

Akira and Miyuki (his new wife) looked so good. For the wedding they were dressed in these really elaborate kimonos. A little while into the reception they changed into western-style wedding dress and suit. Then, they changed again. Miyaki wore this really beautiful green gown and Akira had a different suit on. They were really busy the whole time. I don't think either of them ate anything at all. Although Akira did get plenty to drink. Japanese drinking-culture is to give drinks to people as a sign of friendship or good-will. Akira, being the groom with 300 guests, was offered a lot of drinks. And you have to accept it.

Cutting the biggest cake I have ever seen in my life.

The reception went until about 3. Then we went to the after party. It was crazy, but fun. It was only the bride and groom's friends (ages 25 to 30ish) and me. I have never seen people drink so much in my life (Yay for orange juice!). And I never want to see it again. We were at a bar and restaurant. Then we went to a Karaoke bar for 2 or 3 hours. Then we went to Ramen at like 9:30. It got really interesting when the other guests discovered I can almost speak Japanese.

The whole day Akria's sister and sister-in-law stayed with me and took care of me. Which was really nice. When they went around to introduce themselves to Miyaki's guests and family they took me with them. :) "This is Akira's host sister from when he lived in America 10 years ago..." By the end of the party several people had come up to me, asking if I was Abbey. And a few people came offering drinks. Megumi was nice enough to explain to them all that I'm only 16 plus I don't drink due to my religion. I was the only foreigner at the reception. No, that's a lie. There was a guy who from Taiwan who had lived at the Sasaki's house as an exchange student. But he's asian too.

Me and Megumi

It was a long day, but it was good. I had a lot of fun. I stayed at the hotel again that night. Monday morning they picked me up at 10. We went to the house and had brunch all together. Then in the early afternoon I said thank-you and goodbye to some of the family. The rest of us went to do a little sight-seeing before bringing me to the airport. We went to the temple of the Buddhist god that has to do with studying. We ate tacoyaki, anko-filled mochi (I can't remember what they are called), and sweet potatoe fries from those little stands. Yummy. Akira's nieces were adorable! They would take my hands as we walked. Since I only have 2 hands and there were three little girls it was a bit of a race to get to me. It was really cute. They were lots of fun to talk to because they speak simple Japanese. I can see how having little host siblings who actually talk to you would help your Japanese a lot.

In the street that leads up to the temple.

We then went to the airport and ate dinner together. I then ran to security, said a too-quick good-bye to Akira and his family, and ran to my gate. I got there as the plane was boarding, but I got there in time. Good thing airport security only takes like 5 minutes here.

I really appreciate everything they did for me so much! They took me in and treated me like a famliy member during such a busy time for them. I hope I get a chance to visit them again someday. Akira said he will try to see if he can't get a business trip to Yokohama planned during the time that AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie come. That would be fun.

Going to a Wedding!

2009-03-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I should get this post done today or it won't get done for a while. I have to leave in about an hour for the airport. I'm going to Akira's wedding in Fukuoka. The wedding is tomorrow and I will be flying back on Sunday, so it's a short stay. I am excited to meet Akira again though. I haven't seen him for 10 years and I honestly don't remember a whole lot about him. His wedding is going to be totally Japanese-style, which is becoming more rare even in Japan. It will be a good experience.

I went shopping and got him a gift from the family. I guess it's not Japanese tradition to give gifts to the people getting married. They give gifts to the guests! And guests give cards with money. Oh, well. We are Americans so it's okay. This is what I got him.

This past week has also been pretty busy. I had school Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week is vacation. Monday all the girls got their results for tests back. I just sat around all day, but it was okay. The periods were really short and we had time at the end of a lot of them to talk because the teacher had nothing better for the girls to do. The classes are over now, I'm not really sure why we even have to go to school. Tuesday we had some assembly that I didn't understand. It was run totally by the students. From what I understood is was about budgeting for the clubs. Or something with money. Then we had like an hour to clean out our lockers. I gave most of my textbooks to the school. They can find someone to give them to next year. I don't want them. In Japan you have to buy your own books, so you get to keep them. Rotary bought mine. Honestly, there were a few that I never even opened. They still had the rubber band around them...

Wednesday I went with my friends to play tennis! It was so fun. I hadn't played for 7 months, so it was nice. The place we went to was cheap, too. It was only like 5 dollars each. For the half hour we got to use the court. But we split into teams (by rock-paper-scissors) and played each other. I won every game I was in. :D They were all impressed by my serve. haha. I was actually pretty surprised with it myself. Usually it takes me a few practices to have a decent serve again.

Yesterday (Thursday), I went shopping with my host mom. Our goal was new shoes for the wedding. I have huge feet for Japan. I wear size 26. Almost every single store carried up to 25.0. It was rather dissappointing and frustrating to be honest. Luckily my host mom was very patient with me. We did end up finding a store that sold to size 26, but they weren't very cute and they were all like 150 dollars. That's too much for me, but my host mom was saying that she would get them as a present for me. No way am I letting anyone spend that much on shoes for me! Especially if I don't absolutely love them. Well, I didn't get new shoes. But I know a website that has really cheap shoes in large sizes for Japan so I am going to order some. Maybe a new bag, too... there are some really cute and inexpesive ones on that site.

We did end up going to UniQlo (I love this store!). I found some tops that were on sale. I needed a new white top for a couple skirts that I have. I haven't been able to wear them because I forgot to bring a shirt that matched them. Good one, Abbey. And I found a new sweater zip-up that has long sleeves! Yay! So the day wasn't a total waste. I was going to buy my new thing myself, but my host mom wouldn't let me. She is so generous.

Today my host mom had me try on my dress (it still fits! phew!) for tomorrow. And she is letting me borrow some accessories from my host sister and herself. Yay! I love getting dressed up. Even if I don't have new shoes.

I am so sorry that I am being so boring with my posts lately. I have no fun pictures, again! But I don't have time today. I'm leaving for the airport soon. I promise that I will put up pictures when I blog about the wedding.

Oh, one last thing to tell you about. My friend Risako asked me if I wanted to go to Disneyland with her on Monday. :D It's a little expensive, but I want to go once before I leave, so I will go with her. I'm excited for that too now! It's going to be a very busy couple of days coming up. Hopefully I won't be too tired after my trip to Fukuoka because I get back Sunday night.

I'm Going to be a Third Grader!

2009-03-06T01:35:00.000-08:00

It didn't take me very long to settle into the routine for this family. My host mom gets up super early and does her thing. I get up at 6:30 and do all my morning things and get dressed. Breakfast is at 7:00. I wrap up my obento and put it in my bag, then I eat. I finish eating by 7:15 (it actually takes me 15 minutes to eat all the food she makes me.) and by 7:20 we go out the door together. My host dad and host sister's breakfasts are on the table waiting for them. My host mom walks the dog every morning so she walks with me halfway to the school and then turns around.

After school I get home around 4, depending if I have souji or not. It alternates by the week. At home I change out of my uniform, relax, use the computer, or sleep for a while. My host mom usually gets home around 5:30 or 6. Then I help her make dinner. My host sister, Rika, gets home from work at about 6:30 and then we all finish up dinner and eat. Sometimes my host Dad is home for dinner, but usually not. After dinner we all do the dishes together. Well, not my host Dad. But he is usually gone. I really don't see him a lot. After that we watch a little TV together or talk. Then I take my shower around 9:30 and do all my night time stuff. I am almost always asleep by 10:30. That means I get a full 8 hours of sleep almost every night!

That is my normal routine. However, this week was exams for my classmates. That means school ended by 11:30 or so and Thursday and Friday (today) I didn't have school. I came home and ate lunch with my host mom and then she would go off and do whatever it is that she does. I went for a few much needed runs. But it rains a lot here, so it's hard to run everyday. I try to take slightly different routes each day I run to get to know the area better. This would be a bad bad place to get lost. It's like a maze and I would never be able to explain where I am (well... there's a house...and a little, narrow, winding road... and another building) It all looks the same.

During exams I had Japanese Lessons. They were really good. The first day of tests (last Friday) I watched a movie about Hachiko (a famous dog, whose statue is at Shibuya Station. There's probably a wikipedia on him.). It was really good listening practice. Surprisingly, I followed the whole story. I didn't understand all the words and phrases, but I understood enough to watch it without feeling confused at what was going on. That made me really happy and now I want to watch other movies in Japanese! Then I summarized the story in Japanese. Good thing I have been practicing writing Japanese lately. I text message with my friends in Japanese. It's really good kanji practice too!

The other lessons were with one or two other teachers. We did grammer from books or just practiced speaking in Japanese. It's still hard, and it's really tempting to just use English when I know they speak it, but I'm getting it. LEVEL UP! As my friends at school say. But I guess it's really more like (reberu apu!). Where do they learn these english things? Anyway, my teacher Johnny (he is American) was nice enough to buy me JLPT level 3 and 4 study books. It's really nice of him. The JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) is a Japanese test for foreigners in Japan. But it is offered in America in December, too. Maybe I will take it then, but I'll be surprised if there is anywhere near Ironwood that you can take it.

The books are really good though! It goes through each particle and different common sentence endings and explains them and has lots of examples. The level 4 one has english translations, but the level 3 is in all Japanese. I finally understand the differnece between the particles は and が!

I really appreciate all the teachers for putting time into stuff like that for me. They could just make me sit in the library alone if they wanted to. Oh, and I also had a nice chat with the principal in Japanese. They originally were planning on keeping me in second grade when the new school year starts in April. But that would be so hard for me! I would have to make all new friends and learn all the names again. Really, I was pretty worried about it. The principal just asked me which I would prefer. haha. I told him I would like to be a third grader with my friends. I think they were impressed with my progress in Japanese (good thing they don't have any other exchange students to compare it to... haha!) and they know I have good friends in this class. So I am going to be a THIRD GRADER!

I came back to the classroom after the exams were all over for the closing ceremony thing and I told my friend that they are letting me be a third grader. All my friends kept asking me if I knew yet. She got really excited and then announced it to the whole class. Who broke into applause and cheers. :D Ohh, they really do like me! Probably they are just excited to have me on their team for sports day in May.

So yesterday and today were days off school. Yesterday I went mini golfing with my friends. It was really fun! The plan was to go bowling but there was a 3 hour wait to bowl! So we walked over to Minatomirai and went mini golfing. Yes, I lost. We had dinner together, too.

Today I did almost nothing. This morning I got up, had breakfast, and then went back to sleep. I went to my Rotary lunch, and then came home. At home my host mom finished getting things ready for her trip. She and Rika are going to the second house in western Japan for a few days. Rika wants to snowboard and my host mom wants to use the Onsen there. She wanted to take me too, but I have rotary tomorrow. :( So I am home alone now. My host mom had made me dinner and I warmed it up and ate it a little while ago. She has my breakfasts all there for me, too. Tomorrow I am just going to go out to eat for Lunch and Dinner. Probably for Sunday lunch, too. Conbini (convenience store) is good enough for me! Yay for cheap sushi and onigiri! But there are quite a few little restaurants around here. We will see. My host dad is supposed to get home tonight late and then leave early tomorrow morning. Because I am making my own breakfast tomorrow and I don't have anything to do until 2, when my rotary meeting is, I am going to sleep in. I'll have to find something to do to get out of the house for a bit though. Sunday I will go to church and my host mom will be back by dinner time so that's not a big deal.

So, that's what I have been up to lately. This is a pretty boring post. Sorry. I need to take more pictures. And do something interesting to blog about.

New Host Family

2009-02-22T23:38:00.001-08:00

Phew! Changing host families is a lot of work. But I'm done now! :) I changed families on Saturday (the 21st). In the morning I got up, finished up cleaning out my room for my host family and then went to Wataru's school. There was an open class day so parents can come in and see how the classes are run and stuff. It was interesting to see a Japanese public grade school.

After that we went back home for a little bit and then went out to lunch at Mamma Pasta. It was really good, actually. Then we went home once more, loaded up the car and said goodbye. It was sad to say goodbye to Mie. She was a nice host mom and we had some really fun chats at night after the kids went to bed. I learned the most Japanese from her.

Arriving at my new house, my new host mom met me in the driveway. She was so excited! Her happy, positive attitude made the whole thing go really well. She is such a fun lady! And this family has hosted students several times before so they really knew what they were doing. We sat down and talked with my ex-host dad and new host parents. Then I said goodbye to Masato and my new host mom told me to take my time unpacking all my stuff.

A few hours later my room was all organized and everything was unpacked as far as I want it to be. I headed downstairs. In the kitchen was my host brother, Kouji, and his girlfriend. They were making dinner. I introduced myself and then tried to figure out what to do with myself. The little kitchen was pretty full and they looked like they knew what they were doing so I decided to stay out of the way. I ended up talking with my host mom and showing her pictures and stuff. She absolutely loved the pictures of the cake that Dad made me for my birthday last year. (The one that looked like high jump mats with the picture of me high jumping over it.) And she thinks I have a wonderful father and family. She's right. :P

Dinner was awesome! It was a welcome Abbey party/ happy birthday Otousan party. Kouji lives near Yokohama but he came to make dinner and meet me and stuff. They ordered sushi and Kouji and his girlfriend made a whole bunch of delicious side dishes. There was so much food! Honestly, I haven't been hungry since I came to this house... I really am going to have to start running again. I guess Kouji worked or works at a restaurant so he knows how to make all sorts of awesome Japanese food. He said he could teach me! I hope he does. I want to be able to make Japanese food when I go back to America.

The next day I met my host sister. She had been away at her friend's wedding. She's really nice and fun too. I think we are going to be good friends. My host parents walked with me to school and to the station and stuff so I know my way around here a little. Boy is this a confusing area! We also got a key made for me.

This morning it was raining so I took the bus to school. Usually I will walk. It's about a 25 minute walk, but with the way they feed me here I'm going to need all the exercise I can get. My host mom had made me an obento for lunch! :D It was really good. On the way home I decided to walk... haha. I was going the right way for most of the time. I honestly don't know where I went wrong, but it wasn't too bad. I saw a bus that goes to my house's bus stop so I just hopped on it. Good thing they'd explained the bus system to me and told me the number of the bus that goes that way. haha. I will just try again tomorrow. And my host family doesn't have to know I got a little... confused. Not really lost. I had a basic idea of where I was. We don't need them to worry.

So, the new family is good. I also have one more host brother, but he is going to college in America right now. And he plans to get his green card soon. I talked to him on the phone for a minute or two, but I don't think I'll ever meet him. The house is huge! And really cool. There are lots of extra rooms, so AnnaMarie and Tyler and Katie can stay here when they come! I like everything so far. But everything is still new and exciting. I hope it all continues to go well once things get more settled in. Sorry I don't have pictures yet. I will take some soon.

Long-lost Host Brother

2009-02-20T03:36:00.000-08:00

I really should be doing other stuff right now, but I'm motivated to blog. For those of you who don't know, 10 years ago we hosted a boy from Japan at our house. His name was Akira. And that's about all I remembered about him.

A few weeks ago Dad suggested that I try to find out where he is and meet up with him while I'm in Japan. All we had was his name, home town, and the year he came to our district. Luckily, we have the amazing power of the internet here! My host dad looked for a rotary club in his home town and we found his sponsor club. We sent them an email explaining the situation and asking if they knew any way to contact Akira now.

As it turns out, Akira's father is a rotarian at that club. He got the email and immediately got us in touch with Akira. Akira emailed my host dad, who gave him my email, and then he emailed me. He was so excited to hear from me and he said he never would have imagined that I'd be in Japan now. He was so happy I remembered him and asked how the family is and such. I gave him the basic updates. It was a really nice email from him.

