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 ♥♥♥♥

Nagoya

Last week, I went to Nagoya for a week to stay with a different host family. It was awesome! My host family was super nice, and I miss them. It was mom, dad, my host sis was in 1^st year high school and host brother was in 4^th year elementary school. I played Pokemon and wii with my host bro the first day, which was a lot of fun XD.

On Monday it was the first day at school, and we took the train to school, which was cool, but super crowded. The school was amazing. I stood out even more, because not only was I a foreigner, but wearing a different uniform. Everyone was really nice, and seemed to be even more open than ppl at my school here. It could be because it was a bigger school (almost twice the size), there were way more guys, or the school was just more… “yanki”, meaning the kids were a bit more rebellious/not super studious.

I was in my host sis’s class, which was a bit weird cause they were all 15, but everyone was really nice. My host sis is in the light music club, which is pretty much a whole bunch of ppl playing the guitar, bass, drums or keyboard. It was cool, at the end of the day, lots of ppl pulled out amps and guitars and sat in their classes practicing.

Next day I had PE, which was one of the super strict things compared to my school in kanazawa. They had to run the length of the gym 40 times, and do push-ups, sit-ups, etc as a warm up, then we played volleyball. The gym teachers kept saying I could rest if I wanted, but I was able to finish with everyone (and pass a lot of ppl ;). Soccer has paid off, haha.

Wednesday was a holiday, so I went to Nagoya Castle with my host dad, which was really cool. Way bigger than Kanazawa Castle. We went out and had unagi (eel) after which was really good!

Friday, was my last day. I was really sad to say goodbye to everyone. Even tho I was only there a week, I made lots of friends, and I really wish I could have stayed at the school. I hung out after with my host sis and a friend went to take purikura. 

Oni (japanese troll/demon...thing)

On the way to the station, we saw this super creepy guy who looked just like a oni! He even had fangs! O.O He kinda growled at us when we walked by, and watched us (probably me >.<) walk down the street for a couple of blocks. It was kinda scary. We went to downtown Nagoya, which was awesome. However, there were a couple old, creepy guys who were like “ aww, gaijin in a school uniform… kawaii!” but in a super creepy way. I probably fit some fetish O.o….

I unfortunately caught a cold… I maybe cause I wore my skirt short when I was there, lol. I really miss everyone. I got along super well with my host family, and we talked a lot! My host sis wanted to go on exchange to Canada or Italy or France, so we stayed up one night (my host mom, host sis and me) talking about dif exchange programs and countries and whatnot. They also included me a lot more with chores and stuff, which made me really happy cause I felt like part of the family. It was an awesome week, tho it was kinda nice to be back in Kanazawa and see my host family here again :D.

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.