The end?

Well, that's mostly it. After but a few days I will arrive home in Australia a most confused person. I will greatly miss all those I met this year, and be ecstatic about meeting my friends and family again. This year has been a very new experience for me. Even though I came to Japan for a week or so about 4 years ago, so much this year was new and exciting.
My last time coming saw me enter the building for a Japanese junior high school, but I didn't attend it. This year I was attending a senior high school, going to lessons, obeying school rules (to a degree), and the most characteristic part of Japanese schools, attending after school club activities.
The club activity I joined this year was probably the most fun I had. I made the most friends there and they were the hardest to say goodbye to on Friday.
On countless occasions this year, together we have performed with these Japanese instruments, and on one occasion we performed with the local army base's mini orchestra.
With my host family constantly changing over the year, and my classes being spread out around the school more than the rest of my class, club was the most stable part of the trip. Every day after lessons I would go to the practice room, a fine room with a genkan (small area for leaving your shoes, a small entrance room, and a tatami room with a size of 40 tatami mats. Every day I would go there and we would practice for about 3-4 hours a day.
For the first half of the year I played the Koto (a long instrument like a zither, played by plucking it's 13 strings with 3 picks attached to your thumb, index and middle finger), and greatly enjoyed it. After the summer holidays (which was spent doing 5 hour practice days for most of it), I decided to try the Shamisen (like a banjo with 3 strings and played with a very large pick called a bachi). My teacher told me she's had a few foreigners join the club over the years but none had tried the Shamisen before, and to be sure it's a difficult instrument to get the hang of.
These people were the closest to a family I had in Japan, and saying goodbye to them, possibly forever, was very hard. I was moved greatly (and that is no small thing for me) when one of my club members told me "though you can't enter the prefectural competition in January, it will be as though you're there playing beside us."
I was gifted with a Koto to take home (damn expensive to actually send home), and whenever I play it, I hope to remember the year I spent with these people.

Though they aren't the only people I'm saying goodbye to tomorrow when I get on that plane. My host families, other school students, friends I met outside of school, other exchange students, I leave them all behind when I return home. In various school activities like the sports day and the culture festival, our class worked together and we had fun.

This year has taught me many things too. That may be said too much by people on long trips, but it's true. Mostly about language, not just Japanese, but also some English, and how language works. I got to be acted against for my appearance, nothing serious, just people moving to another seat and sometimes glaring at me a bit. But it's interesting to experience. (though it could also have been my hair...)

I completed some life goals too, I can make myself understood in most situations in Japanese, not very well but well enough. I also ate some largely controversial food that I've wanted to consume for some time. Though now I have to try it cooked not raw.

One of the hardest parts about Japanese culture is their constant attempt to tell you what you want to hear, which often means praise. I like praise to a certain extent, but I also feel it adds responsibility, responsibility that I don't want. For example when I play a phrase of music in my club well, the teacher praises how good it sounds and then I have an obligation to do as well ever after or cause disappointment, which I then proceed to do the next time I try. Or at least that's what goes through me head. Either way this year was full of moments of me thinking "don't say that, there's no way I can live up to that"...

So this year comes to a close, I am leaving this place. Yet it's not so sad, I have done too much here, seen so much, made so much, so much that I can't possibly not come back again sometime. So, assuming life continues, when money allows, I will come back. Maybe for a holiday, maybe for study, maybe to find a way to live and work. In any case I don't intend on staying in Australia forever.
Congratulations Japan, you've made another regular visitor whether you want me or not. Though... only as regular as money allows.

Goodbye Japan! 又ね　(^o^)/

274th day

(Apparently)
Well I'm nice and settled back into the internet, with some wonderful news. I'll be with this host family for the rest of my stay so no need to worry about me disappearing again unless I die.

Well, not a lot new has happened since my last, but I went on a trip with my host family last week up to Fukui. The fishing trip before was in Fukui, but I never went anywhere I had been when I stayed there last time I came to Japan.
This time I found my way to the Fukui dinosaur museum. It was great visiting that place again. I probably took twice as many photos as I did last time.
Only probalem is, in those places I want to look at everything and take my time, but my host siblings just wanted to take a quick glance at everything and run off... so I went a bit faster than I'd have liked.

I've had this open for over 24 hours waiting to be finished so I'm gonna stop here with a couple pics from the trip.

I'm alive!!

It has been some time...
I will start from the start, after I start from the latest...

Today I went to Nagashima Spa Land. It is not full of Spas, and the pool area is only open summer so I didn't get to go there.
But the rest was awesome. Very.
See here I'm enjoying myself thoroughly on the "Steel Dragon 2000"

Lots of rides and a free pass for all rides makes for a fun 4 hours of school.