Akira is now engaged to be married! The wedding is next month in Fukuoka. I've been invited. At first I thought, no I won't go. It's too much of a hassle to arrange it with Rotary and school and his family will be really busy anyway. I'd just be in the way. But I guess they really want me to come because the Fukuoka rotary club sent a formal invitation to my rotary club for me to go down there. My host dad offered (without me knowing, I heard this later from my host mom) to go with me to Fukuoka, but my host club president said he wanted to take me. So, it looks like I'm going to Fukuoka with my club president.

Today I find out that my host club's president can't or isn't going for some reason. I'm not sure why. So, now it looks like I'm going to Fukuoka by myself. I still have no idea what's going on with how I'm getting there or anything. Honestly, I've been hearing all of this besides the email from Akira through my host dad or my host mom, who hears it from my host dad. Who knows what's going on?! I'll just let the rotarians decide what they decide...

Busy Days

2009-02-20T00:34:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I haven't blogged for a while again. I have been really, really busy. Today is officially 6 months, which is crazy. I honestly don't understand how the time keeps going faster. Tomorrow I change families. Which is a lot of the reason I haven't blogged. I've been super busy trying to get everything ready to go., but more on that later.

So, I'm going to try to make this pretty quick, but that might be hard. On Sunday, February 8, some of my Rotarians took me to Harajuku. It was AWESOME! Harajuku is like a really famous teen-shopping district of Tokyo. Parts of it are pretty cheap, too! :D We went to the different stores that we wanted to see and we had lunch at a really good pizza, pasta, and curry buffet. The rotarians were so nice and one brought his daughter along, so that was fun. They took me and Iliana. For Saki, the rotarian's daughter's sake, we used a lot of Japanese. Iliana wanted to speak English, but I felt bad not letting her into the conversation at all so I tried to turn it into Japanese. I know what it's like to not understand your friends when they are joking and having a good time... It's a little frustrating. I ended up buying a cute skirt and a really cheap scarf, which is also cute. I tried looking for shoes, but they don't have my size. I am going to be in serious trouble once these ones wear out. And believe me, they are getting close. So, I definitely plan to go back to Harajuku a few times.

Harajuku!

School has been going much better (not that it was ever going poorly) lately. Lots of different girls have realized I almost speak Japanese now so I have more friends and lots of people talk with me between classese and such. After winter break was over we changed our cleaning duties. I used to be on the classroom, where you just sweep the floor with the help of 6 other girls. Pretty easy. Now I'm on the bathroom! :) Of course. But I actually don't mind it. I have a good time with the other girls during cleaning.

Happi and Yuki-chan. They are such fun girls!

Rinna, Nozomi, Me, and Happi. You've gotta love Toilet Souji.

On the 11th I had they day off school so I made dinner for my host family! I made PASTIES! It was so fun! And they turned out really good. My host mom and I did it together, which was probably the best part. I really enjoyed mine, and my host parents liked it a lot. Wataru ate his without complaining, but I could tell he didn't especially like it. Toru, well, Toru didn't want to eat his. The first thing he said when he saw it was "oishiikunai, yo!". That literally mean, "That's not delicious". Then my host dad told him he had to eat it because I made it. Then he cried. I felt bad and told my host dad I didn't care if he didn't eat it, but they made him eat it anyway. So, there were lots of tears and loud crying. He ended up eating a tiny bit of the inside. How bad could it be? It's just vegetables. The next night Mie wanted to try making quiche, so she did. It turned out really good. The kids asked, rather hesitently, if tonight was American food, too. haha! They were disappointed and Toru refused to eat his dinner once again... Oh, well. New food is hard for little kids.

Toru, Wataru, My host dad, and me.

Mmm.. pasties. Did you know these are like 800 calories?! My host mom was shocked! (me too!)

On Valentine's Day I was invited to go to a Young Single Adults dance at my church here. I'm not really old enough, but I look like I am and I go to the YSA meetings on Sunday so they let me come. It was really fun! It was all social dancing, which I am really bad at, but it was fun to talk with all the different people. I practiced a lot of Japanese, but lots of people knew English, too. Lots of guys asked me to dance, so that was fun. Don't worry Dad, they were all too old. :) Most people I talked to asked me what my major was. I go: ...umm. I'm a high schooler. Then they go into shock. Then they'd usually stop the next person walking by and have them guess my age. They'd usually say something around 22 or 23. Only 6 or 7 years off, right? I'm pretty sure my age became a topic of conversation for people that weren't talking to me because everyone had "heard that" by the end of the dance... odd. So, it was lots of fun and it gave me an excuse to wear one of my dresses for the first time here. It was really formal dress, so I wore that cute black and green one I have that only AnnaMarie and Caroline know what it looks like. Sorry, but I didn't take any pictures there. I didn't know anyone.

Last Sunday, the 15th, I had a Rotary trip. We all went down to Kamakura. It was awesome! We saw the temples and Big Buddha and stuff. I'd seen it all before, but it was fun to see again with a different group of people. It was also really fun to see everyone again. We got to experience zazen. Zazen is buddhist meditation. It was.... okay. A really good cultural experience, but it made my back hurt. We did three 12 minute sessions. The monk, who was very nice, walked around with a big bamboo stick gently correcting people's posture. And if you signal him by putting your hands together in front of you, he will "help you focus your mind" with his "stick of encouragement". He slaps you on the back twice on each side. It's between the spine and the shoulderblade so it's not supposed to hurt too much. I didn't understand you had to ask him to do it to you until the last session and I was just about to signal him, but his seat was just to the left of mine, and he was walking from that direction, and then just as I was about to put my hands together... he sat down. The last session was over. It would have made a better story if I'd gotten hit....

Me and Iliana. Thanks Katja... :P

Then we got an exclusive tour of the temple there and ate lunch the same way the monks do. It was actually good food, but they made extra salads and stuff for us because we are guests and most of us were still hungry. No wonder those monks are all so skinny. All they eat is rice and soup every day. And no meat. We had tofu though... yumm.

Felipe, Ruan, Me, Vincent, Iliana, Korn and Katja.

After it was over we went to the beach and stood on the wet sand for a while then went to a mexican restaurant at Yokohama for dinner. It was fun. I was so tired by the end of it though. And I've been tired ever since.

Vincent, Camille, Katja, and Abbey

I can't even believe how this week flew by. I am spending my last night in this house tonight! Well, for 3 months at least. There's a good chance I'll be coming back which takes the sadness out of leaving. Dinner was sukiyaki! I love that stuff! Its like meat and vegetables cooked in sause and then you put it into your bowl of raw egg and mix it all up! Y-U-M! I will definitely be making that when I go home...

So, I now have almost everything packed. Just my school uniform and random things I've been using this week. Like computer cords and such. I think everything is going to fit in my suitcases and bags. Most of the new stuff I have now are big things like 3 coats, 2 school uniforms, shoes for school, and a whole bag of school books and supplies. At least I don't have to deal with a weight limit now. Hopefully the house I'm going to has an elevator or I'm on the 1st floor. :) Now I have to go sync my external hard drive and clear all my stuff off of this computer. I'll try to blog soon and tell you all about my new family. I still haven't seen the house, but it's supposed to be big! I'm excited, a little nervous, and still slightly stressed about all the stuff I still have to do.

I'm pretty sure that this is my favorite picture of the whole 6 months I've been here. And that ice cream was awesome! Sweet Potatoe flavor. We tried taking the picture from farther away first, but we had to get a little too close for comfort and I kinda freaked out... haha.

February Orientation Meeting

2009-02-10T04:21:00.000-08:00

Every first Saturday of the month is our "orientation meeting." That's where I give my monthly speeches. This month's went well. I hadn't seen very many of my rotary friends since the last meeting, so it was really good to see everyone again. My speech went well. It was short though, because I really didn't do a lot of speech-worthy things in the last month. I was always really busy, but I can't really remember with what now. Yikes...

After the meeting almost all of my rotary friends went to another exchange student's birthday dinner. I tagged along just so I could see everyone. There were over 20 exchange students there! It was crazy! Pretty much every exchange student from the area that I knew, plus a few more. We all went to T.G.I. Fridays for dinner. I stayed a little bit, but left early with Katja. For one, T.G.I. Fridays is SO expensive. Also, Katja said there was a "free jazz cafe" by her station that night. So I figured I'd go see what that was with her.

We bought dinner at a convenience store and then went to find this jazz cafe. She'd seen a sign for it, but didn't know exactly where it was. We found it pretty easily. It turned out to be an old guy playing a saxophone to a little tiny coffee shop full of even older people. And it was packed! We probably would have gone in and stayed for it if there had been any seats...

After wandering around her station and looking at all the little shops, Katja mentioned that there was a grocery store that sold lots of cheap snacks if I wanted to go there. It was probably like a 15 minute walk, but it was nice. I loved the store! It had tons of random snacks, including several things I haven't seen since I was in America. And everything was pretty cheap. We ended up buying a bag of banana chips and a bag of rasins and splitting half and half. It's proabably a good thing I don't live by that store. By the time we got back to her station it was a good time for me to head home. I had eaten an unhealthy amount of dried fruit on the walk back, too. It was a really fun night though. I love hanging out with Katja because we just do random, cheap things. And she is so fun to talk with!

As I was waiting in the train station I sat down on a bench. The lady next to me leaned over and asked where I was from and we started talking. It actually turned out that she was taking the same train as me when we changed at Yokohama station, so we talked for quite a bit. She was really nice. It surprised her that I was only in high school. When I mentioned my school was catholic, she asked what kind of catholic (Japanese people get the terms catholic and christian mixed up sometimes) school it was. When I looked a little puzzled she was like, "like mormon, or ...." I said, "oh! It's just catholic, but I'm mormon!" It surprised me that that was the first denomination on her list, so I asked her how she knew it.

It turns out that she goes to the mormon church closer to my school every Thursday for english lessons. Apparently, there is a weekly english class that anyone can take offered there. She said at first she thought I was a missionary! She isn't mormon herself, but it sounded like she might have gone once or twice. She was such a nice woman. She said she likes to try to talk with foreigners and practice her english, which was actually very good. It was really random, but it was fun to talk to her. It doesn't happen too often, but occasionaly someone will talk to me on the train and ask why I'm here and such.

Okay, sorry this is a pretty boring post. And there are no pictures. I'll get a better one up tomorrow about Harajuku. I have to keep my posts chronological though, or this would be confusing to read.

Ramen Museum

2009-02-06T17:35:00.000-08:00

I finally did it. I went to see the oh-so-famous Ramen Museum. If you ever try to google Yokohama, Japan one of the most popular results (for reasons I still don't understand) is this Museum. Wednesday (February 4) was another day off school. Due to the tests I explained in an earlier post. I made plans with my friend Rinna to go there. She thought it was funny that I wanted to go. It seems like everyone here knows about the museum, but nobody has actually gone to it...

In front of the "Shin Yokohama Raumen Museum"

Anyway, I met Rinna at Shin-Yokohama station, which I discovered has bullet trains! I'll get to ride one some day. It was my first time to this station. We set off to find the museum. She had brought with her a really cool little book of maps of different sections of the city with lots of details. (I liked it so much I asked her where she got it, and was planning on going to get myself one. The next day she brought it to school and gave it to me! Rinna is so nice!) The museum was, I'll be honest, slightly disappointing. When you walk in you see the gift shop and hidden behind that is the short history of instant ramen. That was fun to look at. The main attraction is downstairs. It is a replication of a section of Tokyo in 1958. The life size replication goes around the outside of the room, and then down in the middle area is the "ramen restaurant mall." There are 9 different ramen shops in this little area.

Probably the best part of the museum... :) I'm not sure what it is there for...

1958 Tokyo looked just like this!

When you have 9 ramen shops in an enclosed area that has poor ventelation (because it is in the basement) the smell is pretty overpowering. Each shop is of a different region's ramen, so they are all different flavors. We ate Fukuchan Ramen. It was good, but not the best ramen I've ever had. On the way out, we decided to do the ramen purikura. It was fun.

The middle area with all the ramen shops.

So, the museum itself wasn't that great, but it was tons of fun to go with Rinna. After that, we decided to go to the Nogeyama Daibutsuen (Zoo). It is a free zoo! I didn't even know about it until Rinna told me about it. We looked at all the different animals and had a good time talking. I'm pretty sure that my favorite part of the zoo were the cute trees shaped like different animals at the entrance. I know there's a word for that, but I can't remember it... Topiary! (I had to google it. haha)

Topiary!

This was the petting zoo. It was really icky... just mice, chickens, and chicks. The chicks were cute.

This was really cool! Rinna noticed that there was a female peacock near, and when it walked away this poor guy's feathers all sank down and then wandered after her. It was kind of funny...

After the zoo we went home to have dinner with our families. I had a really nice day with Rinna. It was so fun to get to know her more and talk with her one on one. Sometimes I feel like even though I have lots of friends at school, I don't really them that well. That's probably because I don't. Everyone is really nice, but its hard to make really close friends when you can't communicate fully with them. I hope it will get better now though. :)

Setsubun

2009-02-03T05:28:00.000-08:00

What the heck is a Setsubun, you ask? That's a good question. Let me go google it... haha

Okay, for real I didn't understand what the holiday was for. Communicating specifics is still rather difficult, so sometimes I don't ask. All I knew is that we were going to throw beans and then I was going to eat 16 of them (because I'm 16 this year).

Fukumame!

As I just learned from the wikipedia article, setsubun is like a celebration of the change of seasons, and although it technically refers to the change of all four seasons, it usually refers to the spring because that is the only time it is really celebrated. Today is the last day of winter, or the eve of spring.

With the going away of winter you also throw out bad luck or things that have happened in the last year. This is why we threw the beans. The beans are dried fukumame. I'm not sure what fuku is, but mame is bean. And these are lucky beans or something. Lucky in the asian sense of things being lucky. Which I think is a little different than the western sense of luck, but it doesn't translate to anything closer.

Toru, Mie, and Wataru trowing their beans!

Me throwing fukumame.

Anyway, Then you eat the fukumame. (Different fukumame, not the same ones you just threw off your 5th floor balcony.) You eat as many fukumame as you are years old. I'm 16 so I ate 16. My host dad turned 40 today (Happy Birthday to him. I might stay up till he gets home to wish him it. It's already 11pm, so I hope he gets home soon.) so he will eat 40 of them.

Toru and Wataru

It was a fun little tradition they have. :) Wataru (7) asked if we had setsubun in America and didn't understand why not. haha. Then my host mom told him about how parents hide easter eggs with money inside on easter in america. I had told her about it before. I had to remind her that it wasn't the parents! It's the Easter Bunny! haha He asked, rather hopefully, if they did that in Japan too. My host mom just laughed. What kid wouldn't like the idea of finding money-filled eggs in the house?

We did all this after dinner. Which was sushi! :)

So, today I had off of school, but not because of setsubun. I have today and tomorrow off because they are having entrance exams for my high school. So, even though the high schoolers aren't taking exams (grade/middle schoolers are taking exams to get into this high school) we get off school. Sounds good to me!

However, because it wasn't a holiday that people get off school for, it was only my school. All my school friends had already made plans with other people or their cram schools so I had nothing to do. But, I had decided that I was at least going to get out of the house for a bit in the afternoon so my host mom could get any errands that she wanted to do done without feeling bad for leaving me alone in the house.

