Soccer Club

So last Thursday, I started soccer club. Wednesday I met the captain, but I couldn't go because I had Japanese class. Thursday, I realized I had no idea where to meet, so I was just standing in the hallway looking kinda lost, and then the captain comes up behind me. I thought it was really nice of him to come find me and show me where the girls meet ^^.

There are 11 girls in the club (2 first year and 9 second year) and 15 boys. There are no 3rd years, so I am the oldest >.<. We practice on the same field, but are on separate sides. It started raining, but we still practiced anyway XD. Club is from 4:30 to 6 or 6:30. I go on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday(9am to 12pm). I've gotten a lot of exercise and its great! I joined a sports club to get into shape. Everyone is really nice. They were asking me some questions and one girl asked if I like Maximum the Hormone (Jrock) and Linkin Park! I thought "Yes! finally people who actually like rock music, and not just Disney pop stars!" Alot of poeple here are really into Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montanna, Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber (bleh!), etc. Sorry to anyone who likes them (you are entitled to your own opinion, as am I) but I really do not like their music.

The first day, we just played a game, and apparently I don't suck as much as I thought because they kept saying sugoi (awesome/amazing) and kakkoi (cool).

Saturday, It was kinda was hard getting up early on a weekend, but I was able to drag myself out of bed. Unfortunately, when I was about to leave, I realized there were only 2 bikes outside...where was mine?! Turns out when my host sis was at her dance practice and my brother was at his cram school, my bike was stolen!!? O.O We know when it was, because they would have taken my host siblings bikes too. It was quite a shock first thing in the morning, or just in general. This hardly ever happens where a bike is stolen from right in front of the house >.<. I ended up borrowing my host bro's bike and was only a bit late for club.

It was really hot and I kinda forgot to put on sunscreen, so my face and part of my legs got a bit burnt >.< I have a stripe on my legs between where my shorts ended and my soccer socks started X\. Club was pretty fun. We just did a couple drills like zigzagging between cones, using diff parts of our feet to dribble and then we passed and took shots for a bit. We played a game for about an hour, so that took up alot of time.
I bought sunscreen on my way home, so now I don't have an excuse if I get burnt.

Random Presentation

My homeroom class is a "International Understanding class" meaning they learn a bit more about the world, and have more english. They have a english international class, but since they are going to Australia in summer for a 3 week homestay, it is dedicated to learning everything possible about Australia. However, today the teacher (who is japanese, but his english is pretty good) asked me if I would like to do a presentation on Canada. I said sure, thinking that it would be later in the week and I would have time to prepare, but then he told me to come to the front of the class. I was like "EHHH, NOW??!" Ah well...

At the beginning, I had no idea what to talk about, so I asked if any one had any questions, which got the ball rolling. We talked about the fact we have "big" animals (Japan does have some bears in the north, but no wolves, cougars, moose, etc) and the weather and mountains/landscape. They were shocked when I told them in January it was -57C and that we were the coldest place in the world that day XD. The record low here is -4C.

Most of the discussion was about the differences in school/teenage life. In Japan, the school has a bigger part in the student's life. Parents seem to leave the disciplining to the schools most of the time. (Although the strictness differs) you are not allowed to wear makeup, accessories, dye your hair and you skirt must be min. a certain length, guys can't wear their pants too baggy/low. Also, you can't use phones/ipods in school.
 Although they are strict about uniforms and being on time for school, it is totally acceptable to sleep in class. Students are so busy with club and studying that they don't seem to get enough sleep/rest, and so they sleep in class. I also find it rather strange that there are no discussions in class. The teacher just talks/writes on the board and the subject is rarely talked about with the students. They are told how -insert topic- is and they don't usually question it.

