♥~TOKYO~♥

WARNING: Super long post…(hopefully won’t cause drowsiness)

Back from Tokyo and it was AWESOME!!! I am very grateful that my host mom and host sis let me tag along. We pretty much went to all the main places in like 2 days so it was quite busy.

The trip did not start off all that well, because we took…dun dun dun… a night bus. I hardly slept the whole way there, which was 7 or 8 hours. When I would finally start to doze off, the bus would stop for a break, or to pick up/drop ppl off, which meant they would turn the super bright lights on and then I would have to start all over again. So upon arrival I had hardly slept, but it didn't matter cause I was in TOKYO!

First thing I noticed other than a ton of ppl was that it was dirty. Not filthy, but not like someone had licked the ground clean (like in Kanazawa ;p). I guess with so many more ppl, its kinda unavoidable. I was also shocked to see hobos… homeless ppl to be politically correct. I don’t think of Japan as having that problem, but I passed a guy sleeping under a bridge and then some ppl sleeping under newspapers and in sleeping bags on the stairs in the stations… :( …Anywho… We also saw some foreigners passed out on the floor of the station... was rather embarrassing but hilarious.

We had breakfast, and dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and then headed off to the Pokemon Center!

The Pokemon Center is a store dedicated to pokemon goods, and it was packed because Pokemon Black and White just came out. Everything was super expensive, but everything was really cute. After we went to AKIHABARA!

I loved Akihabara! The nerdyness in me kinda showed. We looked around at some of the random stores. They had everything from anime and manga to electronics. There were some duty free stores that sold just about everything and then I saw a place selling random pieces or computers/electronics and light bulbs and whatnot.

Since my host mom and sis aren’t really into that sort of thing, we didn't look explore as much as I would have liked, but I was able to buy an electronic dictionary for a decent price and got a case for free! I don’t know why I waited so long to buy one, it’s so convenient for looking up kanji and vocab. Also bought a tshirt with Snoopy on it that says 秋葉原 (akihabara).

Lunchtime rolls around and we passed a Indian curry place that looked super delicious, that was run by real Indian ppl O.o/:D. I haven’t had real curry since I came (which is prob one of my fave foods) so I stopped to look at the menu and was like oishisou (looks delicious) the guy came out and started to convince us to come inside  (in perfect Japanese and English). I really wanted to eat there (tho I think my host family was aiming for the Mos Burger) so I convinced them to try something new. 

Giant nan bread...mmm :)

When the guy gave us our food, I said arigatou (Thanks) and my host sis said thank you. He looked at us kinda funny and my host mom laughed. The curry was soooo good! Tho we were all stuffed after, there was so much food.

Takeshita Street

After lunch we went to Harajuku! Since it was Saturday, there wasn't really anyone dressed up (most come on Sunday I guess).
There were a lot of cool shops there, and this one street, everything was pretty cheap. Unfortunately the electronic dictionary took most of my moneys, so I will hopefully be able to go back at the end of the year. All the stores had such different fashion (not everything looked the same like it kinda is in Kanazawa).

We then went to Shinjuku, and looked around a bit (just more shopping really XD) and then my host sis went to some break dance meeting and my host mom and I went back to the hotel.

Next day my host sis had more dance stuff, so my host mom took me to Akasuka Temple.

We also saw some random dance going on.

It’s this really famous temple in Tokyo.  It was soooo packed! Like the whole population of Kanazawa could prob fit there. There were tons of random souvenirs shops that lead up to the temple. Looked around there for a bit and then went to meet up with my host sister.

We went to the Imperial Palace…thing. Couldn’t actually go in, but could go up near the gates. It was surrounded by a moat thing, and big stone walls.

We got there just in time to see the changing of the guard

It was in the middle of this huge park, that took forever to walk and it was super hot.

It was then time for Shibuya! First stop was Shibuya 109, which is this super huge mall thing. There is 7 or 8 floors of stores, all girls clothing. They built a second one for guys XD.