In the morning I got to talk on Skype with Dad, Michael, Caroline, Benjamin, Christy, and Ryan. And I got to witness Calvin's first real crawling. All thank to the magic of the internet! :) It was really nice to talk with everyone. Ryan says some of the funiest things I've ever heard. And some of the saddest:

Ryan- "Abbey, why don't you live here anymore?"
Dad- "Because she is visiting in Japan for a while."
Ryan- "Oh. I remember when you used to be here." short pause and now in the saddest little Ryan voice you can imagine, "I just want you to come home, Abbey."

aww! I'll be home in a few months. :)

After I got off the computer with them, I found my host mom just starting to make an Apple Pie! This doesn't happen very much here. Or ever since I got here. We had gotten this huge box of apples and manderine oranges from my host mom's mom the other day, and I think she wanted to use some of the apples. This was real apple pie too! From a recipe book of American recipes in Japanese. Written by an American woman. So, I helped my host mom make apple pie as we had a nice chat. I really love my host mom. I'll miss her when I change host families. When she asked what to do with the extra pie crust dough, I showed her how to make rolly pollies! She liked them a lot! And the pie was dang good too! That's funny because I didn't even like apple pie when before I came here...

While the pie was baking, we made Yakisoba for lunch. I love that stuff. After lunch I decided (with a little encouragement from dad in the morning) to go on an adventure! I decided that I wanted to go to Chinatown and have a wander around. I've been there a couple times, but I'd never really stopped in any of the shops before and I figured that would be more fun to do by myself than anything else on my new "to do/see around Yokohama and Tokyo" list. So I set off.

I knew from looking at a little map on the internet before I left the names of the closest station, and the next closest one. I was planning to go to the closest station, but it turns out that that's on the subway, not on the train line I took. So I just decided to get off at the next closest one and see if I could find it. (For those of you who don't know, this is coming from possibly the world's most directionally challenged person. And I wish I was kidding.) I get off at the station, wander through the Motomachi shopping district for a bit and then find Chinatown! Yay! So then I wandered through Chinatown for a while and took some pictures. And I looked around the different shops.

Motomachi Street. It's a pretty famous shopping district of Yokohama.

Chinatown!

A couple hours later, I was on the train home. I didn't get lost or even temporarily confused at where I was. haha. I feel so proud of myself. It was nice to get out and just walk around and see a little of the city. I plan to do it more often now. Honestly, if I do get lost it's not really a huge deal. Even with my poor Japanese skills I can ask for directions to the closest station, and from there it's easy. haha. Maybe I won't always be so directionally challenged after all. :)

Rotary Dinner

2009-02-01T01:44:00.000-08:00

Last Friday night (January 30th) I went to a dinner party for rotary. They have these dinners every 5th Friday of the month, if it has one. It's just to socialize and, because this was the first one of the new year, this one was kind of a new year's party.

That means they did a few extra things to make it more fun or something. First of all, they had some kendo people come and do a demonstration.

Then they had a band. It was made up of a few of the rotarians and one rotarian's brother on lead guitar. It turns out that he is a famous Japanese idol. Or was in the 80's at least. He was lead guitarist for the band "Hound Dog." It has a wikipedia site, but it's in Japanese. :) My host dad was pretty excited when he found out who it was... he was really really famous for that generation. My host dad went over and shook his hand later in the evening. haha. I didn't actually meet the guitar player, but he was really good at guitar! It was very cool.

A rotarian and his younger brother (the rock star).

After we had this amazing performance by this super-star guitar player, it was my turn! haha. I'm not kidding...

They had a karaoke machine and a few people from the different clubs were selected to sing. And guess what?! They picked my host dad and I... to sing Dancing Queen... in front of 120 rotarians. bahahahah!

I had a good time with it, actually. It was fun. I'm not saying I sounded good. Far from it really, but I had fun. Here's the video. :) I'm so glad other people in this world are more talented than me when it comes to singing...

Well, I was going to put up the video, but it was too big. It was 132 mb and the limit is 100. And I don't have any software to edit it on this computer. Sorry guys. I'll get it up on Michael's site eventually.

Hashimoto-san and me. She was nice enough to take that video for me.

Bikes and Scooters!

2009-01-31T02:17:00.000-08:00

This one's for Daddy! :D These are some pictures of the bike-parking-place near my station. A lot of people ride those scooter things, and even more people ride bikes. You see every kind of person riding bikes. Old men, mothers with a 4-year-old in a basket thing on the back and a 2-year-old in another seat on the handle bars, women wearing skirts, business men in suits, and students in uniform. So, I think it's safe to assume that they have places like this at pretty much every station.

And a note about the scooters. Even though I am pretty sure it's not legal, they always go in between or along the side of the cars on busy streets. Especially at stoplights or in heavy traffic. And occasionally you see people zip up onto the side walk and then back onto the street to avoid waiting for a red light. What is it with these scooter people?! They just think the rules don't apply to them or something!

And yes, I go past here every day in the bus. Every time I pass it I think, "I should take a picture of this for Dad. He likes to see these kinds of things." It only took me 5 months to finally walk back the 2 minutes and take some pictures. Mostly because I am usually in a hurry to get to the station and because you look rather stupid taking pictures of all the bikes. haha

The first half or so is bikes, and the back half is scooters. What an awful place to forget where you parked.

I love you, Daddy!

Kakezome

2009-01-30T23:50:00.000-08:00

Japanese people have a lot of traditions around the new year. A lot of the cultural, special, or in some aspects of their culture, "sacred" things they do are extra special when they do it for the first time in the new year. Calligraphy is no exception to that. The first calligraphic writing of the year is called a kakezome. Usually it is done on the first of January, but I did mine at school. My first day back from winter break, we all did calligraphy for 2 hours and then went home. (I wasn't expecting that either. I thought we were going to have classes after calligraphy!)

This is my kakezome!

They were all submitted to a Judge (and the high-school's principal gave the one he deemed best a special award). It's possible that the principal was the judge, but I have no clue. Anyway, Last week one of my teacher's was like. "Oh! Good job on your kakezome! I was so surprised when I saw the name! It's really good!"

I was very surprised to find out that it was put in our school's art display in Queen's Square. Queen's Square is a big shopping plaza place very close to landmark tower. It is absolutely ginormous and mostly underground. The school's art was on display there for about a week so the public could come and see it. I ended up going to see it with my friend Katja (from Finland) on the 24th. The other art was amazing! There were drawings, paintings, ceramics, miniature models, and other things in addition to calligraphy. Honestly, my school has a huge amount of artistic talent. I couldn't believe these were done by middle and high school girls. Some of them looked very professional. I should have taken some pictures of the other stuff too.

Me and Katja- most, if not all, of the other kakezomes there were better than mine. I wonder if they just put it in there because I'm the exchange student.... hmm...

After the display was taken down from Queen's Square the kakezomes were put up in the entrance hall at school. I was once again surprised, and pleased to find out that I had gotten a bronze prize for it! This is the first time I've ever won an award for something artistic. Which might have something to do with the face that my drawing abilities haven't improved much since third grade. Yeah, stick people (and animals!) are about all I can do. I'm not sure how the prizes work. There was one special award from the principal, maybe a couple golds, a few silvers, and probably 10 or so bronzes. I'm so proud of myself! :D

Okay, this is not a good picture of me at all, but you can see the prize on the side of my kakezome.

These kanji together don't exactly make a sentence, but rather give the viewer an image. If they understand the kanji, that is. From top to bottom, the kanji have the following meanings: remainder, leftover, balance; snow; brightness, light; tall, high, expensive; summit, peak. The last two together mean "high mountain" or "lofty peak".

*note. These are the old kanji. Today, they are written a little differently.

The image that I came up with, which was actually very similar to my host mom's, is a high mountain peak from a little distance, with the snow glittering in the sunlight of a spring day, maybe at dawn.

My host dad gets the image of almost the same thing, but he thinks it is at night with the mountains silhouetted againts a moon-lit sky. And you can see the snow on the mountain peaks in the moonlight.

I think eveyone's image is slightly different. It's pretty likely that this is a line in an old chinese poem and if you read the whole poem, you'd get a more accurate view of what image the writer was trying to describe.

5 Months

2009-01-20T03:04:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted again, but I was waiting for something to write about. And time to write. :D

First the big news. I have officially been living in Japan for 5 months! Woo hoo! It seems like every month goes faster than the last. I remember the first month felt like an eternity. But this last month was so fast!

Next news... I have officially found out my day for changing host families. :D On February 21st, I will have lunch with this host family, and then move on to my next one. So one more month. I do really like this host family, but I am ready to change. To be honest, I am most excited to live closer to my school. Right now I have an hour and 15 minute commute to school each day. My next family lives about a 20 minute walk from the school. I will get to sleep till like 6:30 or 7 each morning! I am also excited to see how another family lives here. I'm sure they will do some things differently than this family. I will write about that once I actually change though.

Other things that have happened since I last posted. I had lunch with Iliana at Subway! My first Subway in like 5 months. Crazy! I've gotta say it's better in America. A little different somehow. And the 6 inch subs here are definitely not 6 inches.

I also went to the new James Bond movie. 007 Quantum of Solace. Yes, it just came out here. It's new to me, okay? I went with a few of my friends. Sakura, her friend named Ayo (a girl from the Netherlands), and David (from Czech). It was really fun. We went to the movie and then dinner at a random japanese restaurant. The movie was okay. LOTS of good action. The plot was okay. They managed to fit a car, boat, AND airplane chase into one movie. Can't get much better than that...

Oh! Monday in school I had manner's class. It was pretty interesting, actually. I learned how to bow, sit, stand, and give someone something (like a book) in the proper Japanese way. And then I got to have my turn demonstrating how to give someone a book in front of the whole class while another teacher took pictures. I'm sure I looked slightly confused, because I was. But everyone was really nice about it. They didn't even laugh at me too much when I totally didn't understand that "ippo" ment take another step forward! haha. I knew it was one something... I just couldn't figure out what. I thought the teacher was going to be really strict, but she was nice.

Today in school was a special all-day presentation to our grade level by a priest. It was actually pretty good. Almost like a really long catholic fireside in Japanese. :D We drew pictures of scenery, which then told us about ourselves. He named something and then we drew it on the paper however and whereever we wanted. For example, if you drew lots of mountains it means you have lots of goals. If they are in the distance it means that your goals are very long-term and maybe difficult goals... etc. Then we played some small group game with no talking. Then he talked and read us an Ampan Man book. (I understood from the story that Ampan (anko bread man) went to save someone who was hungry, so he had them eat his face. Then a whole bunch of people (?) came and ate lots of him. Then, a big sea monster ate him!... the part I missed was how the sea monster didn't like sweet food (ampan is sweet) so he spit him back out. I was a little confused at why the hero died in a children's book.) Then we had mass. So, today was different. That is always nice though. The same old schedule in school gets a little old and boring after a while. Especially when the classes all seem the same. (blah blah blah YAY! I UNDERSTOOD THAT WORD blah blah blah blah)

So, that's about it for now. Sorry it's not a very good post. I just figured I should put something up for you guys to read. :D Now it's time for bed.

Okinawa sounds like a fun place....

2009-01-11T01:03:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was my monthly Rotary Orientation meeting. All the exchange students (inbounds, outbounds, and rebounds) are there so its always a fun time to catch up with people. In between the long speeches the rotarians give to us, that is. And I know they are talking to the inbounds sometimes. I really hope they know that we don't understand more than like 5 percent of what they say to us. Well, if I try really hard I can understand about half (maybe) of what people say. But I loose focus after a few minutes. I'm sure someone will tell me what I need to know later. :D

My speech went well. I did it in all Japanese again. No more romaji for me! That is the worst thing in the world for anyone studying Japanese. Never get into the habit of using romaji. Just learn how to read Japanese right away. That's the one thing I should have done differently. And maybe started studying kanji sooner.

After the meeting was over I got to talk with the girl that is outbound to America. She doesn't have her placement yet, but she is in the Central States Region! That's the same as me! Maybe she'll be close enough to visit once when she comes. She's really nice. I can remember waiting for my placement. It was horrible! Mostly because I was pretty much the last person to receive my guarantee papers in our whole outbound group.

Then my rotarian, Mr. Fuyukawa, came to pick Iliana and I up for dinner. We went to shabu-shabu with him, my host dad, and 4 other rotarians. It was good. This was how part of our dinner conversation went:

Iliana: You should all come to Mexico! You can stay at my house by the ocean! It's beautiful!
Mr. Fuyukawa: Does Mexico have scuba diving? My daughter loves scuba diving at different places. She took lessons in Okinawa one year.
Me: Oh, cool! I would love to go to Okinawa! (in just a conversational way)
Mr. Fuyukawa: Abbey, you want to go to Okinawa?
Me: Yeah!
Mr. Fuyukawa: My family goes to Okinawa every August. Well, you'll be gone by then, wont you?
Me: Yeah, I leave in July.
Mr. Fuyukawa: How about May? During spring break? Do you want to go to Okinawa in May?
Me: Really?! I would love that!
Mr. Fuyukawa: Yes, Iliana can come too. Oh, but she leaves at the beginning of May. Maybe before that then.

:D So maybe, just maybe, I'll be going to Okinawa in May. I do have my doubts on this one though. It just sounds too good to be true. And he was drinking at the time. So you never know. But it's possible... What did I ever do to deserve such a nice host club?

Party and random thoughts

2009-01-06T02:40:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday I had a little party. Well, it was more of a get together than a party. There were like 11 of us and I rented a "party room" here at the apartment complex. It would have been better if we could have gotten the stereo to work with our iPods or at least had some games to play, but we didn't. Well, we did play games, but not like real games. Just group games. But it was fun. There were two Japanese girls and then a whole bunch of exchange students. And I think everyone, including myself, got to meet someone new. So that's always fun. :D After the "party" we all went to Yokohama and did purikura (short for purinto kurabu...print club). It's like a really fancy photobooth for those of you who don't know. Then we got gyuudon (beef bowl) for dinner because it's cheap and good. But really, it's a man food and girls don't eat it too often. I don't care. I like it. And there was a Japanese girl there before we got there, so it's not like girls never eat it. After that we went shopping. Well we just looked around. I don't think anyone actually bought anything. But it was a really fun day.

Top: Katia (Finland), Karuna (Japan), Ruan (Brazil), Bala (Malaysia) Middle: Felipe (Ecuador), Jonas (Germany), David (Czech Republic), Abbey (America) Bottom: Irwin (Taiwan), Iliana (Mexico), Chika (Japan)

It was a very full purikura booth. It's so cool that I have gotten to make friends from all over the world here. Seriously, there are 11 people in this picture and we are from 10 different countries! It's awesome! But also sad because we all live so far away from each other that once we go home, maybe we will never see each other again. :( I honestly think that if everyone got to have an experience like this there would be peace in the world. How could you ever hate a country or it's people after meeting them so personally? People are the same everywhere.

I am caught up again! Phew. I am really glad I got that done before I go back to school again. Tomorrow is my last day of break and I have plans so not much would have gotten done if I hadn't done it today.

So lately I've been thinking about my exchange as a whole again. Mostly because I have been on break and there is lots of time to think. And because I am now officially through the holidays. That's supposed to be a kind of turning point in your exchange. After this I should know my language pretty well. Apparently I'm a little behind in that department, but I'm working on it. And once you know the language well you can actually get to know people from school and stuff and find out who your good friends here are. From here on out, everything is supposed to go by so fast, and the next thing you know you are sitting on an airplane going home. Yikes. So, sometimes I feel like I'm leaving so soon, but really, I still have more than 6 months left. I'm not even halfway done yet. The past four and a half months have gone by so fast, especially the last two, that I don't think six months is going to seem long at all. So, I guess now its time to figure out what I really want to do with my time here. I have been having a really good time and making friends and learning the language and stuff, but is there something more I should be doing with my time here? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I don't want to miss anything.

