Farewell Japan

I am currently in my Narita hotel room! I was in Tokyo yesterday and left there this morning. Tomorrow morning (tuesday) i check out of my hotel and head to the airport at 11am... then my flight is not until 6pm but there is a 2 story mall on the top of the airport, plus that observation deck and food restaurants so i'll just hang out for a while. They say you should be through the gate and stuff about 2 hours before hand so i just have to bum around for about 4 or 5 hours. It's rainy outside and kinda nasty. I'm so sad to be leaving. Yesterday morning when we left Niigata to head to Tokyo it was very sad saying goodbye to all of our friends that we made in Japan. We will keep in touch and I definitely want to come back someday and they want to come to America as well, but it's just going to be weird not seeing them everyday like we have been the past few weeks. Since i changed my flight, now i'm headed to San Francisco, so it's 9.5 hours to get there, and then i have a 2.5 hour layover and a 5.5 hour flight to Orlando. Kerri is coming to pick me up and i can't wait to see everyone again! =) The time difference is so funny, i leave Japan on Tuesday at 6pm and then arrive to Orlando Tuesday at 10:30pm... 4 hours huh ;) haha. I'm so excited to sleep in my bed with all my pillows and be in my new house in my new room and then i can't wait to go see patrick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (SO excited for that!!) Be home soon!!

last field trip, dance club, farewell party

Well the last 2 days have been very busy! We ended thursday by having a roof party! well sort of... we just hung out on the roof, ha. on friday we had our last field trip. We started by taking a 2 hour bus ride to the sea of japan. We drove through the mountains and it was beautiful!! we played around on the beach and walking around in the water for a bit and then we headed off to another shrine in the city. It was gorgeous, as they all have been... but then we took a cable car up the mountains to the top for lunch. now THAT made the day worth it :) It was such a long day since we went so far away... by the time we got home at 6 we were all exhausted! Instead of napping I went shopping and bought a new bag for the plane ride back... background story: I took my suitcase to be sent to the airport (you just go to the 7-11 an they do it for you there) but they weighed it and it was too heavy so they sent me home... SO i bought a duffel bag to use as a second carry on with my laptop bag and then took weight out of my bag. I was able to send my big suitcase today to the airport so all is well :) After that we all had dinner and then went out to another underground club to watch our friend Tomoko's dance performance! she was so good and we saw some famous and AWESOME break dancers. Apparently one of the guys is famous all over japan and supposed to be one of the best. We stayed out until 6am... so this morning when i woke up at 10 to go to our farewell party at 11 i was PRETTY tired!!

The farewell party was really nice! they presented us each with our certificate of course completion and gave us some Keiwa college folders and a towel. We had an amazing lunch and desserts and all of our japanese friends were there! After that, Manami and Wakaba and I went to go mail my bag at 7-11 and then we went to the post office and shipped my comforter back to the states!! it'll take like 2-3 months... but it'll come one day! We then went to an electronic store and i picked up some blank cd's and made them and Wakana (i know... Wakaba and Wakana... i call them the waka's) some cd's full of american music! they made me a thank you not later on and went out and bought me some really cute hair stuff to say thank you. they are too nice!! i'm really going to miss everyone here and all of my new friends. We see everyone every single day so it will be different once i'm home.

I realized today that 6 weeks ago i began the countdown to now, and here i am wishing that tuesday would never come... like i knew i would. I leave in a few hours on a bus to Tokyo and then on monday i'll be in Narita and on Tuesday I leave here at 6pm and get to Florida at 10:30pm... funny how that time change thing works haha. I'm heading back from the future and back to the land where the sun does not rise at 3:30 in the morning and is up in the sky when i leave the clubs at 6am. damn.

Well, see everyone soon!

Nearing the end

Well, today we had our finals and finished classes. I hope i did well! Tonight we're throwing a little apartment party and tomorrow we have our last field trip day. It was rainy and gloomy all day today... kind of played with the sad moods in the air knowing that we're beginning the end here. On Saturday the school is throwing us a farewell party on campus and we've all invited our homestay families and classmates and teachers, that should be a lot of fun! they're hanging up some of our crafts that we've made as decorations and then afterwards we're free to take everything and bring it back home with us. Tomorrow I am shipping out my large suitcase to the airport to wait for me to get there so i do not have to carry it around in Tokyo the extra time that i'm here by myself. I also am shipping the comforter and pillow i bought here back to the US tomorrow too... which means i'll have to brave sleeping in the hotel beds on my own! ahh.