They were pretty surprised when I told them that those things were allowed in school and that you could wear pretty much whatever you want. Also, that tattoos are way more common, and lots of teens do drink and some smoke/do drugs. They were also amazed that high school students can drive.
In Japan, if you miss a class, it is an automatic call home, however in Canada, it is common to skip class and the teachers don't seem to care as much. A high school student in Canada is considered more or less an adult, so they are responsible for their education/ more independent and should suffer the consequences of their actions (ie: skipping). In Japan, however you are a child until you are 19/20... and are not that independent. Curfews are normally 8pm or 9pm (coming home at 11pm or 12am is unimaginable for a student).

Also, girls and guys hardly communicate. The guys hang out with guys and girls hang out with girls (at lunch, they even go to diff classes). It's their choice, maybe because they have been less independent/are less mature. This is prob one of the strangest things for me, because I'm used to everyone hanging out together (guys and girls). Even boyfriends/girlfriends don't talk at school! Guys here are really shy and seem to have to talk to me when I'm by myself and there are big groups of them... in Canada, it would be opposite XD.

School is a big part of Japanese students life. School is from 8:30am until 3:30-4pm and then there is normally club after for 2 or so hours. My school in Canada started at 8am and went to 2:30pm/ friday was 1:30pm. Everyone was quite jealous of schools/life in Canada.

The presentation was alot of fun and I think my classmates enjoyed it too. Did I mention I did most of it in Japanese? :D I only needed a bit of help from the teacher, and had to resort to charades a couple times, but overall I was really proud of how much I talked in Japanese! What was supposed to be a 10 min presentation turned into about a 40 min one XD. All of this is just my view on school life, and it could differ from place to place. There are always exceptions,  but this is my opinion on the average student.

Exam Week

So I wrote my geography test on Tuesday... It was frickin hard! I could hardly understand the questions, mostly because there were so many kanji I couldn't read. I think I ended up answering about half of it. I answered all of the mulitliple choice/ fill in the blank (words were provided) and a couple written questions. I might have been able to do more but I ran out of time >.<
School finished at lunch, so I went home.
It got kinda boring being at home, because either no one else was there or when my host sis was, she was studying. I was able to hang out with Helle on Thursday after she was done school. We ended up going to Don Quixote. It is one of the most amazing stores ever! It has everything from groceries to clothes to vehicle products/accessories XD

I unfortunately kinda forgot the way. At this one intersection we went straight, but it didn't look right so we turned around and went left instead. That didn't seem right either, so we went back and turned right. We then ran into a bridge I knew you don't go over... It turned out the first way we went was the right way XD.

We ended up spending a couple hours just looking around. I got shorts and pants for gym. I also bought a notebook and pencil crayons (I want to start drawing again...) We got crepes filled with banana, strawberries, whip cream and vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Soooo delicious!

Back to exams. Today, I got my exam back and... *drumroll*............I got 43%! Now in Japan, a passing mark is around 30%, so I actually passed! When the teacher handed back my test, everyone was asking what I got, and he told them... and I got lots of oohs and aaahs XD. Apparently I actually did better than a couple people :S.

During last block we had Chinese exchange students come visit. There were about 8 of them. They were pretty good in English, not fluent, but could make themselves understood. Our class was split up into groups and one Chinese student per group. The girl in my group also spoke some Japanese which was cool. We had to make a chart thing about the differences between Japan and China. We wrote about New Year, some foods and school. Something that surprised me was they had school from about 7:30pm or 8am to 6pm or 7pm! O.o I thought Japanese school was long (8:30am to 3:30pm or 4:10pm). The girl was really nice. It was fun! My classmates English isn't that great, and the girl's Japanese wasn't that great (but still pretty good). So  I ended up translating for them, which was really cool! :D

Studying...

So I just wanted to say that I have the best host sis ever! My geography test is tomorrow. I have no idea what most of the vocab means, or how to read the kanji. My host sister chose to sit down with me for a couple hours tonight and taught me the vocab. It helped so much. It made me happy (tho I also feel a bit bad) that she decided to help me study, when she should have been studying for her exams.
I don't know if I can remember much, but it definitely helped.