I have decided that I want to work harder on my Japanese, especially kanji. I really want to be able to read and I really really want to be able to take and pass that AP exam in a year or so. It only took me a week or so to learn the first 80 kanji. 400 isn't that many. And even with those first 80 I have figured out what some things mean. Like the kanji on the toilet handle for big and little flush. I can read it now! Exciting, huh? I do want to be able to read more than the toilet, however, so I will keep studying that. Maybe my teacher at school will be able to get me some worksheets from the gradeschool or something. That would be fun. Actually I have discovered that I really miss school. Not school itself, but like homework. I know, that's crazy. I especially miss math homework. I thought I hated Algebra II last year, but I miss it now. Doing math homework made me feel smart. I never really feel smart here. I don't want to have to do all the homework in school in Japanese, but having Japanese assignments for me, to help my Japanese, would be awesome. That would mean making extra work for a teacher at school though, and since I'm not a real student there, I don't know if I want to ask for that.

The other thing I want to do here is meet more people. But not more Rotarians. They are very nice and generous and all, but I want to meet more teenagers. I want more Japanese friends. I have my friends from school and a few people that I have met at Kamakura, but I want to meet more. And I want to get to know people that don't speak english. As long as they'd be patient with me. That would force me to explain everything in Japanese, even if it is hard and I don't know all the words. However, I don't know how to meet people myself here. There really isn't much I can do about that one now. Maybe my next host family will be friends with families with kids my age or something.

Okay, that's about all I've got right now. Hopefully I'll be able to update again soon. This week I start school again and I have my two monthly rotary meetings. I can't believe that I have those again! That means a whole month has passed already. And I have to write another stinkin' speech. Yuck.

New Year's 2009!

2009-01-05T23:24:00.000-08:00

One of the traditions for New Years in Japan is for children to go stay at their parents' houses. My host family went to stay at my host Dad's Dad's house. There wasn't enough room for me there, so I went to Iliana's house for a few days. I think my host family felt a little bad for sending me off during the big family holiday of the year, but I didn't mind. And I had a really fun time at Iliana's house.

I went there on the morning of December 30. I wanted to go for a run before I went there, but Iliana insisted that I wait until I get there and then we could go together. So I did. I practically forced her out the door, but I really needed to go for a run. And she swore she wanted to the night before. We ended up running like 2K (that's 1.2 miles, Dad) in like 40 minutes. Which really means we walked most of it, but we had fun with it. I couldn't get Iliana to go again the rest of the stay. I am so out of shape again. I will be happy to get back to a normal schedule with school and running every day.

Anyway, that afternoon we went shopping together. I did end up getting a sweater to wear the next day, which was good. They surprised me and told me I was going to stay a day longer than I had packed for after I got there. Luckily, I had packed extra underwear. :) Then after dinner we played wii with her host family on their 65 inch TV and chatted with her host sisters and brother-in-law. I really love her host family. I hope my host sister in my next family is like her's are.

Me reading a book in Japanese to Himari-chan. Iliana's host niece. Oh, and that's my new sweater.

New Years Eve was fun. We really didn't do much, but it was nice. A lot like the ones back home. :D Except once it got to midnight, Dad didn't send us to bed. hahaha We played wii, watched some random, but really really funny show on TV, and watched the countdown. YAY, IT'S 2009! After that, at about 12:15 we walked to the temple nearby. We met up with some of Iliana's host sister's friends, too. At the temple we stood in a line about a million people (for real it was one of the longest lines I have ever been in) to throw our five yen coin (it's lucky to do it here) into the money thing and clap twice and bow. I tried to get a picture of it, but I looked at the camera in the first one and Iliana got annoyed and left just as he was taking the second one. haha. We got home at like 2 and then went to bed.

Iliana walking away...

We got up pretty early the next morning for the family breakfast. Its was osechiryori. Like a really big obento box. Iliana's host mom had this one ordered from a famous restaurant in Osaka. She had to pre-order it over a month in advance! But it was good. Most of it. I didn't try everything, because there were like 75 different things in it. For dinner we went to a family karaoke with Iliana's host sister, brother-in-law, niece, and their friends. That was fun. We did get to hear a lot of kiddie songs and see a whole salad AND a cup of orange juice hit the floor. Well, the salad landed on the bench for the most part. Oh, the other thing I did that day was watch The Chronicles of Narnia on TV in Japanese. That was actually really fun. I want to watch other movies I've seen already in Japanese now. Maybe I'll ask my host mom if she wants to sometime...

Breakfast... part of it. I still prefer sweet food at breakfast, but that's just not how they do things in Japan.

And of course I got to talk to Dad and Benjamin and Christy as they had their New Year's Eve party. I was pretty jealous of the monkey bread Benjamin had made. Iliana's host family kept saying how cute my family was. And how nice Daddy is. :D They're right.

January 2 was a fun day. Iliana's host mom had arranged for us to get dressed in Kimonos. A lady from Iliana's host club, who is friends with her host mom also came over with a lady who teaches traditional japanese things. It took all 3 of them to get us dressed. My kimono had 14 pieces to it! And it takes a professional to tie the obi in the back. It was a really good experience. We went to the temple nearby and rung the bell. I'm not really sure what the point of it was for, but it was nice. Everyone really stared at me because I was wearing a kimono. That was fun. Iliana didn't get quite as many stares because she has black hair and can pass for a Japanese person if you just glance. And she's short.

Getting dressed only took like an hour... that's the teacher by me.

Bun-chan, Iliana, Tomo-chan, Abbey, and Iliana's host father in front. I never realized that I look this tall... I'm a GIANT!

Iliana and I at the temple. Those ropes are attached to bells.

Abbey, Iliana, and Himari-chan

Wearing the kimono was fun. I always liked getting dressed up. And the teacher also did our hair. :D The kimono was quite snug and I'm not saying I'd want to wear one every day, but it was fun. After we got out of them, Iliana and I went up to her room and had some downtime. At about 4:45 we were just watching TV and I was almost sleeping when her mom knocks on the door...

"Do you want to go to Disneyland?"
"What?" (really confused because I was almost sleeping and it was in Japanese and it just sounded too good to be true.)
"Disney. Do you want to go?"
"Right now?!"
"Yes!"
"Disneyland?! Really?! Yeah, we want to go!!!!"
"Okay, hurry up. You are leaving in like 10 minutes. Dress warm. It's cold."
"Yay! Ahh, my hair!" (haha. I had taken it out of the up-do with the kimono and hadn't done anything with it yet. The plan had been to go to dinner at 7 at a pasta place.)

So Iliana and I very quickly got changed into warmer clothes and did our hair. We then piled into the car with her sister, brother-in-law and their friends and their kids and we were off to Disneyland! It took just over an hour to get there, so it really isn't too far away. We, well Iliana's family, paid the "after 6" rate so it was cheaper to get in. We arrived around 6:30, went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, watched the big parade with all the Disney characters, went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, and then went one the 3-D movie ride about the Honey, I shrunk the Kids movies. After that we had dinner, took some pictures in front of the castle, looked in the shops, and came home. :D It was a really fun little trip. I do still want to go back again though. I think maybe my host club is thinking of taking me there too, because I had so much fun at Disney Sea. So I hope they do. I didn't really see much of the park or go on the awesome rides like Space Mountain. It was lots of fun going with Iliana's host family, though.

Himari-chan and I in front of Tokyo's Disneyland!

Himari-chan, Tomo-chan, Iliana, Abbey, and Tomo-chan's friends. Tomo-chan's husband was taking the picture and that was everyone.

The next morning (January 3) I came back to my apartment. I had such a nice time with Iliana and her host family. It was a really fun way to spend New Year's.

Random pictures:

All of us in line at the temple. Except Tomo-chan's husband, who is taking the picture.

Rubbing the lucky cow on New Year's Day early morning. It's extra lucky this year because it is the year of the cow!

Church Dinners

2009-01-05T22:49:00.000-08:00

I am so glad that there is a church so close to me here. And I am grateful that I have the opportunity to addend it pretty regularly. All the members here are so awesome! There aren't very many youth here at all, but the adults are so nice. The last time I went (Dec. 28) I was invited to a couple different dinners at member's houses. The first one of them was for that night, so I met up with the Bishop, President McGerry and his family at the station where we got a ride to the member's house. I guess the purpose for the dinner is for home teaching and they hold them once a month. President put it as the "best home-teaching gig he's ever had." haha That night they had gyoza for dinner. Along with soup and side salads and sashimi and shrimp and lot of other good food. It was really good food and it was nice to get to talk with some of the members and get to know them better. When I change host families in a month or so I will be closer to a different ward, but I think I will probably keep coming to this one. I really love the members here and they make me feel so at home.

The other party was at Sister Fujii's house. It was on January 3rd. She invited me, the missionaries, and a couple priesthood holders over. She is a really sweet lady and she made some awesome food. We had a nice salad, soup, and then fried chicken. It was so good! And way more than we could eat. It was a nice evening just talking over dinner and, of course, practicing my Japanese. :D Sorry I don't have pictures for this post. I didn't take any.

Christmas in Japan

2008-12-28T06:14:00.000-08:00

My first Christmas away from home went well. It was pretty different, but it was good. Of course I missed being home with everyone and decorating cookies and the whole Christmas morning routine, but I had a nice day here. It really didn't feel like Christmas to me though.

My host family doesn't do much at all for it. They had a little tree set up and a few other decorations and then on Christmas Eve they put out a present for each of their kids. In Japan, it is tradition to put it next to the pillow so you see it first thing in the morning, but my host mom wanted to put them under the tree this year because the kids always wake her up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning. :) My host parents took me shopping on the 23rd for my present.

Toru decorating the tree

With this being about all they do for Christmas here, it was fun to share a little bit of and American Christmas. I woke up a 5:50 (Toru gets up at like 6:15 or 6:30 every day). I quickly got dressed and stuff so I would look cute in the pictures, and then I played Santa! I put out gifts and stockings for the family (Thanks Dad and AnnaMarie and Tyler!). I even put out one present for me. It turned out to be The Tales of Beedle the Bard. From AnnaMarie. Thanks! So here are some pictures of me being sneaky.

Putting out presents

Done!

And then on the way back to my room for the last of the presents (as I'm wearing the Santa hat) my host dad looks out of his room! He started laughing and I told him to go back to bed. haha. But it worked out well because he got to video tape the kids when they got up and sjavascript:void(0)aw everything. And just so you know, my host dad was up early in his room working on a powerpoint for work. I wasn't so loud that I actually woke him up.

Abbey Santa

If you want to see the videos I took, they are on Michael's website.

After all the presents were opened and stuff (by like 8:00), it was just a normal day. My host Dad had work because Christmas isn't a real holiday here. I got to talk with my almost everyone on Skype. In the afternoon my host mom took me to the hair salon to get my hair cut. It was about time I did. I hadn't cut it since June. I just got some layers put in it so it looks a little nice down. So, that's about it. Oh, and then on Christmas night we ate our Christmas Cake.

Christmas Cake

SLEEPOVER!

2008-12-27T22:46:00.000-08:00

After my class's Christmas party on the 19th (Friday), I went to Haruna's house for a sleepover! It was probably one of the best I've been to. For real, I had so much fun! And mom is amazing. We were super busy all weekend. I stayed until Monday. Just because there is no way I am going to remember everything I did any other way, I am going to go through it day by day. :D

Friday: After our party, which ended at 1, we cleaned the classroom and then me, Haruna, and Rinna walked to Haruna's house. Haruna's mom was at work, so in the evening we went up to Tokyo to meet her. While we were waiting for her to come meet us we got to look around at the christmas lights. We were in Shinbashi and the Shiodome area. The lights were spectacular! Here's some pictures:

Me and a train! Choo Choo!

Rinna, me, and Haruna in front of the "Blue Ocean"

Me and Haruna

Me and Haruna

Once we met up with Haruna's mom, we went to a yummy Chinese restaurant for dinner, and then we went to the top of the Dentsu office building to look out at the city lights. It was beautiful! We were on the 46th floor, and you could just see the city going forever. Tokyo is really really big. This was pretty close to the very center of Tokyo, too.

Then we went to Ginza. It is the main shopping district of Tokyo. For rich people, that is. All designer names and such as you walk through. I could never afford anything there, but it was fun to wander through!

Rinna, me, and Haruna in Ginza with our yummy chocolate drinks!

Ginza, Tokyo!

Saturday: Haruna and Rinna had cram school today. So, what did I do all day? I went out with Haruna's parents of course! We took a trip up to Chiba prefecture. When you go around Tokyo bay, from south to north it goes as follows: Yokosuka, Yokohama, Kawasaki, Tokyo, Chiba. Chiba is like directly across the bay from Yokohama. We drove to Chiba. We drove across Tokyo Bay. Well, technically we went under and over Tokyo Bay. That's right, we took the AQUAline. It is a tunnel that goes under the bay and then about halfway across it goes up into a bridge that goes over the bay. You can't see the water or anything when you are in the tunnel, but it is 57 meters under water. The AQUAline ends at a city called Kisarazi. From there we drove to a mountain called nokogiri-yama. "Noko" means saw, because of how the mountain is shaped. Nokogiri-yama has a daibutsu (Big Buddha), beautiful trees, and about 1500 smaller Buddha statues around it. Parking is at the top. So you walk down all the stairs first. But later you do have walk up them again.

The view of Tokyo Bay as we drove up the mountain

Going down...

...and back up

Daibutsu

Smaller Buddhas

After looking around the mountain and getting a nice view of Tokyo bay from the top, we went to the fisherman's market. We even got sushi there for lunch. It was really fresh and delicious.

From the top

Beautiful

Fresh Sushi

Fresh Squid at the market

Haruna's parents are so fun! It was really nice of them to take the day showing me around. On the way home we stopped halfway across the bay (right before the tunnel) to look at the sunset and Mt. Fuji. It was really an awesome day. Haruna's mom even taught me some kanji as we saw signs. And then quizzed me later. :D

Sunday: Today I went to Tokyo with Haruna, Rinna, and Haruna's mom. We went to Tokyo Tower! It was lots of fun. The city looks pretty different in the day than at night. We even got to meet a ... well, I don't know what it was. Some kind of food, I believe.

Rinna, Haruna, and me in front of Tokyo Tower

Tokyo

The cute... thing?

After Tokyo Tower, we went to a shopping area that I don't know the name of. It seemed like a place that not too many tourists go to. I probably would never go there without a Japanese friend. We went to a little shop called Swimmer, where they got me a Christmas present. A cute pen case and a matching make up bag. Everyone at school uses a pen case except me, so they decided to get me one. It was a fun day. Once we got home we made chocolate chip cookies together!

Y-U-M!

As we ate our cookies, I dunked mine in the milk because that is the best way to eat warm chocolate chip cookies. Then I realized that both Haruna and her mom were staring at me. They had never even heard of someone doing that before. I had them try it and they liked it. Or at least they said they did... Maybe mothers have a better way of getting their kids to drink their milk in Japan. Some things are just done differently here.

Monday: Today we just took it easy. I slept in until like 9:30. Haruna slept until 10:30, when her mom went in a took her covers off her one my one and then poked her. haha. We had a yummy breakfast including cookies from the night before and Pandapan and Kameron. Haha! Get it "Kame" and "Meron" together?! haha... okay, maybe only AnnaMarie got that one. But really, those were the names.

Breakfast!

Everything is cute in Japan

He was yummy, too! :D

In the afternoon we went to Kawasaki to a HUGE shopping plaza there. We were just looking today, but we are going to come back in January. January is when the sales are in Japan, and Haruna is going to take me shopping for some warmer tops and Japanese fashion! haha. If I can find it cheap that is. From Kawasaki I went home.

The sleepover was really fun! I am so glad that Haruna invited me over.

Christmas Parties! Lots of them!

2008-12-27T04:02:00.000-08:00

For a country where Christmas isn't even a holiday, Japan sure loves it! Well, the commercial part of it anyway. Christmas trees and decorations went up the day Halloween (another holiday that isn't even a holiday in Japan) is over. They came down on the 26th, too. Now EVERYTHING is gearing up for New Years. Anyway, I went to a few different Christmas parties over the last few weeks. I'll just go through chronologically.