Yesterday we made japanese paper lanterns! they were kind of like paper mache because you start out with just a small egg shaped balloon and then you cover it with a paper like substance, string, and some leaves or whatever else you want to throw in it. Then they let it dry for about a week, pop the balloon, then fix the light inside of it. They are going to ship it back to the US for us so i'll get that sometime this summer :)

I'm excited and sad to be coming home. This is all i've been used to for the past 5 weeks and i just don't want it to all feel like a dream after i get home. Patrick moves today to Pensacola, so he won't be there when i fly in to pick me up but i will drive there as soon as i can and see him =) Well, more later, and see you all soon!

Drums and Calligraphy!!!

Well, today marks a week until i will be home. I can't believe i've been here for this long already. This thursday we take our japanese final and the enginering final, then on friday we have a farewell party up at the college. We all learned and made jaanese calligraphy for the party, so it will be cool to see it all hung up! Then on Sunday morning we get up and disperse, some of us are taking the bus, some of us a train, and then it's over :/ I'm taking a 5 hour bus to Tokyo and staying in Osaki for a night. The train station was right outside of the hotel so it will be easy to travel from there for that night and the next day. The next day i'll get up and then head to Narita and stay the night there. Thennn my flight out is on Tuesday the 23rd around 6pm (my time here in japan). I get in at 10:30pm that night (America time) and Kerri is going to pick me up :) I'll get to see my room for the first time since Patrick moved me into my new house, I'll get to sleep in a bed again, have a car again, and i won't have classes everyday like this ever again. it's so weird. this is all we've been living for the past month+ and here we are in the final 3 days left. i have had so much fun and i am already planning to come back, only next time i don't want to do it all alone. I think if i had this much fun doing it alone, it would be that much better coming back with friends or family. i plan to continue to learn and study my japanese even back in the states, it's such a beautiful language!

Today we had a drum lesson and demonstration by professional musicians! they were SO amazing on the drums and flute. They had a few different types of drums and we got to try them all and watch them give performances to us. I don't know if it beats yesterday's calligraphy lesson... but it was sure up there! so much fun! tomorrow we have origami and 3D paper lessons.

After school today, Manami came and picked me up and we went to see her art on display at an art show! it was very cool. I told her that my mom is a painter and she was so fascinated!! she is just a beginner but it was a small art show room and she loves it.

I"m really having a lot of fun this past week and this week here, i think it's because we all know we're about to leave and go back to the US. it's so weird, i've grown accustomed to the japanese culture, not being able to fully communicate but still having to get your point across, people driving on the other side of the road and the from our passenger seat, the food, sleeping on the floor, and so much more. I think it will feel like it was just a dream once i'm home for a few days. I know i'll look back on the time i spent here and remember it forever, i really hope i don't forget anything! i want to come back again soon.

Field Trip Saturday

the museum!




SNOWWWW!!





Well, as usual... we had a LONG and semi-eventful field trip day. i swear these things should be optional! Last night i wasn't even up that late, but we all went bowling! (i bowled a 146!) Anyways... at least the last place we went to today was beautiful!! today was just a rainy cold day so getting up at early to go spend all day out in the rain wasn't exactly something we were all thrilled about. Tomorrow is a free day though so we plan to sleep in then a few friends and i are going to make pancakes and have brunch :)

The first stop today was a museum in Niigata. We took an hour bus ride there and then walked around and saw all the museum had to offer (rather boring honestly). Then we took an hour long ferry down the river to get to a village where they had some shops and lunch and live music. They even had an indoor gallery type thing with a bunch of random stuffs and one of the rooms looked like a little town and it had an indoor snow maker!! so we stood under it and got pictures of us playing in the snow!! so cool! We had a great lunch there and for dessert, some cherry and vanilla ice cream in a cone! yummmy!

After that, we took a 45 minute bus ride to another museum and public area of somebody's house. It was HUGE. way bigger than even most of our mansions at home, plus the back part of it was just open to the big back courtyard type thing (where all the pictures are from above) and we layed out and took naps and relaxed. We made it back home around 5:30 and then i did some grocery shopping and a few of us are going to cook dinner in a bit at 8:00.

I can't believe i'm coming home so soon! it actually makes me a little bit sad. Although i will NOT miss sleeping on the floor, my tiny one hot plate 'kitchen', the crazy washing machine and dryer in the shower... not one bit! i'm so excited to sleep in my bed again, and to see my normal friends again and get home and do normal things again! ahh so excited :) see you all in 10 days!