Wish us luck for tomorrow :D

Kabuki and Shopping!

So I haven't posted anything in about a week. Sorry! School wasn't that eventful. I did, however join the soccer club! Well I haven't actually done anything yet, because the past week has been rather rainy and next week is exams, but after that I will actually start club. I'll post more about it then.

Speaking of exams, my homeroom teacher says I don't have to write any, which means I have all but Friday off next week! The other exchange students I know, still have to go to school even though they aren't writing exams, but I don't :D. It's only half days, so hopefully I can hang out with some people after, or it will end up being somewhat of a boring week. Unfortunately, my geography teacher says I have to write the test. It's the class I understand the least (so much kanji >.<) in... but I will do my best. That means I have to go to school Tuesday...

Okay, so this past weekend, there was a festival in Komatsu. On Saturday, the AFS students in Komatsu (Yuka, Katta and Irisz) were given tickets to a children's kabuki play. They invited me, Helle, Gus and Jared (Rotary). Us from Kanazawa took the train into Komatsu. The kabuki play was kinda interesting, but I didn't understand a thing O.o They were speaking in old japanese, which made it very difficult to understand, but the little kids were really cute!

It turned out all the actors were girls in elementary school! The first play was about an hour, and we were planning on leaving, but then a whole bunch of important looking men came on stage, so we got stuck listening to there speeches (it would have been rude to leave during them...). The next play was going to start after, and we didn't want to get stuck there for another hour, so we were going to leave, but nobody wanted to get up first XD. There were "older" people on either side, and we didn't want to make them get up... but finally we got up the courage to just get up and leave.

We had okonomiyaki for lunch and then decided to wander around the festival a little more. We ended up in this one part wih sooo many different food stands. It all looked soo delicious :D
After we went to take purikura, because that's what you do everytime you go out :p.

See the resemblance? XD

Jared and Katta left and so the 5 of us went out for sushi for supper. Soo tasty! On the way back to the station, we ran into a guy from Brazil who the Komatsu AFSers had met before. It was kinda funny/cool because him and Gus started speaking Portugese right away. It's amazing, the different people (or not so different XD) you meet on exchange :D.

Today, Yuka and Katta came to Kanazawa to go shopping, so Helle and I met up with them.

We went to Yogen Fruz. There was a sign that said est. 1986 Toronto, Canada. I had no idea Yogen Fruz was Canadian! XD I got a Raspberry smoothie which was pretty good. The ice cream looked sooo delicious, but it was kinda expensive.

We ended up going to the top of Daiwa again and tried taking jumping pictures. FYI: we were jumping off a bench, not Daiwa.
I wanted a Blueberry Cream Frappuccino (I'm seriously addicted to it ;P) and I some people wanted donuts, so we went to Mister Donut and ate there, and then went to Starbucks and we got drinks.

I finally bought a new wallet, cause my old one was too small and had started to rip (too full of purikura and 1 yen coins...lol).
We ran into Jared and Sandy (Rotary) so we hung out with them for a bit, and went out for Curry Rice. Besides Okonomiyaki, I think Curry Rice is my fave food :).

Food in Japan in general is delicious (except Natto X\) I ate so much today... hehe

Gym, AFS Speech and Mother's Day

Thursday was the first day back to school. It was cold up until May, and then May 1st the temperature shot up to 20C -ish degrees. It was great for Golden Week, but Thursday was PE. We had to run for PE outside and it was 30C! I almost past out.
My school never gave me a gym uniform, and I haven't had a chance to go out and buy shorts for it, so I was wearing black sweats and a tshirt. SO HOT~! I also don't have outside runners for PE so I'm wearing my high-tops, and they don't really have support so it kinda hurts my feet. We had to run around the school 3 times. I guess for the next couple weeks, we will be doing that and adding to the number of times we run around the school X\.
I was never very athletic, so I didn't like PE. Then we started running around the gym for about 10 mins. It was actually pretty easy and I lapped alot of the girls and a couple of the guys. I started liking running. Then we started running outside, and now I don't like it again XD. Oh well, I don't do too bad. I'm not good, but not bad... about in the middle.