On December 17th I went to Iliana's house for her host family's Christmas party. It was so much fun! Definitely my favorite of the 4 I had. :D For dinner we had everything from pizza, salad, and rolls, to chicken, sushi, and wraps. Oh, and of course we had Christmas Cake. It was pretty good. I got to meet her host family for the first time, and they are awesome! I am so excited to spend 3 days there for New Years! Seriously, I can't wait. We just ate dinner and visited. There was her family (including a cousin and his girlfriend), her rotary counselor who is best friends with her host mom, and the host family's English tutor and his father. Yes, they have a tutor for the whole family that comes over once a week. For some reason, the english tutor thought it would be fun for us all to sing our national anthems. Ruan (Brazilian) also was invited to the party because Iliana's host family had lived in Brazil like 30 years ago. All the Japanese people sang together, and then Iliana, Ruan, and myself got to sing our's solo. The Star-spangled Banner is the hardest national anthem, and I am not a very good singer. And to make it better, they decided to record the whole thing! Oh, well. At least I didn't forget the words like I sometimes do. I got home at 10:10 (whoops, past curfew) and then put my package to send home the next day together. I finally got to bed at 1am. And then I got up at 5:30 for school. I was a little out of it the next day.

Party #2: December 19th. This was my school party. Everyone brought in a snack to share with the class. I brought home-made chocolate chip cookies. Everyone loved them! We all just talked and ate way too much junk food. It was fun.

The 23rd was my Rotary Club's Family Christmas dinner party. My club invited Iliana, too. :D Honestly, between her club and my club, both of which know we are best friends, I don't think either of us will have another free weekend. But that's beside the point. The dinner party was fun! There was a band and singers playing jazz-type Christmas music. I felt like I was at a dinner party in an old movie or something. Then, they had magicians! It was so cool! They did a couple tricks for everyone and then they went around to each table individually. I got to be the volunteered assistant at our table. I don't know how he did it, but he put two foam balls in my hand, had me close my hand tight and shake it. He didn't touch my hand or anything. And I didn't feel anything in my hand. I open it, and there were 4! It was amazing! haha

This was the first time any of the Rotarian's families were at a meeting, so they all came over to my table and introduced their wives and kids. It was nice. I got to meet my second host family, too. It will be a lot different at their house I think, but I am excited to see what it's like. One Rotarian introduced his son to Iliana and I, and then asked me to stand up. I was a little confused until I stood up. He wanted to know who was taller. See, guys? There are some tall boys in Japan. It was exciting so I asked him if I could take my picture with him. haha!

At that party I also had, I mean got, to give a 5 minute speech to all my rotary club members and their families. I did a pretty good job. And my speech was written in all Japanese. No romaji! I was so proud of myself. Oh, and right before the meeting, I went shopping with my host mom for my Christmas present. My host family got me a new purse! I love it!

Me with my new purse and my new haircut! Buy you probably can't tell the difference. Just a little layering.

My last party was at my friend Risako's house. She is in my class at school. It didn't really turn out to be a very Christmasy party, but it was fun! We had pizza for lunch, played wii for a few hours, and then had Christmas Cake.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

2008-12-27T02:34:00.000-08:00

Well, this entire month has been insanely busy! So, here goes my attempt to catch everyone up on what I've been up to. Since Disney Sea, this is what I've done. I gave a 20 minute presentation about Ironwood to a middle school (equivalent to 7th grade) class; gave my monthly speech at the Rotary Orientation meeting for exchange students, after which I went out for Chinese food with my rotarians; then it got crazy...

December 16th: Nou with Iliana and her 3rd host family.
17th: Iliana's Family's Christmas party (yes, it was a school night with very little sleep).
19th: School Christmas party. After school I went to Haruna's house for a sleepover.
19th-22nd: At Haruna's house for an amazing sleepover.
23rd: Rotary Club's Family Christmas Dinner Party. I gave a speech with no romaji!
24th: Risako's (a friend from school) Christmas Party.
25th: Christmas!
26th: Ice Skating and Karaoke with other exchange students.

phew! Today has been my first free day in a long time!

So, I am going to break this up into a few different blog entries. Hopefully I'll get them all up tonight or tomorrow. This one will talk about my presentation and the nou. Then I will have one for the various Christmas parites, one for my sleepover, and one for Christmas. There isn't too much to say about the ice skating and Karaoke. It was lots of fun, but that's about all there is to say. :D

I was asked to give a 20 minute presentation about my home in America to the middle school grade one class. The high school classes were having exams that week so I spent the week working on the project with the english (my Japanese) teachers in the school. I had a powerpoint and everything! I think it went really well, and I find it easier to study Japanese by working on a project or speech in Japanese rather than by reading a textbook.

A nou is a Japanese play (kind of) with traditional singing and dancing. I think the nou I went to was a little different than they usually are. I think they usually have a story, but the one I went to didn't. Maybe it wasn't really a nou. It was very interesting to see all the men and women in the traditional kimonos and stuff. They did some kind of temple ceremony, and then they did their singing and dancing. To be honest, it was very interesting, but it was very long and boring. They did the same singing for like and hour and they only did the dancing for a little bit. Maybe I just didn't really understand what was going on, but I think a lot of the Japanese people there were pretty bored too. If I had known what it was going to be before hand I still would have gone because it is Japanese culture and all, but I'm not exactly begging anyone to take me to another one. It was a good experience to have once, though!

One other thing that I have just started recently, like 3 days ago, is studying kanji. Kanji are the Chinese characters. I was talking to Dad on Skype about next year when I go back and we got to talking about school. My plan is to take some kind of self-study Japanese course, weather it is just a high school course or if it is an A.P. course. Dad looked up the A.P. Japanese exam and I will have to know over 400 kanji to even dream of passing it! Yikes! Before we talked about this I probably knew less than 20. So, my first reaction was okay, fine. I just won't take the A.P. test. I'll just take a placement exam before I start university. But I thought about it and I decided that I do want to learn Kanji eventually because I really hate not being able to read anything. Being illiterate is such a pain! So, I started studying! :D Kanji are split up into school years. My host mom let me borrow one of Wataru's books on kanji because he is in first grade. There are 80 first-grade kanji, so I made myself nice flashcards of them. I now know all them! Well, almost. I can recognize all of them and know their meanings in english. I know probably 75 of them from Kanji to Japanese and I can write about 70 of them if you give me the Japanese meaning. I am so proud of myself! :D One week ago, I didn't even know how to write 20 kanji, and the ones I do know from before aren't all first-grade kanji. I keep the flashcards in my purse, so I can study them on the train and stuff too. So, my goal is to get through at least the 2nd grade level kanji (there are 160 second year kanji) completely memorized before I go home. Hopefully more than that. And maybe, if I study really hard, I can take the A.P. exam.

Omochisuki!

2008-12-09T04:12:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday (December 6th) I went to an Omochisuki! Omochisuki is a mochi making ceremony. I was invited by Iliana, who was invited by her 3rd host family. It was at a templ, so they did some temple ceremony before we started the actual omochisuki. That was interesting.

Mochi is like sticky rice balls. To make it, you take the cooked rice and squish it and beat it with big wooden hammers. They add water a little at a time so the rice doesn`t stick to the bowl and hammer.

When you hit the rice you have to yell "Yosho!" I had a good time with that. When Iliana and I had both had our turn her 3rd host father was like, Abbey did it better than you. haha. She did a good job too...

Them we rolled the rice into little balls and ate it! Mine had anko (sweet bean paste) on it. It was yummy!

After that we left for Asakusa to do Christmas shopping. Asakusa is a place in Tokyo with a big temple. It is a popular place for tourists so there are lots of little shops. I am happy to say that I was very successful with my shopping. ;)

Disney Sea

2008-12-08T02:23:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday (October 30), I went to Tokyo Disney Resort's Disney Sea! Shiratori-san (one of the rotarians in my club) took Iliana and I there with his wife and son. It was very very nice of him to do that for us. I had an awesome time!

They seemed to know the park pretty well. Their son, who is 10, had been there like 5 times! They had planned out our whole day really well. They really knew how to use the fast-pass system there. We were always moving from one ride or attraction to the next. We didn't have to wait very long at all for most of the rides, which was great! I think we did all the fun, adult rides, along with some of the kiddie rides. We even got to see a few of the shows. I absolutely love Disney, so I thought the shows were good, but Iliana didn't seem to enjoy them quite as much... The best show was "Big Band Beat". It is a broadway type show with jazz and tap-dancing and Mickey Mouse. It was all Christmas songs, and it was all in English. That was fun for me. The crowd didn't quite get it when they announced things like, "give it up for the SAXOPHONES!"

My favorite rides were the Tower of Terror and Indiana Jones. It was a long day and I was exhausted by the end, but it was really really fun. I even got to meet Goofey!

And thanks to the Shiratori's I didn't even spend any money! They were nice enough to pay for our tickets, lunch, dinner, chocolate popcorn, and the picture of us in the Tower of Terror. Yay for rotarians!

I love Disney Sea!

Kamakura

2008-12-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

On November 23 I went to an exchange student program in Kamakura, which is just south of me. I still don't know exactly what it was. Some sort of high school volunteer program for Japanese high school students. Most of them spoke English pretty well because they either did an exchange of some sort or they lived overseas when they were younger.

Anyway, I went down with my host family in the morning. We went to the big temple for Toru's special day. There is a holiday that is something about 3,5,7. Girls that are three and seven, and boys that are five. Toru is five so he got all dressed up in a fancy kimono and we went to the temple with the family and grandparents. We also had family pictures done. Which I was in. :D After Toru's thing, I left to meet up with the group for this program.

We got to talk and get to know each other for a while while we had lunch. Then we had a nice tour of Kamakura. We went to three temples and the Daibutsu (Big Buddha). It was really fun. And I met lots of new people, including other Japanese high school students. Yay!

The next day was a holiday, so some of us met at Yokohama Station. It turned out that none of the other girls could make it, which was not what I was planning on when I threw the idea out there. There was the german guy, myself, and two of the Japanese guys that we met the day before. One of them invited two of his friends along, so that was fun. Not that they said a single word to me after we were introduced. We went to a game center (arcade), where I got to lose to everyone else at Mario cart racing, but dominate at air hockey. Then we went to Karaoke, which was a blast!

3 Months!

2008-11-22T03:16:00.000-08:00

As of this past Thursday, I have officially been in Japan for three months! That's CRAZY! Sometimes it feels like I have been here forever and I wish it would go faster, but now it doesn't feel like it has been three months at all. I guess to me three months means a little bit more than it would to anyone else.

As an exchange student, all the books and past exchange students promise that the first three months are the worst and everything gets better after you get through those. That's good news! My first three months weren't too bad at all. I made tons of friends, experienced a lot of new things, and learned more that I ever thought possible to learn in such a short amount of time. However, I'll be honest with you. There were a lot of nights (and I'm sure there will still more) where I would just feel so overwhelmed from all the new things and stress that I would cry myself to sleep. And there were plenty of times when I would think about how much easier life would be if I were still in Ironwood. But then I just have to think about how lucky I am to have this experience and I know I wouldn't trade it for anything.

In the last three months I have come to appreciate my life in Ironwood a lot more. I really, really miss waking up at 6:30 for school. And just driving for 3 minutes to get there. I miss understanding my teachers in school and feeling smart for it. I miss central heating. I miss Ironwood. I never ever thought I would be able to say that three months ago. Ironwood is a nice place. It's small and boring, but even Yokohama sometimes gets boring. Mostly because everything it is so stinking expensive to do anything here. I miss seeing my friends that I have grown up with, but I am happy to have made so many new friends here. But most of all, I miss my family. I love you lots!

But, the good things that have happened far outweigh the hard parts. So, good things that have happened: I have become much more independent. I have met lots of really good people here and made tons of friends both in school and outside of it. I have learned a lot about Japanese culture. I got really good at using chopsticks. I learned how to use trains. I have learned more budgeting skills. AND, the best one of all.... I have learned lots of Japanese!

Before I left, my goal was to be "conversational" in Japanese by three months. Who even knows what conversational means? It's a pretty vague word. Well, I am proud to say that I consider myself conversational. I have been working really hard on only speaking Japanese, especially at school. My school friends have been awesome at helping me, too. Some of them can speak pretty good English, so they use that skill to help me learn Japanese. I can now have conversations with all the girls in my class. Even the ones who don't speak English! Well, most of them anyway. For some reason, I just cannot understand some of the girls' Japanese. But, if I have someone who is willing to slow down their talking a little and bear with me as I try to think of words, we can talk! With a little bit of help from our dictionaries, but still. I feel so good about myself after I get done talking with someone in just Japanese.

Actually, I felt pretty good about my Japanese all week. After school I would come home and talk with my host mom, too. But then I went to Iliana's house on Friday after school. I listened to her talk with her host mom, and my little bubble of confidence popped. I really think I need to hang out with exchange students less often. Iliana is my best friend here, but whenever I hang out with other exchange students I feel less smart. I never ever try Japanese with them, and I compare my abilities to theirs. I know that's not good to do, but I just can't help it! Maybe my Japanese isn't as good as theirs, but that doesn't matter. I am doing the best I can, and that is going to be enough.

So, three months! Yay! It's crazy to think that I only have 8 months left. It's going to go by really fast.

This is pretty off topic, but I'm sure you were all dying to know how my party I mentioned on the last post went. It was really good! I had 8 of my friends over and we did karoke at my apartment's karoke room. Everyone brought snacks to share so we had a ridiculous amount of junk food. And they made me take all the extras after. I gave it to my host mom. I ate way too much junk food, but it was a lot of fun. The only thing was that it was really hard to find English songs that they know well enough to sing with me. I didn't want to sing them alone, because that's no fun. But it was fun to listen to them sing their songs in Japanese!

I am pretty sure we are either singing "Hey Jude" or "The Yellow Submarine"

Sushi, Ice Skating, and other news

2008-11-05T02:52:00.000-08:00

Sushi!

Last Saturday was my monthly Rotary meeting with all the other exchange students. We all gave our speeches and got to visit for a while. My speech went well. It was really long though and I still feel stupid reading it. I can't even read japanese words written out in with english letters! I read it like a third grader. haha. But next month, I am going to do it in Hiragana! I am going to practice on my speed first. Yay for flashcards!

Anyway, after that meeting all the students went bowling, but my club took me to sushi. Bowling would have been fun, but the Sushi was so good! They took me to a really traditional sushi bar. And really expensive one too. I am sure I ate at least 150 USD worth of food. And I ate a lot of it! The chef just keeps putting it on your plate, one or two at a time, and the rotarians kept ordering more and more for me. The best ones were the california rolls, the tamago (sweet egg), and the ebi (Shrimp). The tuna was pretty good, too. The only one I didn't really like was the sea urchin. It was just a little too slimy for me. They all had a good time seeing what I was willing to try. I tried anything they offered! Some of the other ones I had (that I remember what they were) were mackerel, squid, and two different kinds of tuna. The less expensive tuna one, from the side of the fish, and the more expensive tuna one, from the belly of the fish. That is pretty much the most expensive fish you can buy. It was pretty good though. In addition to all that sushi, I had some sort of baked sea shell. Well it was the muscle, baked in its shell. It was really good! And my host dad said it costs about 50 USD per shell. Yikes! Pictures of all this will be coming eventually.

Ice Skating

Monday was a holiday, so Sunday night I had a sleepover with Iliana! It was really fun. We made tacos for my host family for dinner, and then we had fun making our own breakfast in the morning. Monday, we met up with a few of the other exchange students and went ice skating! It was so fun! It was the first time for a few of the students, so that's always fun to watch. But there were tons of people! Like everywhere we go here. After that we went to TGI Friday for dinner. I probably would have just picked McDonald's because I have coupons, but they wanted Fridays. It was good, but too expensive. I have to stop eating out with them when they choose the restaurant. Come to think of it, I should just stop eating out. I am gaining weight and I don't like it!