Ikebana & Karaoke Party

Ikebana was a lot of fun! We had a teacher who's been doing it for years and when you're beginning, the goal is to reproduce flower arrangements just like what the instructor shows you... they do not encourage creativity. it was kind of weird to have them not want you to try and make your creation, but to just get as close to the teacher's model! She did two different kinds so we could pick which one we wanted. I did one with a more slanted look an the other was a straight up and down look. After we finished, we made name cards and now they are centerpieces in the cafeteria on a lot of the tables!! It's so cool seeing it and having everyone else see all of our works of art :)

Yesterday night a few of us went out with the same people i did karaoke with last week. They came and picked us up and took us to a different karaoke place because this one you could bring your own food and drink!! They bought tons of alcohol for us and all different snacks and we brought some too. It was SO much fun! we were there for so long sang sooo many different songs. I really love doing karaoke! it's a lot more fun than it is in America. They just give you a single party room that is just wall to wall benches, and tables in the center and then 2 or 1 big screen tv's. so you don't have to share with anyone but your own group. They give you a couple mic's and a couple controllers so you can pick songs and then you're just on your own all night long. I wish we had karaoke like this at home!!

Today we had a long day of classes with two lectures after lunch: anime and japanese automobile industry lecture... fun, haha. They had us watch this crazy clip... it's like Top Gun remade into an anime clip!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcLl6f_Mfu4&feature=PlayList&p=0710F8492845E33C&index=0

enjoy that one ;) Then after the lectures, i took a nap and now i'm updating my blog! It has been pouring and windy and just nasty all day long, so it was definitely perfect weather. Tonight we are having an apartment party and then tomorrow (where we normally don't have class) we have 3 lectures at school :/ BOO! I guess since we're slowly approaching the end, they're cramming in a lot on everyday that we have left.

I miss all of you and i miss America!! I can't wait to eat some REAL food again!! and i can't wait to see my new house and be back with patrick and all my sisters and back on campus. But... this is really amazing here and i am so glad that i came :) I'll be home in 12 days! ahh :)

Kendo Fighting

Yesterday we learned how to fight Kendo. It is kind of like fencing and sword fighting mixed together. The demonstration was by 6th degree pro's and they used actual swords and then we used the fake ones :) it was a lot of fun!!! We went out last night with my host sister Manami for Yakitori (various meats on a stick). Yakitori is SOOO yummy!!! :) I took adam, sean, and the other adam with me and they met manami and her family as well. It was nice to see them again and hopefully i will see them again soon. Manami's mother gave us some fresh tomatoes from the place that she works! we're going to try and make spaghetti sauce :) After dinner we went an took photos in the photo booth in the arcade by our apartment and then afterwards we stayed and played a bunch of fun games!!

Today we are learning Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements) after lunch and then i am going to go into the city and see the movie Angels and Demons with some of the classmates and then i'm going out later with some of the Japanese students i met last week when i went Karaoke with them! it should be fun! idk what we are going to do... maybe karaoke again with some drinks and stuff. Then tomorrow we are going to have school and then tomorrow night we are having a party with food and drinks! :)

I'll be home in less than 2 weeks now! See everyone soon!!

the Kite Festival!

the kite i made!







The kite festival was SO cool! first we started it off by going to the kite museum and seeing all different size kites and watching a 3D video about the history of this kite festival. Then we got to go make our own kites! (i made mine for patrick :)) So i colored it and picked a cool looking japanese character and it looks pretty cool! After that we were bussed over to where the kite fighting takes place. You can't take cars there because it is like 2 towns that meet with a big bridge and river and the challengers go on the far side and the home teams stay on the other side and you take your huge team of people and pull the rope and run as fast as you can to get your kite in the air and then you try and get the other teams down. The wind was really bad so towards the end they stopped doing 'fighting' and just had the shows of seeing if you could get your kite into the air. It was crazy when they crashed. They were SO big! one of them knocked two people in the head when it couldn't get off the ground and crashed in the bank where a lot of people were. they stopped all kites for a little bit and idk what ended up happening to those people! We got to participate with a team with one of the large kites. it was so cool, so they gave us a blue uniform to wear and we got to pull and sprint with them to try and get the kite in the air. we got it up for a little bit but then it wouldn't stay. then they tried again, but i just did it the once, i was in flip flops so it was a little harder, but still fun! =)

After yesterdays festivities i went out for italian food and had some pizza with friends and it was so good! i also did grocery shopping and now have a stocked fridge =) we had to write our first essay that is due this morning all in japanese... it had to be 1.5-2.5 pages and we haven't even learned sentence structure, or a lot of words... you can see that my teacher is not very bright. he's the program coordinator so he doesn't even sit in class with us... apparently he must think we're fluent already or something. He's really getting on my nerves! and he plans to post in the school hall the best and worst of our class's paper... which really doesn't sound like a nice thing to do.

i miss home so much!!! i'll be home in 15 days, and i can't wait!!!