The end of a journey...

So I've been back in Canada for 10 days now.
It's great being able to see my family again! I missed them. I was kinda worried it would be weird coming back again, but everything was so familiar, everything went back to normal. There are times when I question if it all really happened. Did I really go live in Japan for a year, or was it all a dream?? XD

So the saturday before I left, I had 2 goodbye parties. The first was KARAOKE, of course, with all the Ishikawa exchange students. We sang for about 5 hours straight, and it was so much fun!!! At one point, these random Japanese high school guys came in our room a couple times, and started singing/dancing with us XD. We also ran into their room one time, haha. Helle and I ended up piercing our ears that day with these self piercing gun things they have in Japan. Lots of girls pierce their ears themselves. My ears were pierced before, but now there are 2 holes in each, and luckily they haven't got infected (was kinda worried about that, piercing our ears ourselves in bathroom in a karaoke place, hehe.

It was really sad saying bye to everyone. I miss them alot! :(. After the karaoke and went and met most of my homeroom class for dinner. It was still fun hanging out with everyone, but it was a totally different, way calmer fun :P. I miss my class mates as well.

Monday was supposed to be my last day of school, but it snowed so much that the trains were stopped, and so school was canceled. Kinda sucked, because I had plans with Helle and Gus both Tuesday and Wednesday >.<

Wednesday, we (gus and helle and I) went out (in our school uniforms ;p) took purikura and had okonomiyaki one last time. After we went to rifare to say goodbye to Hannah, Maddie and Zac (rotary exchange students) one last time. I'm jealous they are still in Japan.

On Feb 3rd, I left Kanazawa. Saying goodbye to my host family and the AFS staff was really hard too. I'm sure I'll be back, but still. We all started crying, and then we got on the train. Irisz, Katta and Yuka, as well as the 4 exchange students in Fukui were also getting on the train. Us 3 finally stopped crying, when Irisz, Katta and Yuka got on crying and we almost started again. T_T

We got off in Nagoya, and then made our way to the bullet train bound for Tokyo. We all had soooo much luggage. My suitcase was sooo heavy >.<

Once we were on the shinkansen (bullet train) it was alot of fun. We were talking alot, and kinda loud. Felt a bit bad for all the business men on the train who were probably trying to sleep. ^^; We were also able to see Mt. Fuji which was awesome! It went by too fast. We were hoping the train would never stop, because it was our last time together ToT 

Once we got to Tokyo, we said our goodbyes (easier said than done) and all went our seperate ways with our temp host families. My host family was really nice. I was actually in Chiba, not Tokyo.

I flew out Feb 5, and had to pay 8000yen cause my suitcase was 4kg overweight >.<
The flight was really long, and kinda boring. The old guy beside me slept the whole time... was kinda wishing for someone to talk to :/ I wasn't able to sleep at all.

My flight from Vancouver to Edmonton was on a really tiny, icky plane. I was able to sleep for about an hour then. It was one of those planes you walk down stairs, out of. That was quite a shock, going from 15*C Tokyo weather to -15*C, snowy, windy weather in Edmonton XD

I really miss Japan. I'm quite bored here. It's great being with my family again, but my friends are pretty busy with school so I don't really have anyone to hang out with at the moment. I will be going to uni in September,  but in the meantime I guess I will have to find a job. Back to reality >.<

I miss my exchange friends, speaking japanese, being able to take public transport to go anywhere, and there being things to do (like karaoke or purikura) XD.

I will definitely be going back to Japan in uni for hopefully a year. This past year was such a great experience, and I definitely recommend it. It was full of ups and downs, but the positive things definitely outweighs the bads. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to go to another country and all the people I was able to meet.

Thank you to everyone who have read my blog. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to post that much the second half. This will be my last point. I hope you were able to get a bit out of this blog, and for following along on my journey of a lifetime.

If you have any questions about Japan or exchange, feel free to email me.

One door closes, another opens. On to the next chapter in my life.

Thanks for reading ^^

PEACE OUT! \(*⌒▽⌒*)/

♥♥♥♥ ジェニー ♥♥♥♥

Going Home

So today was my last day of school. I had to do 3 goodbye speeches - one for the teachers, and my soccer club teacher gave me a japan soccer team scarf. Almost started crying. Then one for the whole school over the intercom which went pretty well. Then the last for my class. It was supposed to be 5 mins long, but didnt end up quite that much. Took lots of pics, said a ton of goodbyes and got a scrapbook thing from my class which I have yet to read... cause im sure it will push me over the edge. I takes A LOT to make me cry, but this last week, I have been very close. Alot has happened, but I dont have time to update now. Will let you guys in on it when I get home.

I leave Kanazawa on thursday the 3rd, and go to Tokyo. I'm pretty sure I will be staying with a host family, but know nothing else about what will be happening on friday. My flight back to Canada is at 7pm on Saturday.

I don't wanna leave! About a month or 2 ago, I was ready to go home. These past 2 weeks have made me realize how much I'm gonna miss everyone and how much i love my life in Japan (club, school and all). I am looking forward to meeting everyone back in Canada, but I also dont wanna leave everyone here. Wish I could just live 2 lives ;)

I'll be back tho, so hopefully I will be meeting everyone again.

Most likely last post before I leave. Hope everything goes smoothly on my way back to Canada.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

2 posts in 1 day! WOW!

Just wanted to wish everyone an awesome CANADA DAY! I will go to school like normal, since I'm in Japan XD.
I've realized since coming to Japan how proud I am to be canadian. I've become very patriotic, which I didn't think would ever happen. I love Canada... from all the nature/wildlife (to the maple syrup, eh?) to the soooo many different cultures and people that call the Great North home ;).

Here's 2 songs to help celebrate Canada/being Canadian!

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.

Intro

こんにちは！
Hi! so this is my first post. (and it kinda turned into a mini rant, sorry 'bout that...)

I'm planning on going on exchange to Japan for a year with AFS.
At the moment I've been accepted by AFS Canada but I can't be accepted by AFS Japan until my application is sent over there. This can't happen until I get my interview, which is the prob at the moment. The volunteer who was supposed to do it way back in June has been putting it off. I've tried to set a date multiple times but it hasn't worked out. I just found out now(two months later) she's too busy to do it and now AFS has to find me a new volunteer SOON because the deadline for the application to be in Japan is end of September >.< Japan has already started looking at applications so hopefully mine will be one of them soon and they accept it *crosses fingers*.

There won't prob be many posts (at least related to exchange) for awhile because I won't be leaving until march. agh...6 1/2 months is such a long time to wait.