Okay, enough whining XD

On Saturday, I had school. I'm not exactly sure why, but in exchange, we have Monday off. I left early though, because I had a speech thing to do (in Japanese) with AFS. All the exchange students (inbound/outbound/returnee) had to do a speech. I think it actually went pretty good.
After, Helle and I went shopping for a Mother's Day present. We ended up buying identical coffee mugs that say arigatou (thank you) on them. I thought they were cute.

WARNING - OTAKU MOMENT: We also went to Animate, which is a store a couple stories high, with a whole bunch of anime and manga, related merchandise and a cosplay level. There was also visual kei, Jrock and lolita clothing. It was pretty expensive but I really want to buy some!
I ended up buying a little pikachu charm for my phone. There were also gashapon machines. There kind of like vending machine things, and you can get random little figurines out of them.

I didn't really recognize much of the anime, but they had a Fullmetal Alchemist one. At the moment I love Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (anime series) so I decided to spend the 200 yen. I actually got one I liked :D.

After we went out for curry. It was really good. Where we went, for an extra charge, you can add different levels of spicyness. You have to be able to have eaten lvl 5 first, to try lvl 6-10. I'm not sure how they would monitor that, maybe give you a little certificate XD. The descriptions of the different levels were kinda funny. It was really good, and I'm sure I will go back, so I'll take a picture of the menu and post it on the Engrish page. We went to Starbucks after, and I got a Blueberry Cream Frappuccino again XD.

Sunday was Mother's Day. So we went to visit my host grandma. She was really nice and I gave her a 2 Canada pens and pins. My host grandpa wasn't there, but okaasan said he really wants to meet me :).
After dinner, I gave okaasan the mug and she really liked it. She said thank you over and over, and both her and my host sis kept calling it kawaii XD. I'm glad I was able to find her something.

English Fail

So we had an english test today... in English XD. I had to write it too, and it was really easy. All we had to do was listen to a CD and fill in the blanks on the sheet of paper. I ended up getting one wrong >.<
It wasn't as if I had trouble with understanding something, I just spelled referring wrong... I wrote refering instead. The worst part was, the teacher was looking trough them for the highest mark, and he read mine out loud so the whole class could hear. The whole class turned around and stared at me. I just laughed it off... cause I do find it funny. XD Luckily I still had the highest mark.

In chiri (geography) I don't understand a thing they are doing. The teacher makes me write the really complicated kanji (chinese characters) anyway. He gets really impressed, but I still think they look like crap. He was also impressed that I could understand when he told us what page to go to in the textbook. That's really simple. They were talking about rivers today or something... and he asked me to write Mississippi on the board. I was like "AH?! really? um..." luckily I did end up spelling it right :D.

I sometimes feel that japanese students are a little less aware of the outside world then students from Canada. I guess it's not their fault if they aren't taught it... but the teacher asked where Russia was, and no one answered. I was like "omygawd, really?" O.o... so I ended up answering.

Rest of Golden Week

Monday, I wasn’t planning on doing much, but my host mom decided to take me out for lunch. We were walking to this one restaurant, but it was supper full. So we ended up going to a Italian-ish restaurant. I had cheese pizza. Yes, I know… not very Japanese or adventurous… but it was nice to have pizza again. I was tempted to have the mayonnaise and corn one, but it had no cheese… and I was craving it XD.

Afterwards we walked to Oyama jinja (shrine). It is the biggest one in Kanazawa. There were so many different statues on the grounds as well.

Koi (fish banners) hanging from a bridge. The japanese put them up for Children's Day on  May 5.

Tuesday, my host parents took me to Noto, which is the northern part of Ishikawa. There was beach and ocean for miles! It was really pretty. 