In other news, my host dad got a new job! That's really good for him and the family, but that is also really good for me. I like my host dad just fine, but he always speaks to me in English, and that's not good. But now, he is going to be gone a lot for his job, so I won't talk to him as much, which means I won't use English as much, which means I'll use Japanese more and hopefully start learning faster! Also, his new job has him flying overseas every once in a while, so he will be gone for those trips too. I guess that is sad for my host mom and my little brothers though. I will have to try to be a better helper for my host mom.

I guess that's about it for now. This weekend is my school festival, so that should be fun. After it is over, I am planning on having a party in one of the party rooms you can rent out at my apartment complex. It's really cheap, too! I am planning on paying for the room myself, and then having everyone who comes bring something to share. Hopefully it works out okay.

Nagasaki

2008-10-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

On October 16th I left for my school trip to Nagasaki. It was so much fun! Nagasaki was beautiful and I had a really good time with all the girls in my class. I got to know a few more of them in the evenings when we had free time at the hotels. So, my trip was 5 days, and we had a really busy schedule. It was really good because I got to see so much of the city, but I was so tired! We did a lot of walking. And Nagasaki has hills. Lots of them. Anyway, this is what my schedule looked like:

Thursday, Oct. 16:
7:00- meet at Hanadea Airport
8:30- Boarding for the 90 min flight to Fukuoka
10:15- Arrive in Fukuoka Airport
11:00- Bus
11:30- Dazaifu Temangu (Temple)
1:45- Bus
2:30- Yoshinogari Site
4:00- Bus
5:30- Hotel
6:30- Dinner
Free Time
11:00- Curfew

Friday, Oct. 17:
6:30- Wake up
7:00- Breakfast
9:10- Bus
9:20- Huis Ten Bosch
1:30- Bus
2:30- Endo Shukasu Museum
3:00- Bus
3:20- De Rotz Memorial Hall
5:00- Bus
6:00- Hotel
7:00- Dinner
Free Time
11:00- Curfew

Saturday, Oct. 18:
6:30- Wake up
7:00- Breakfast
8:30- Walk to Streetcar Station
8:40- Streetcar to 26 Martyrs of Japan site
8:50- 26 Martyrs of Japan
9:50- Free Time to explore Nagasaki in our small groups! No Teachers! Our group went to the Kofukuji Temple; Ryoma's Boots, museum, and statue (Ryoma Sakamoto was a famous Samurai); Megane Bashi, the famous ice cream stand that sells rose-shaped ice cream cones; Lunch; Dejima; Chinatown; and the oldest Christian church in Japan.
5:00- Hotel
6:00- Dinner
8:00- Speech from Atomic Bomb Survivor
11:00- Curfew

Sunday, Oct. 19:
6:30- Wake up
7:00- Breakfast
8:15- Bus
8:40- Nyokodo
9:50- Peace Park
11:10- Bus
11:30- Lunch at a Chinese restaurant
12:50- Glover Gardens
2:15- Bus
4:15- Walk to Hotel through a hot spring park. It looked a lot like Yellowstone.
5:00- Hotel
7:00- Dinner
Free Time
11:30- Curfew

Monday, Oct. 20:
6:30- Wake up
7:00- Breakfast
8:10- Bus
8:45- Mt. Unzen Disaster Memorial Hall
9:50- Bus
10:00- Ferry Boat ride
10:15- Port
10:50- Bus
12:30- Lunch (obento box)
1:50- Bus
2:50- Fukuoka Airport
3:45- Board flight for Hanadea Airport
5:20- Arrival in Hanadea Airport and go home.

Somewhere in there we had mass two times, but the schedule is in Japanese and I can't read it. Besides where it says bus. So, I filled in the rest using my pictures and many pamphlets that I acquired during the trip. Now, rather than talking about every single thing, which would take forever, I'm just going to write about some of the best parts. You can get a pretty good idea of what everything else is by looking at my pictures and the captions, which I spent a really long time writing. For every single one of the 304 pictures. If you need the link to those, just send me an email and I'll send it to you.

Probably my favorite place was Huis Ten Bosch. It is a huge amusement park that is like the Netherlands. People even live there! It is twice the size of Disneyland. It was really fun. But it wasn't an amusement park like with roller coasters and stuff. It looks like I went to Europe!

The Yoshinogari Site was really interesting. It is thought to be the capitol of Japan about 6000 years ago! That was right when they started growing rice. It was fun to wander around and go in the different building and see what Japan looked like 6000 years ago. And we got to wear those sweet hats!

I am really glad I got to go to Peace Park. The museum was really sad. There were some pretty graphic pictures and stories. It really was a horrible thing that happened and I hope it never happens again. I learned a lot about it that we didn't go over in our U.S. History class last year in school.

Aso san, the active volcano, was pretty cool, too.

The best day was Saturday because we got to go off on our own. It was really fun to go with no teacher and with only 7 other people rather than 77. We had tons of fun, but we walked so much! I don't have a clue how far. A few miles at least.

Megane Bashi (Spectacles Bridge- because when it reflects in the water it looks like a pair of spectacles)

Ryoma and myself

My friends and I on the bus from the airport back in Yokohama.

Everything I have done in the last 2 weeks...

2008-10-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

I have been here for almost 7 weeks now and the time has gone so fast. I was talking to Iliana about that tonight. It is so hard to explain. Every day feels so long. By the time I go to bed, I can barely remember what I did that morning. Even thinking back to things I've done like 2 weeks ago feels like months ago, but at the same time, I can't believe how fast the time is going. It's almost sad to think about it. Before we know it it will be Christmas and then New Year's and then everthing is going to go so fast and we'll be going home. I don't want it to go so fast. I can barely believe that I am even really here. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm in Japan. I am so used to hearing Japanese now (and not understanding it) that I don't even notice it.

Okay, well Dad sent me an email asking me to give you guys some more specific details about my school and stuff so here it goes.

I am in Class 2A as school. The 2 is for the year in highschool, and the A is for my class. There are 3 years of highschool in Japan so it is really the equivilant of being a junior in the states. There are two classes in every level in my school. Class A and Class B. In my class there are 40 girls. So there are about 80 in my grade. All 40 of us are together for most of the classes in our homeroom, but sometimes we split up and go to other classrooms. My Physics class, for instance, has 5 people. Including me.

So they have just started their 2nd semester of school and the school year ends in March. At that time I don't really know what I will do. I really want to stay with my class that I am in now and all my friends. However, that would put me in their 3rd year classes, which are all about doing well on their big test. The college entrance exam that they have one shot at. Well, techinically two, but that's only if they fail it completely I think. This test bascially defines the rest of their lives. If they do well, they go to a good university and get a good job, blah blah blah. If they don't do well, they don't get into a good university and they never ever will. I think the school board is thinking about keeping me at a level 2 because the girls in level 3 have to study so much more. I don't want to have to make all new friends for the last 3 months of exchange. Plus, I want to be on this classes team for sports day next spring! :D

My school has 6 periods and a lunch hour. Which is a whole 50 mintues! They couldn't believe we only have 22 minutes to eat lunch in America. I get to school at about 8:00 and homeroom is from 8:15 to 8:30. Then 1st period starts at 8:30. Each period is 50 minutes, then we have a 10 minute break before the next one. It is way easier than the class periods at school in the states! I ususally get hungry after 2nd period, but then I have to wait two more hours before lunch. Which is from 12:20 to 1:10, when our 5th period starts. At 3:15 we have homeroom again. Then we clean. I sweep the homeroom with about 5 other people so it's not bad at all. At about 3:30 we are done with that and we get to go home. Well, I get to go to volleyball. Which starts at 4:00.

Volleyball practices are pretty easy here. We just do drills. And not really hard ones, either. Practices are way more intense in America. But I think that that is just my school here. My school is very academically stressed and has a pretty weak sports program. Practice ends at about 5:15 and then there is this ridiculous rush to the locker room where everyone changes faster than I have ever seen girls change in my life! Then we all go home. I asked my friend about the whole rush at the end of practice and I guess all the student have to be out of the building by 5:30 or else they stop club activites for a week. And there is a school guard, so it's not like my school in the states where you can just leave whenever you feel like it. The school guard is very nice though. He always seems really happy to be there doing his job.

My school is a Catholic school so we have prayers 3 times a day, but we have only had mass once since I have come. And that is just fine with me.

So, that's about if for my school life. I've made lots friends and school has been getting better. I can kinda follow along in English class. Even some of the Japanese! Which is actually really exciting, because I have something to pay attention to. But the teacher for that class talks too fast. I can barley understand his english. So I only sometimes understand what is going on. School is still really exhausting and boring for the most part, but it is okay. It will be lots better when I can actually try to listen to the lesson and understand it.

Outside of school I have been so busy! Since I have last written, this has been my schedule of non-school related events:

Thursday Oct. 2: Iliana's Birtday Party! I left school (no volleyball on Thursday's), went home and changed really fast, and then turned around and went back to Yokohama station to get to El Torrito restaurant by 6:00. The dinner was really good and so much fun!

Friday, Oct. 3: I left school early to go to a Rotary lunch, where I had to give a speech that no body bothered to tell me about ahead of time, so my host dad wrote me one really fast, which I just read. I got my allowance there, though. Then I met Iliana and we hung out for the rest of the day. Okay, so we went to my house and wrote our speeches for Saturday, but we had fun doing it.

Saturday, Oct. 4: In the morning I went to Toru's (5 year old brother) sport day, which is like the biggest day of the year for grade schoolers. It was cute, and we had a really good picnic lunch. Then I went to my Rotary Orientation Meeting. It is the monthly meeting for exchange students. We all had to give our speeches and then the rotarians took us to Landmark Tower. Landmark Tower is the tallest building in Japan. I took the world's second fastest elevator to the very top, where you can look out and see the whole city! Well, okay. You can't see the whole thing. It's too big. But you could see a lot! Then all of the students went to Karoke! It was really fun.

Sunday, Oct. 5: A rotarian bought my family and I tickets to the premire of a movie about a Japanese lady who learns the secrets of cooking great Chinese food. Or something like that. I only followed the basic plot. It was in Japanese. The we went to a really fancy Chinese dinner, where they served some of the same things from the movie. It was a 9 course meal. I ate so much food! I did get to try quite a few new things. Including jellyfish and sharkfin. They were actually pretty good. It was a very fancy dinner. I wanted to take pictures, but I didn't because it was so formal. I wish I had.

Wednesday, Oct. 8: This day was not a good day in school. Or volleyball. BUT, I got home and saw a package sitting in my room! I decided to eat dinner before I opened it. After dinner I went into my room to open it alone. I opened the box and it was filled to the top with random candies. Mostly candy corn and pop rocks. I was so happy! Then, I found deoderant! That's actually exciting when you can't find it in any stores here. THEN, I found the little box. I opened it, screamed, then shut it really fast! Then I opened it again. haha. Inside was an iPod Touch! I love you Daddy! I was so happy I wanted to cry! And THEN, I turned the iPod on and it was already filled with my music from home, pictures, movie, and applications! Including a really awesome Japanese dictionary program. The timing for this package could not have been better. Thanks Dad!

Friday, Oct. 10: I got to skip volleyball to go to a dinner with some rotarians. I went straight home after school and changed out of my school uniform, and then left right away. I met my host dad at Yokohama Station and from there we went to the restaurant the dinner was at. I don't know what it was called, but it was really good Japanese food. There was my rotary club's president, secretary, treasurer and the next president there with my host dad and me. For dinner we had a big bowl of broth in the middle of the table on a hotplate. We cooked our own vegetables and meat and then Udon noodles in it. It was really really good. The meat, well beef, was cut really thin and rolled up. You put it in the boiling broth and unroll it. It cooks in like 20 seconds. Then you put it into one of the sauces. There was a vinegar sauce and a sesamie sauce. The beef was Kobe beef. And it was really really good. Then the president of my rotary club got me a cake. It was really good. He also bought a whole cake of it for me to take home to share with my host family. That was very nice of him.

Saturday, Oct. 11: Today I went to Tokyo! There was a really big group of exchange students and some of Iliana's school friends, who were nice enough to be our guides for the day. We went to Asakusa, where there is a really big shrine. Maybe it was a temple. Anyway, that turned out to be a really good place to get traditional japanese thing. Also known as Christmas presents. I'm definitely going to have to go back there in early December... Then we went to Tokyo Tower! Which was kind of cool. It was a little cloudy so I decided to save my 850 yen and not go to the top. I'll go up there another day when I'll actually be able to see something. Tokyo is really close. It only takes me about an hour to get there. And I live at the southern part of my city. (Tokyo is north of me) It was a really fun day.

Sunday, Oct. 12: I went to a big festival that was near and "worked" at my rotary club's booth. They were selling random donated food items to raise money to build wells in Sri Lanka. I helped sell stuff for about an hour, but people can tell I don't speak Japanese, so I only actually sold one box of Mr. Donuts donuts. Which were very popluar. One of the rotarians in my club owns all the of the Mr. Donuts shops in this and one other prefecture! And all the McDonald's and the Baskin Robins and the Ootoya (casual japanese restaurant chain) in this area, but that's beside the point. For the other 3 hours I was there, I just talked with all the rotarians. it's good to make friends with them. We did end up raising enough money to make 6 to 7 wells, so that's good! Then we went to a dinner party. Then home.

Monday, Oct. 13: No school! It's sport's day. Which, apparently, is a national holiday worthy of missing school for here. I love Japan. We get days off of school to celebrate the elderly people and sports! I was invited to lunch at Ootoya by the rotarian (Sammy) who own them. My family and I went there together. It was pretty good food. Then I went to Yokohama to meet up with some other exchange students. Sammy gave me a ride there in his brand new mercedes benz. It was pretty sweet. haha. Once I met up with my friends, after getting slightly lost in Yokohama Station, which is gigantic, we went to Karoke.

Tuesday, Oct. 14: Yay! This is today! I just had school and volleyball. It went all right. I was pretty tired though. Tomorrow I won't have volleyball because Thursday I leave for my school trip! The 2nd year high school class takes a trip every year. This year we are going to Nagasaki! I leave Thursday morning... really... really early. I have to be at the airport at 6:45. The airport will take like an hour to get to. Maybe more. But it's okay. We fly to Nagasaki (about 2 hours, I think) and then we are staying there until next Monday. We fly back in at like 5:30 Monday night. I am really excited for it. Because my school is Catholic, we are going to a lot of old christian sites. And we are also going to go to the a-bomb memorial. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with it. Okay, I have no clue what is going on. I just know I have to go to the airport with the stuff they told me to pack. The itinerary is in Japanese. I'll write about it after I get back. I will also post all my pictures at that time... here or on Michael's website.

I hope you had fun reading all that. I'm going to sleep now. :D

Sea Paradise

2008-09-28T05:35:00.000-07:00

Saki, Risako, Nozomi, Haruna, Abbey, Rina, and Nana

Today, I went to Sea Paradise with some of my friends from school. It is an amusement park/aquarium. It was a lot of fun. We spent the morning going on the various rides like the one big roller coaster and the big droppy tower thing. It was 107 meters high (351 ft.) and it was really fun! We also went on the spinny ride and the big boat that swung back and forth and some octopus ride that is mostly for little kids. It was still fun. One thing about the rides here is that they are made for Japanese size people. I barley fit! On the roller coaster, my knees were up against the seat in front of me and the harness thing was just a little too small. It worked just fine, but I was a little too tall for it to come down really comfortably. I couldn't sit up totally straight in it.