Shibuya 109

Since it was Sunday, it was super packed, but we looked around a bit in there and then wandered around Shibuya for the rest of the evening. Got to see the famous crosswalk in shibuya, tho I didn’t get a chance to take a pic from high up, you can see there are tons of ppl.

 We were heading for the station (we have been getting around by train the whole time, btw) and passed the Hachiko statue.

Hachiko (kinda blurry)

Since we were in a rush, I was able to snap a pic with my phone… but its pretty crappy.

Next day my host sis went to hang out with friends, and my host mom had an AFS meeting, so I hung out in the lobby of the center where it was held. I ended up sleeping most of the time, but also fiddled with the electronic dictionary.

I found out has helpful/basic phrases in Korean, Chinese, Russian, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Filipino. That amused me for quite awhile listening to the random languages XD.

That evening, we went to my host sis’s break dance competition being held by her team. 2 guys from Thailand ended up winning, but I was awesome watching. There weren’t people from Japan, but all over the world. The judge was from Australia and DJ from the US. I met bboys (and some bgirls) from the US, Canada, Italy, Australia, S. Korea, Thailand, France, and a ton of other countries. Everyone was super cool ;).

kinda blurry

That’s one of the things I found awesome about Tokyo. Though the majority of ppl were Japanese, there were so many gaijin (foreigners). They weren’t just tourists either, you could tell a lot of them lived there. I am very jealous XD. I was not used to seeing that many, so I was kinda staring at the beginning... I also noticed that I hardly got stared at, they are used to gaijin in Tokyo. Reminded me a bit of Canada. :)

After saying goodbye to everyone, it took a lot of convincing from my host mom cause my host sis and I didn’t wanna leave Tokyo, we went back to the hotel, got our stuff and then got on the night bus home. I slept a little more on the way home. I had finally gotten comfortable and dozed off half way thru, but my host mom woke me up and told me to switch with my host sister who had an empty seat beside her. Apparently sleeping with your head in your lap (like what you would do in an airplane during a crash) was not a good way to sleep so she made me move XD.

We got home tuesday at 6am, had a shower and then went to school, where my host sis and I slept thru most of the classes ;p.

Tokyo was amazing! There were so many people and so much to do. I only saw a bit of it. I will most likely be in Tokyo for the last week before I go home, so I will hopefully to explore more of the city when I go back. I came back a lot more broke than when I went, since I had to pay for the hotel and bus and trains and food… but it was totally worth it. One of the highlights of my exchange for sure. :D

The land of Salt

So from the 24-26, Gus, Helle and me went to Noto (northern ishikawa) to stay with a AFS family. They have twins who are going to the US this summer on exchange.

 They live near the very top of ishikawa, so it was a bit of a drive to get there. On the way we stopped at a couple places. The main thing Noto is known for is salt. There were soo many salt making places along the way! Everything in Noto was soooo green!

weird tree and lots of rice fields

Salt making place

Salt soda, which was actually kinda good ;p

We got to their house, and then went for okonomiyaki! Definitely one of my favourite foods! :D

The next next day, we went hiking up to this french lighthouse. That spot was also the very center of Japan!

center of Japan!

After, we went for a well deserved swim in the ocean. It was pretty, but kinda cold, at least for me. Everyone else thought it was fine... guess I'm just a wimp XD. We had to get out after an hour or two, because that was when the jelly fish come in o.O...

Island that looks like a cake

That night, one of their friends and her son came to visit.  She was half american/half canadian who had lived in Brazil for part of her childhood. She'd been in Japan since she was 17! It was kinda cool to be able to talk to someone from my country. She also talked to Gus in Portugese. Her son was about the same age as us, who was half Japanese and living in the USA going to (boarding school) high school there. So cool, the kind of people you meet. After dinner, we played with fireworks for a bit and then they went home.
The next day we got up, said goodbye and then they dropped us of at the station and we took the train home, by ourselves ;).

I leave for Hiroshima and Kyoto summer camp in 2 days, and wont be back until the 15... so i won't be posting for the next little while.

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.

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