♥~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

♪~It's rainning, it's pouring...~♪

I've been enjoying soccer club a lot lately. I'm not sure what has changed, but there are times when I actually don't want it to end. It could be because me and 2 other girls are the only ones who ever come, so we don't do all that much... ;)

The field where the soccer club practices is split so (the better) half is where the guys practice and then us girls practice on the other half which is also a sort of baseball diamond. Today we saw the baseball team lining up on the edge of the field, so we were worried that they were gonna take it over. We quickly ran over and (only 3 of us) stood there with our soccer balls kinda staring down the baseball club. I heard kowai (scary) from a couple of them, and none of them wanted to come over. XD Eventually 2 got up the courage to bring the bases over, and we continued kinda glaring at them and were saying (not directly to them) that this where the girls practice, and they have their own baseball diamond to practice on.

They were mostly ichinensei (1st years), which could be why they were so intimidated by 3 ninensei (2nd year) girls, but they chose not to practice there and went back to their own field. Victory~! ;)


Unfortunately it started pouring rain. It came on really fast, so all of us (us 3 girls and the 10 boys), all at once ran into the school. Because we still wearing our spikes (cleats) the 13 or so of us were all standing on this really small mat cause we arent allowed on the regular floor with them XD. The guys kept trying to push each other out. XD

It got really bad, so we ended up running around the school and up and down 3 flights of stairs a bunch of times.

I'm going to Tokyo tomorrow with my host sis and host mom, so will post about that next week!
I'm exhausted, so it's off to bed.
Oyasumi ~^^~

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.

July has been super busy!!

Sorry I haven't been able to post in awhile, I have been super busy. It's been summer holidays since the 20th, but I still go to school almost day for soccer club. ITS SOOO HOT!! Everyday is at least 35*C! I've gotten tanned quite a bit (at least for me it is). You just stand outside and start sweating like crazy. Everyone carries a towel with them XD.

Since I'm going to Hiroshima in August, AFS took Helle, Gus and me to watch this really old movie on Hiroshima. We were the only foreigners there, and like the only young ppl too. It was sad, tho we didnt understand alot of it. We kept thinking that this would be really awkward if we were american, tho some of the people probably thought we were. White ppl=american in Japan (most of the time).

We hung out after, and since it was soo hot, we decided to go watch Toy Story 3! It was all in Japanese, and we were so proud at the end of the movie when we realized we understood most of it! \(^o^)/ It was a cute movie too :).

I've hung out with (exchange) friends soo much this summer, when I'm not at club ;). Gone to karaoke alot!
My homeroom at school, including my host sister went to Australia for a 3 week homestay, so the last week or 2 of school was helping them prepare for that XD

I also went to Noto from the 24-27, but that will be in the next post :)

Not a very eventful post, sorry. Busy and super tired and would like to go to bed :)

Tests...again...

Japanese school is all about tests...

Anyway, my homeroom  teacher told me I didn't have to take any tests... but I have chosen to take Korean. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but I am taking Korean at school. I think its my favourite class, because I am actually learning something, at the same time as everyone else. The teacher is awesome, cause he actually treats me more or less like an average student, asking me as many questions about how to read/write_____ and say the self introduction, as everyone else.
I am not trying to brag, but I think I'm actually one of the better ones (other than the only guy) in the class. Some of the korean pronounciation sounds nothing like Japanese... more like english, which gives me an advantage.

For the test, all we had to do was read about 20 phrases and the teacher timed us. To see who went first, (there are 10 in the class) we did "jan ken pon" or japanese rock paper scissors. I unfortunately lost, and ended up going first. I thought I did really bad, cause it seemed to take forever.
However, we got our marks back, I got the only 100%! I can't believe it! I was the fastest (3:15) and the only one to read everything right! The guy sitting next to me saw my mark, and proceeded to steal my test and showed it to the rest of the class ~.^

I feel, like I could actually do well in this class :D

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!