We went to the food court for lunch. I got Udon. It was really good. I wish food courts in America had that good of food. Then we went to the aquarium and saw all the different animals. I think my classmates set a record of how many times they can say the word "Kawaii" in one day. For those of you who don't know, kawaii means cute. Usually for the small fuzzy animal type of cute, but they call me kawaii when I try to speak Japanese and when they saw me this morning. (I was wearing something other than my school uniform for the first time in front of them. They also commented on how long my legs are. I guess they do look longer in jeans than in the skirt.) I'll take it as a compliment. The aquarium is really big and really nice. We even got to go to a show! We saw the dolphins and seals and walrus do tricks and stuff. It was really cool.

Another thing we did was pirikura. They are Japanese photobooths where you take the
pictures and then you get to decorate them on the computers. It prints out little stickers of the pictures and you can get them sent to your phone, too. It was really fun.

Today was a really fun day. I also have tomorrow off of school, so that's nice! I had school on Saturday for an open campus thing. We only had 2 hours of school, but it was so parents could come in and see how the classes are run here. It's a private school so they have to compete a little to get students. It was really short and we get the whole day off tomorrow, so I guess that's a pretty good deal. Okay, this was a lot of blogging tonight and I am all done! I'll be adding my pictures to these entries in the next couple of days.

Karoke!

2008-09-28T05:12:00.000-07:00

This past Tuesday (September 23) I didn't have school! It's the fall equinox, which just happens to be a national holiday here. It was really nice to have an extra day off. So... I went to Karoke! My apartment complex has a karoke room that you can rent out for only 500 yen (about 5 USD) for 3 hours. That's so cheap! My host dad and little host brothers and Iliana and I all went together. Karoke is a little different here than in the states. You don't do it with a huge group of strangers. Just with a small group of your friends or family. The rooms here can fit about 8 people. And it really isn't as embarrassing as you would think.

My little host brothers got to sing all their pokemon songs and the "ponya" song. I guess Ponya is an anime movie that came out recently here and it's unbelievably popular. Everyone from my host brothers to my friends at school sing the Ponya song. Iliana and I got to choose from the foreign songs. There were a lot of them, actually. My first ever karoke song was "Umbrella" and I sang it with Iliana. haha. My host dad had never heard of it (see Daddy, your not the only one!) but now my little host brothers go around the house singing, "ella, ella, ella, ay, ay...". I also sang some oldies like Dancing Queen with my host dad. It was a lot of fun. I'm sure I'll be doing that again with other rotary kids and friends from school.

School this week went okay. I started Volleyball. Most of the other girls are a lot better than me, but that's okay. I'll get better with a little more practice. After school from 4 to 6 is practice. After volleyball, I go home. I get home at about 7:30 and then eat dinner alone. I wish I could eat dinner with my host family, but I think it is important to get involved with a club here. Then I hang out with my host family for a little bit and go to bed. I am so exhausted on nights with volleyball. I will just have to get used to it.

Volleyball is really the only new thing going on with school. I am back to my regular schedule now. Everything seems to be going pretty well. I've made a lot of friends and am starting, just a little tiny bit, to get a hold on the language. My English-speaking friends at school decided to stop speaking English to me. It's actually really good. They all slow down their Japanese and then explain the words that I don't know. Which is about half of them. And the other half is mostly made up of words like wa and desu. (Wa is a subject marker used in pretty much every sentence and desu is like the verb for "is, am, are" and is also used in almost every sentence.) But this Wednesday was the first day that I actually felt optimistic about Japanese. Maybe I really can learn it!

Yacht Party!

2008-09-28T04:10:00.000-07:00

I have once again failed to update my blog in more than a week, so now I have a few different posts to put up tonight and tomorrow. I just get so busy during the week with school and now volleyball. Anyway, more about that later. This post is about my yacht party which was last Saturday. September 20th, which happened to be the my one month mark. Yay for surviving my first month of exchange!

Saturday morning, I met up with some of the kids from Rotary. There was me, Iliana (Mexico), Felipe (Equador), Shintarou (Japanese- went to Mexico last year), and Vincent (Ohio, USA), who had us all over. We went to one of his host parent's apartments first where we used the hot tub in the basement and then the pool on the roof. It was a little cold. I really didn't want to get in, but Shintarou didn't really give me any choice in the matter... thanks a lot.

Felipe, Iliana, Shintarou, Vincent, and me on the roof.

After we were done there, we went and bought our lunches at a convenience store and then brought them to the yacht at the Zushi Marina. We watched the get it all ready and then we took off! It was really fun. I even got to drive it! The boat wasn't too big, but it was really nice. The place we went sailing is on the southern side of the little peninsula I am on. The ocean that I usually see is Tokyo Bay, but this was actually the Pacific Ocean. We stopped the boat after a while and all of us jumped into the ocean off the end. It was really fun.

Driving the yacht!

Me and Iliana

Vincent, Me, Iliana, and Shintarou

We returned to the dock and then went to Vincent's host parent's other apartment. Yes, they have two apartments. And a yacht. And a house. All within a couple hours of the rest. At the apartment we showered and then we all went to Kamikura Station. We had dinner at a nice and cheap Italian restaurant. We had Italian because it won over McDonald's when we flipped a coin. Then, we went and got ice cream and went home. It was a really fun day.

Me, Shintarou, Iliana, and Felipe after getting ice cream.

Grade School

2008-09-17T02:40:00.000-07:00

School has been wonderful so far this week. As I said before, the high school students are taking their exams so I am going to the grade school that is connected with St. Joseph's High School. And, I get done with school at 11:15! Unlike the high school, the grade school is co-ed. On Tuesday I met the grade school's English teacher, Sean Hashi. He is Canadian, so I am kind of following him around this week and helping teach his classes a little. We went to the 2nd grade classes and then a 1st grade class. The kids were so fun and cute! Here are some pictures.

Second Grade

First Grade

These kids were just awesome. At first they seemed a little intimidated, but once I was introduced and they got to ask me questions they were okay. They all had to say "Good Morning Abbey. How are you?" as a class. It was really cute. Then there was a question and answer session. They asked me questions like "What's your favorite color?" and "What is your favorite animal?". And then subject and food and so on. One girl asked me where I was from and the teacher had them guess. She guessed France. The next girl got it right. I answered them in English and they had to see if they knew what it was in Japanese. They were pretty good at it.

The first grade also got to teach me all the English they knew backwards. I learned how to say can I please sharpen my pencil in Japanese! That's real useful. I knew most of the phrases already, but it was fun to see what they thought I needed to know and I did learn a few new ones.

After all of that I went and sat in one of the empty desks and they all thought it was hilarious. The desk was a little small. I sat next to a boy and this girl up front turned around and made a little heart with her hands and laughed.

After class they all swarmed over to see me. Mostly to stare at me, but one girl tried to say something to me in Japanese. Realizing that I didn't know what she was saying she ran over to the teacher and then came back and said, "You're beautiful!" Ahhh, it was so sweet! And another little girl made me a paper airplane as a gift.

The whole experience made me think that I might like to be a grade school teacher. I really liked working with all the little kids.

Today was fun too, but not quite as much fun. I went to the 6th grade classes. They were a little more, well they're 11 and 12-year-olds. No offense Christy. :D The question and answer session was a little more interesting though. I got the usual "Where are you from?" and "What kind of food do you like?", but I also got "Who do you support for president, Obama or McCain?". Come on! This kid is 11 and trying to talk to me about politics! To be honest, he probably knows more about what is going on with this election than I do at this point. The only news that I have heard is on the Japanese news channel. In Japanese. I was also asked "Do you like Sean?" These 11 year old boys are pretty creative, right? Sean is twice as old as me! I said he was a good teacher. haha. Then another smarty-pants asked me if I like Jonny, an American English teacher at the high school. I said he was very kind. Then the first one asked me who I liked better! I told them I don't pick favorites. To make all this even better, Sean had to translate the questions for me.

So, that's all so far. I'll also be in the grade schools Thursday and Friday, so maybe I'll have some more stories in a few days.

Long Weekend!

2008-09-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of my long weekend. Today is Elder's Day, so I didn't have school. This weekend was really fun. Yesterday (Sunday) was pretty nice. I got to go to church again here. I really love that I get to go almost every week. It's really nice to do something so familiar and the members are so nice to me. I got to practice my Japanese talking to a lady there. She was very sweet and patient with my poor language skills. Then another lady sat by me and translated for me again.

Anyway, after church I went to my friend Ilianaa's house. She is a girl that I met at Rotary from Mexico. We went for a walk to see all the stores around her house and I had lunch then dinner with her and her host family. It was so nice to talk to have someone to just hang out and talk with.

Today, I met up with Ilianaa again. This time we went to Yokohama Station and Kamiooka Station. All the major train stations here are connected to huge department stores, so we wandered around the different shops and looked at all the ridiculously expensive brand name clothes. I would never be able to afford anything at those stores, and I honestly can't see why people would ever pay that much. Anyway, then we had lunch at this little Italian restaurant. It was really good, but I think the waiter misunderstood us when we were ordering. Go figure, right. We tried to order one spaghetti type pasta and then one pizza, and we were going to share. When the salads came, they brought 3 of them. Then, when the pasta came they brought two big plates out, and then they brought a pizza out. It was really good, but we couldn't eat it all.

After lunch, we went back to my apartment. We hung out and talked here. It is so nice to have a good friend here to talk to. I brought her back to the station at about 5 so she could go home for dinner. Once I got back, I helped finish setting the table and ate. We had this really good hot pot type thing with some little clear noodles, meat, tofu, mushrooms, and various vegetables in a broth. It was so yummy! I love my host mom's cooking. Then I helped with the dishes and took my shower.

Today I finally told my host dad that I want him to stop speaking English to me. I'm really starting to feel like I should know more Japanese because I have almost been here for a whole month. I really hope that I will start learning faster now that I will be hearing less English at home and taking Japanese lessons at school. My school even got me a really nice Japanese textbook in English to help me learn.

In school this week all the high school girls will have exams, so they won't be in class. Then what will I be doing, you ask. Well, they couldn't just give me a whole week off of school, so they have me go to the only classes that are going on. That's right, I get to go to grade school this week! I get recess and everything! I was told that I can either observe or participate. I plan on participating as much as my Japanese skills allow. I am so excited for this. I just hope they get me a little bigger desk than the ones the little kids are using... But seriously, I'm excited to go. Hopefully the kids won't be too scared of me or anything. I do have, I mean get to give a presentation to the class about Halloween. I wish I would have known that earlier so I could have gotten some American candy or something. Then the kids would love me for sure!

Sorry there aren't any pictures for this entry. I'll be sure to take some this week at school though.

Update

2008-09-13T04:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I have written anything. I've been pretty busy. I made it through my first two weeks of school! The second one was definitely better than my first. I have set my schedule now, so hopefully I'll be getting textbooks soon. Here, they don't borrow them from the school, they buy them every year. However, the textbooks are much smaller and they are paperback. They're about 6 by 9 inches or so and only a couple hundred pages.

My classes are the following:

Geography, Math, Chemistry, Religion, English Writing, Physics, English, Japanese, P.E. (Volleyball), Health, Computers, Calligraphy, and my personal Japanese Lessons on Thursday mornings and Friday afternoons. I take those during the Spoken English class and the Japanese Writing class, because I already speak English, and Japanese Writing is too hard for me. As if I can understand any of my other classes anyway.

They use a rotating schedule here, so it's a little different each day of the week. My favorite classes are P.E. and Calligraphy (Shodou). I can actually participate in them. Well I try to participate in math too, but it just makes me feel dumb. I'd be doing fine if I could read the directions, had a textbook, or understood the teacher, but I don't have those advantages. I failed the test my teacher had me take and when I got it back I wanted to cry. I was good at math in America!

This week in Calligraphy we did this thing called "takuhon". First we made these stamps out of cotton wrapped up really tightly in plastic, then cloth. We took this stone slab with kanji (chinese characters) carved into it and covered it with special paper. We got the paper wet with a brush and then soaked up the extra water with a towel. Then we used our fingers to push the paper down into all the carved out areas. Once it dried, we used the stamps we had made to stamp ink over it. The ink doesn't go into the carved out areas, so the whole thing is black except for the kanji. It was really awesome. Maybe I'll take a picture of it if I am allowed to take my camera to class.

On Tuesday, I went to the flower arranging club after school. It was really nice. One of the english teachers from school went with me. She's from Canada, so she could help explain what was going on. She said I was a natural at it and couldn't believe it was my first time. I just copied the teacher, but okay. This is my arrangement:

Last Saturday was the Rotary welcome party for the inbounds (foreign students in Japan this year) here. We all gave our speeches and watched the rebounds (Japanese students that went somewhere last year) give their presentations. After that we had a little social time. It was really good seeing all my rotary friends again.

Not too much else has happened. I just have school. After school I help clean the school. I helped sweep in the homeroom this week, but I think our jobs change every week. It's actually really fun. We have 6-8 girls cleaning one room, so it's not a lot of work and everyone just gets to talk and visit during it. After that I go home. Usually I get there around 5. That's just enough time to change out of my uniform, check my email really fast, and help set the table for dinner.

Dinner is always really good. My host mom is an awesome cook. I usually don't know, okay, I never know what the dishes are called, but they taste really good. My host dad will usually tell me what they're called but I always forget before I write it down in my journal or something. One really weird thing I had this week was my yogurt after dinner. It was Aloe flavored. Like the plant you use for burns. It tasted okay, but I didn't even know you could eat aloe. The after taste was a little weird.

Today, I went to my host grandparent's house for the first time. They were very nice. I also met my host Dad's sister. They live about 40 minutes away by car, but there was bad traffic today because it is a long weekend. (Monday is Elder's Day. No School! yay!) It took an hour and a half to get there. It wasn't too bad though. Lunch was really good. It was actually a hot pot type thing with Udon and Hama fish sent from a restaurant in Osaka. I guess hama is like the one of the most expensive fish to buy in Japan. A very nice rotarian had it sent to my host family. There was also this rice with sashimi and caviar on it. It was really good.

So, I think that's about it for now. I'll try not to wait as long to blog again, but you never know. I'll also try to get more pictures up soon. You can see the ones I already have up at Michael's website. If you don't know his website, just send me an email and I'll send you the link.

More School

2008-09-04T03:10:00.000-07:00

Well, today was my fourth day of school. It seems to be going pretty well. Yesterday I took a caligraphy class. That was pretty fun. I was assigned to write letters in Japanese to my host family and to AnnaMarie. I don't know what they are going to do with them. All the girls in my class came over and helped me translate and write them out. It seems like I am making friends, but it may just be because I am interesting and new.

Today I had some private Japanese lessons. It was good, I guess. I am getting a little frustrated because it doesn't seem like I am picking much up at all! Then again, I have only been here for like two weeks. It feels like much longer than that.

My actual classes are all pretty boring. I try to fill my time reading the Japanese history book my history teacher gave me or studying my grammer book. School feels infinatley longer when you can't even understand the teacher.

So, this has been and will be my schedule for week days. I wake up at 5:45. In the morning. It doesn't really seem that early though, because they don't have daylight savings here so the sun comes up at like 5:15. I make myself toast for breakfast and my peanutbutter and jelly sandwich for lunch. I eat my breakfast, get on my school uniform, and brush my teeth and do my hair. I don't do my makeup because it isn't allowed at school.

I leave my house a 6:45 to catch the 6:50 bus outside. That bus takes me to the station, where I get on the express train to the Yokohama Station. At Yokohama, I switch to a different train line and get on the local train that takes me to Tsurumi Station. From there I get on another bus that takes me to a block away from the school. I walk to the school, change my shoes, and go to my classes. I ususally arrive at school at about 8:05. School starts at 8:15. Well that is when the morning prayers are anyway. It's pretty wierd doing the prayers. I don't know them anyway because they are in Japanese, but still.