We stopped for lunch, I had Ebi (shrimp) Tempura. Tempura is like battered veggies and seafood/meat that are fried, but it’s healthier than the kind of batter in north America (I think…). It was really good :D 

Afterwards, we went on a boat ride along these cliffs, that were I think the highest in Hokuriku (Ishikawa and area)… I didn’t really understand the tour, so I’m not sure XD. 

We came really close the rocks.

We also passed 2 whirlpools. 

Wednesday, my host parents friend had a painting being exhibited in the 21st Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, so all three of us went to see it. I must say that though some of the artwork was good, alot of it scared the crap out of me XD. They were just really weird o.O... some to the point of disturbing :S... lol. 

What was cool was they have a pool that you can walk under, and people can see you from above... it's kinda hard to explain...

After, I hung out with Gus, Irisz, Jared and 2 other rotary students Michael and Ashleigh. We went to Uchinada Beach (about 20 min train ride from Kanazawa) and hung out for the day. Hanging out with other exchange students is always a lot of fun. Unfortunately everyone from school was busy with club/studying.

PS: Kit Kats page has been updated, and I added the page Purikura XD

Golden Week Randomness

So it’s Golden Week (a whole bunch of holidays, one day after the next) until Wednesday. \(^o^)/

One of the AFSers, Irisz from Komatsu (city nearby) came to Kanazawa today, so I met up with her, the other 2 AFSers (Helle and Gus) here and one of the rotary students (Jared). We went and did purikura, and karaoke. Since some of them hadn’t had lunch, we went to McDonalds. I got a oreo McFlurry XD. We got quite a few stares from everyone. We spent at least an hour there talking. After we met up with some of the other rotary students, but they had to leave soon after. We passed a group of other gajin (foreigners). It’s funny how we get stared at by both gaijin and nihonjin (Japanese ppl). We ended up going to the top of one of the major department stores. There was an awesome view of the city! You could also see the mountains and the ocean in the distance!

 You can see the ocean here^ (the shiny part XD)

We then went to this really random store, in the basement. Well half was really random, the other half was a candy store. We were in the candy store, when we ran into one of the Gus's classmates. They were both guys. They were really surprised to see him with 3 girls. In Japan, guys and girls do not hang out. They were asking if one of us were his girlfriend, and he was like no, just friends. Their expressions were amusing (surprised/somewhat jealous XD). They were even more surprised when they found out we could all speak some Japanese.

We then went to the random part of the store. They had pretty much everything there. I was some awesome headphones and a really colourful wallet… but I didn’t have enough money >.<. Next time :).

Helle went home, and the other 2 and me went to Mister Donut for supper XD. We then ran into more of the Gus’s classmates and it was the same situation, They asked if we were his girlfriend – “no, just friends” – surprised expression, asked our age, etc… XD.

After we went back to the station, and walked around the mall for a bit. Gus, and Irisz and I talked a bit, before she took the train home. I then took the last bus back to my house. I felt so independent and proud being able to figure out which bus to take home by myself :D.

Kanazawa Castle

Me, Okaasan, and my host sis went to Kanazawa Castle today. Since it’s a holiday, it was free. It was cool finally being able to walk around the grounds. Some of it has obviously been rebuilt. I had a bit of a blond moment with my English today. My host sis was explaining (in Japanese) how in the summer, there are fireflies, and okaasan asked what they were in English. I knew what hotaru (fireflies) were, but it took me a couple minutes to remember what they were called in English XD.

On the way back we stopped for ice cream. You can find ice cream pretty much everywhere. I’m a really big fan of soft ice cream, and in Japan, they have a lot of flavours, not just vanilla and chocolate. I had sakura soft ice cream. It’s a limited supply flavour. I’m not sure how they make it… just gather up all the fallen cherry blossoms and then mix them into the ice cream??  Anyway, it was really good!

Hanging out with exchange students again tomorrow! Yay!