♥~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

Hyaku Goku Man Festival

So Saturday (and Sunday) was the Hyaku Goku Man Festival, which is like the biggest festival in Kanazawa. The festival commemorates the entry of Lord Maeda Toshiie into Kanazawa Castle in 1583.
I met up with Helle and Irisz and we went shopping in the morning.

Clothes I bought

We then met up with my host mom and host sister at her break dance competition. Unfortunately we didn't get there in time to see her (tho saw it on video later) but everyone was pretty amazing. I met some of her dance buddies, and they were all really nice. We then spent lot of the day watching the competition. My host sis didn't get to the top 10, but a group of her friends did, so we were cheering for them. I think made it to the semi finals :). You can check out my youtube channel for videos from the break dancing.  We kinda felt like bad exchange students, cause we weren't watching the "cultural festival", but the break dancing was more interesting XD.

"Ancient" firefighter "dancing"on a ladder

That night, everyone in Kanazawa AFS chapter (and Irisz ;) met up. Irisz proceeded to make us look bad in front of our chapter leader, with her amazing japanese XD. They were quite impressed.  After dinner, we danced in the parade. It was awesome! We never learned the dances beforehand, so they just kinda put us on the road and told us to dance. It is now considered the "Humiliate the Foreigners Parade" ;p. It took a bit to get a hang of the 3 different dances, but I had sooo much fun! There were tons of people dancing the traditional dances through downtown, and random people of the street would come and join in.

Helle, me and Irisz

All the ppl in the street downtown

Sunday, I hung out with the Rotary and AFS exchange students. The Rotary ppl are leaving within the next 2 months, and I will be sad to see them leave. Always good times. ;)

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

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