I leave school at like 3:30 and by 4:30 or so I arrive home. At home I help with dinner or play with my little host brothers. I eat dinner, shower, and then get to bed around 9:00.

Oh, and did I tell you that I got my phone now? It's pretty exciting.

School

2008-09-02T04:34:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was my first day of school here in Japan. I can now sympathize with anyone who has ever been the "new kid". I guess it went okay. It was pretty tough though. My teachers and classmates are all very nice, and I have two teachers that are pretty much assigned to help me out if I ever need anything. They have been really helpful in getting my schedule settled. It was just really hard going to a school for the first time with all girls, in Japanese, and not knowing what was going on... at all.

People would ask how my classes were and to be perfectly honest, they are all pretty much the same to me. I don't know what the teacher is saying anyway. The only one that was different was math. The teacher gave me a worksheet that was in Japanese going over something with circles that we never got to in my Algebra II class. Luckily, the girl in front of me spoke decent English and she helped explain it to me. Like I said, everyone is so nice at school.

Today was my second day and I had to give a speech at the school assembly this morning. It went pretty well. I just read it off of my paper. Everyone clapped when I was done. Today was definatly better than yesterday. My schedule is different everyday, so today I had Japanese History, English, Japanese, and P.E. In Japanese History, my teacher gave me a book about Japan's history that was in english and japanese. That was very nice of her. I spent the morning reading that and actually learning something. P.E. was fun too.

I got my school P.E. uniform and I went to the volleyball class. All the girls were very impressed with my rusty volleyball skills. I haven't actually played for almost 2 years, but they thought I was amazing! When I spiked the ball they were all like "Oh! Sugoii!" (Wow/Amazing!) haha. And then at the water break one of the girls was like you are so skinny and poked my stomach, then yelled something to the other girls and asked me if I did sit-ups. I told them I didn't. It was kind of embarassing, but really funny. When the teacher announced that we were going to play a game of volleyball (rather than just drills) a lot of the girls were like I get Abbey!!!

So, that is school for now. I hope it continues to get better. I also hope that I really start to pick up some Japanese from my classmates.

Update!

2008-08-30T20:09:00.000-07:00

I'm doing well here. I am starting to get over being so homesick now. :D

My host family is great. My little brothers are really cute and they like to play "trump" with me. It's matching using a deck of cards or the nice animal cards Dad got for them. They always get really excited when I say more than 2 words to them in Japanese. My host mom is very sweet. She is very helpful and kind. I can't wait to learn more Japanese so I can get to know her better. My host dad is a huge help. He acts as my translator when we are shopping for cell phones and at the Rotary dinners when people ask me more complicated questions than is the food delicious? Haha. It was nice to have an English speaker while I was settling in. I think he will stop speaking English to me in a few weeks though. That's good I guess.

At my welcome party I will get to see all my Rotary friends again. Since I am done with my class now, I won't see them very much. All that I really know about it is that I have to give my speech that we worked on in our class.

The class was really fun and I think I learned quite a bit. It gave me a good base to work off of so hopefully I'll be able to start making better sentences soon. I'm really glad I took it, but you've gotta tell AnnaMarie that she was wrong. I am definitely not the best one here at Japanese. Haha. I'm pretty sure that I was put in the dumb group. Our group wrote our speeches in romaji (english alphabet). The other group wrote theirs out in hiragana! They can all read and write hiragana and katakana really fast. Oh, well. Our group had a lot of fun with our lessons. :D And, yes, we bow to our sensei. Everyone bows to everyone here. Every time I meet someone we bow.

My house. It's really nice. I now have my own room. It is just a little smaller than Christy's room I'd say. Minus the closet. There are two other rooms about the same size, then another one with the sliding walls that I can't remember the name of. Then we have our toilet room, our bathroom (which are totally separate, by the way) the little changing room next to the bathroom. It has sinks, a mirror, a little closet, and the washer/dryer. We have a nice little kitchen, which is smaller than AnnaMarie's. The last room is the living room. It has a couch and the table that we eat at and the TV. Then, pretty much every room has a little balcony outside of it. The main balcony has a nice hammock I like to sit in sometimes. And our toilet is a western style one, with the bedet (how do you spell that?) built in. It took me like 3 min to figure out how to flush it my first night. Our bath is Japanese style. There is a little shower thing on the wall that you wash off with, then you can take a bath to relax if you want. The bath has a heater so it will stay at whatever temperature you set it at.

My room is nice. It has two little balconies off of it, and I have a bookshelf and computer in it. I also have a little set of drawers for my clothes and a part of the closet is for me to hang my stuff up in. We are still working on the bed. Right now I am sleeping on a futon, which is fine with me. They had ordered me like a 100 dollar bed and it broke when we were assembling it. So, they had it sent back and I guess they are going to get another one at some point. Until I get my bed, I'm not really sure what to do with my suitcases. They are just in the corner for now, but I want to store them under my bed once I get it. I'll work something out in the next few days.

Sometimes I help make dinner. I helped make curry the other day. It was pretty good. All the food here is good. The only thing I didn't really like was sashimi, but I’ll eat it. It tastes fine, but the texture is weird. I'll just have to get used to it I think. For dinner I have had everything from Beef stew to sashimi to curry to Udon My host mom is a really good cook. I do miss Italian food though. I eat rice at least twice a day. Usually for breakfast I make myself shokupan (toast).

There are very few foreigners here, so EVERYONE stares at me. Some try to be sneakier about it than others. My host dad keeps apologizing for it, but I was like, hey, if a 7 foot tall girl walked in to my school at home, everyone would stare at her too. Haha. I am taller than almost everyone. I haven't met or seen any girls taller than me yet. Once in a while I will see a foreigner on the street, and I have realized that I stare at them. Haha. Usually I am just trying to figure out why they are here. I think the majority of them are from the navy base, but sometimes you see one with a Japanese wife or something.

Yesterday I went to my school for the first time. I met the American teacher named Jonny and another teacher who speaks very good English. They are kind of assigned to me to help me get settled into school. I start on Monday. I'm pretty nervous, but everything will be fine. My building is really complicated though. Good thing I just have to follow my homeroom classmates. I'll take pictures with my uniform once I get it. It is going to come on Sunday. They just finished it. I am going to get sooo many more stares when I am wearing that. And, it's okay, you can laugh.

After going to the school, I went to a Rotary dinner. They are at this really nice hotel called Camelot Japan or something. The food was really good Japanese food. The Rotarians are all very nice (and rich). One named "Sammy" own a whole bunch of restaurants. I went around introducing myself to each table, and at his there was a lady wearing a kimono. He asked me how I liked it and I said it was beautiful. Then he said that he is going to have one made for me! That is so nice of him! My host dad said that he will probably get a really nice one made (like 3,000 to 5,000 USD) Yikes! And there was another lady in a kimono who gave me this beautiful Japanese fan. It is purple silk and bamboo. Probably expensive. The other Rotarians like to come around to my table and watch me use the chopsticks and ask me how I liked the food. I'll be going to these dinners about once a month I think.

I’ll be getting pictures up soon. Probably tomorrow. Today we are going to go shopping for my rice bowl and chopsticks. :D This is pretty exciting.

First Few Days in Japan, and I Only Got Lost Once!

2008-08-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

From my first few days here in Yokohama:

August 22:
The flight went well. Sorry about the typing. this keyboard is confusing. I`m having a really good time here. My host family is very nice and the boys are so cute. I am learning the most from them.

Yokohama is beautiful! The city is really really big and busy, but I am slowly starting to understand the train system. It feels like I have been here a lot longer than I have been. Tomorrow I am going to go to my Japanese class all by myself. I really hope I don`t get lost! The other exchange students are cool and funny, especially this kid from Brazil and the girl from Mexico.

Today I got tailored for my school uniform.. haha. They are custom making it, and it will be shipped to me next week. I also got shoes. My feet are so big here! Mie (my host mom) was like “ookii” (big) when she saw my shoes. Then the lady at the store`s eyes got all big when they were telling her my size. +D

I also went to the Rotary lunch and gave my little speech. One thing about the Rotarians here is that their cars are soo nice! I saw a few Mercedes, Porches and even a Rolls Royce! And they all seem so willing to help me. They said to just let them know if there was anything I wanted to do or see.

Hmmm.. oh, parking here! The parking place for us is in this really cool car elevator thing. It actually moves the cars down so you can drive in, then moves it back up. Cars are parked 2 or 3 cars high! I`ll take a pic at some point. My house here is really nice too. I love you all and I miss you all. I am having a lot of fun though. Don`t worry about me.

Love, Abbey--
USA ---> Yokohama, Japan
Rotary Youth Exchange
08-09

August 22:
So guess what? Today I am going to ride the trains all by myself. I really hope I don`t get lost. Today I will be going to my Japanese Class, then touring Yokohama with my friends there and some Rotex students.

Right now I am waiting for breakfast, which is going to be Udon noodles and rice I think. I tried to help, but Mie gave me the computer. I think I just get in the way... oh, well.

I miss you lots, but it is really awesome here. I have this train pass card, like a plastic credit card ish type card, and there is this scanner and you just put your wallet over the scanner and it detects the card and will charge you whatever the ride costs. Crazy! You dont have to atually get out the card. And the key to my house has an electric sensor in it too, so you don`t actually use the key part at the front door of the complex building. My whole complex, by the way, houses 6,000 people! and they have an eye scanner that you can use too, but Im not registered in it, obviously.

August 24:
Hey_Everyone!

Guess what? I really did get lost yesterday. haha.

Yeah, so I got to my bus okay. I got to the correct trains okay. After the trains is what turned out to be the tricky part. I had to find the Washington Hotel and then from there I would take a right, down that street to my japanese class. The Washington Hotel is just straight from the station, right? Well, these roads are not grid system, and I took the wrong road to go strait on. After a while, I started asking people for help....

Me: Sumimasen, Eigo ga wakarimasu ka? (Excuse me. Do you speak English?)

Them: iie (No)

Me: umm, Washington Hotel?

Them: Washintonu Hoteru? blah blah jdklj jklejwkafdskfjfj djifjkdsl.

Me: kinda blank stare.. this way? (pointing)

Them: hai. (Yes)

Me: Arigato Gozaimasu. (Thank you)

I was lead through a subway a little ways (not on a train) then back up, because it was too dangerous to go on the street. yeah, that was definatley not the way I went the day before. Finally I get to this building they are leading me to. It was a DIFFERENT Washington Hotel. At this point I am 30 min. late for my class and trying really hard not to cry. I go into this hotel and find a phone to call my host dad, who calls rotary and sends someone to pick me up at the front desk.

Everything worked out eventually. I was 40 min late and all the other kids had a good laugh, but Rotary took care of me. Today I got there all by myself with no mistakes. and home, too. That was my big adventure.

I love you all!!!

-Abbey

August 24:
Tonight i am going to go to one of those Sushi restaurants with the rotating belt things... mmm. I`ll tell you about that when I get back. I should get going now though. I will post pictures when I get my room set up.

I'm Leaving Tomorrow!

2008-08-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I have really neglected my blog this week. I got my itinerary and tickets and all that good stuff. I'm currently in Milwaukee. My flight leaves tomorrow morning from Milwaukee at 10:20 and goes to Detroit. I'll leave Detroit at 2:25 for the Tokyo Narita Airport, where I'll land at 4:20pm (2:20am my time)! yay! I'm really excited and a little nervous. I'll blog more about this week once I get there, but I can't now. Right now I am outside of the library in Milwaukee using their internet with Tyler. :D I'll will be in Japan in about 29 hours!

Yokohama time

2008-08-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hey. Look at my new clock! It's Yokohama time!

I Have a Visa!

2008-08-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

So, a few days ago I got an email from my host club in Japan asking me to let them know about my itinerary once I get it. They said that they want me in Japan for a language camp form the 20th to the 29th of September! That means I should be leaving within two weeks!

At that point I was still waiting for my visa, so I informed my travel agent about the dates. She emailed back telling me that as of last friday, I have a visa! Yay! Now I just have to wait a few more days and hopefully I'll have my plane tickets. I am going to get all packed up and ready to go this week, just incase they call and say that I am leaving in 3 days or something. The only bad thing about leaving sooner than I thought I would be is that I might not be here for the going away party my friends are throwing me. Hopefully they can reschedule it for a day that I will still be here.

Last weekend, we went down to Milwaukee to visit AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie and to go to the Breaking Dawn release party! Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final book in the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. AnnaMarie, Christy, and I went to Border's for the midnight release party. The party was pretty lame, but we had a good time together! We went for ice cream at Kopp's and had some fun girl time. I'm glad that I will get to see them one more time before I leave, because I will be flying out of Milwaukee.

I have been getting so excited to go! I thought I would be more nervous at this point, but I'm really not. I've been cleaning out my room and studying my Japanese. I finally made arrangements to take that final exam before I go. Today, my friends Kate is coming over. She volunteered to help me pack! That was so nice of her. I am really going to miss her this year. I have also been hanging out with my friends as much as I can before I leave. In two weeks. Wow. I still can't believe it is that soon. I'm so excited!

Home!

2008-07-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

I am finally home for a while. This summer has been so crazy! It has been a while since I have written anything on here, so this might get a little long.

The rest of Summer Scholars was really fun and I miss the people I met there. I stayed at Michael and Caroline's house for a week after that was over. It was so much fun spending time with them all! Ryan and Calvin are fun. They are going to be so big when I get back from Japan! On the Fourth of July, we went to the parade in Provo. That was fun even though we didn't stay for the whole thing. It was a lot longer than the one in Bessemer! I was a little disappointed that I missed marching band this year though.

I left Utah on the 5th. My flight left at a very early 6:30 in the morning from the SLC airport. Everything with my flight went well. My luggage was almost 15 pounds over the limit (ooops) but I had a really nice lady checking me in and she let it slide. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was traveling all by myself and I'm only 16. Anyway, once my flight got into Chicago at about 10:30, I got my luggage and was off to figure out Chicago's train system. I took the train to downtown Chicago, then found my way to Grand Central Station to get on the AmTrak up to Milwaukee. At this point, AnnaMarie and Tyler, who were supposed to pick me up, were on a plane that was late from California. I was a little confused when their friend Erika was at the station to pick me up instead of them. She took me over to the airport where we picked up AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie.

I stayed there in Milwaukee for a few days, then we all drove up to Ironwood. Two days later (on the 10th), I left for the Grand Rapids Rotary Conference. I didn't sleep very much, but I had a really good time. It was good to see everyone one last time before we all leave for our exchanges, and it was awesome to meet more people from, back from, and going to Japan! I also received my guarantee form while I was there! I already had most of the information from talking with my host dad, but it was still exciting to get it! On Sunday, we drove back from Grand Rapids and said goodbye to all the inbounds and other outbounds.

On Monday, June 14, I left for Girl's Camp! It went through Friday and was really fun. I was a youth-leader in charge of the fourth-year girls. Fourth years go across the lake one night during camp and actually camp in tents, so I got to lead that with a few other youth-leaders. We made a fire and had s'mores and then we got to get everyone up nice and early so we could all canoe back in time for breakfast. Being a youth-leader is awesome because you get to lead all the camp songs and be crazy! I love Girl's Camp. It's sad that this might be my last time. Maybe I'll be back in time for it next year. That would be Christy's first year, too.

I finally got home on Friday, and I got a call from Sister Anderson. She asked if Rosalie and I would want to babysit her kids while Brother Anderson was a scout camp. She lives in Ashland, so I just went over to her house on Sunday after church. I stayed there until Wednesday. It was fun to spend time with her kids and with Rosalie. I'm going to miss them when I leave.

So, now I am finally home for a while! It feels so good to sleep in my own bed. Now I have about 4 more weeks here, then I take off for my big adventure!