Anyway, let us go back in time to about 2 months and a week ago. I left my 4th host family to brave the harsh world of another family. Wasn't that harsh really. A very nice family even.

However at the beginning, as with all new host families, I was too nervous to ask things and too worried about offending in some way so I never got around to asking about internet. I didn't forget though. When I was in the main room I looked around for a router or anything to connect to the internet and saw nothing, and I never saw them using the internet so i came to the conclusion they didn't have it.
After about a month or so I started to get suspicions that maybe they did have internet, but still didn't see a router so figured that it may have been one of those USB connections that I wouldn't be able to make use of anyway.
Finally, last week, I discovered they did indeed have internet and that it was something I could connect to with my computer. So I made a tentative inquiry about what would happen to the cost if I were to use it too. They got surprised thinking I'd been using it the whole time. That was their assumption so they'd never mentioned it. So that night we set up my computer to connect and now I have internet again, just in time to go to a new host family in a week or so and start all over again...

Since then in short... Watched all of Red Dwarf, started new school term, German exchange student "Maurice" rocked up there, visited various Japanese places with him, performed a few times with club, performed an awesome show with club in collaboration with the local Japanese defence force's orchestra (awesome), went fishing and caught a nice fish, had a birthday, bought The Hobbit in Japanese, went to Nagashima Spa Land, got bored in lessons, bought the new pokemon black, saw a toucan in the turtle exhibit, and many more, but to go into detail might take some time, so instead I'll put up some pictures and might go into detail if it's requested later.

全国大会 - 宮崎

For those who can't read Japanese Kanji, that says "Zenkoku Taikai - Miyazaki" which in turn means "Whole country big meet - Miyazaki" or something of that nature.
It's an annual event, possibly always in Miyazaki, not sure... The event seems to be a cultural festival of sorts, that Japanese people seem to love holding. However it was less focused on showcasing to the general public. I think most of the audiences were families of those attending, and a few people that just happened to be interested in watching.
Various events included drama, chorus, various instruments, Japanese style music, various martial arts, baton twirling (which is big in schools here), art, calligraphy (Kanji), shogi (Japanese chess), speech, flower arranging, and others...
My school club, earlier in the year, attended the 愛知県大会 (Aichi-ken Taikai (Aichi prefecture big meet)), and being in the top 2 or 3, qualified to attend this event in Miyazaki. By earlier this year, it was 2010, but in the previous school year, before I started.

And so at about 9:55 pm on the 31st of July 2010, 18 students, 2 teachers, 2 past students, and 2 bus drivers got into a big bus loaded with instruments and luggage, and departed on a 16 hour drive to the south of Japan.

For those who don't know, a bus is like a plane when it comes to sleeping, except slightly better cause you might be able to stretch your legs under the seat in front. Bus trips are boring so I wont go on about it but to say I played games on my DS, spoke a bit, and nearly lost parts of my earphones on numerous occasions.

So we arrive at the Miyazaki. We're all a tad buggered, due to it being near impossible to sleep properly on a bus, and at the venue we unload our instruments and are led to a place to unpack and set them up. Then we get led to a little room to tune our instruments and have time to run through once. We then proceed to be led back into the main building where we wait outside a door to the stage, we then enter, wait, go on stage, play, leave stage, go back to the first room and repacked our instruments.
During this practice I was a tad confused due to language, but I managed to work out it was a practice run-through of the actual thing about the time we were lining up to enter the stage...
I also noted we would only stay in Miyazaki for a tiny length of time compared to the event being 2 days long.
We got back on the bus and drove further south to Kagoshima prefecture to our hotel.

More practice was done there, as well as dinner and... the hotel had an onsen. So I went in that both nights at the hotel.

On the second day at the hotel, we were given free time, yipee. We split into groups, basically our parts for the music, and the part leaders decided where each group would go. Then the groups were mangled and everyone changed cause they wanted to be with this friend or they wanted to go to that place or they didn't think the one guy in their group (me) would enjoy what the rest of them wanted to do.

So I ended up going to the Kagoshima Aquarium with 2 of the other guys and about 5 of the girls.

"It was pretty cool :D"

I also had ramen that day, and remembered that ramen freshly made in a ramen stand is still infinitely better than instant ramen, which in turn is infinitely better than Aussie instant ramen...

Then came THE DAY. It was a Tuesday, 3rd of August to be precise. We woke at 5, got into school uniform, had an early breakfast, packed our bags and instruments into the bus and left the hotel at about 7.
We arrived back at the venue, the nerves were starting to be felt by some. I just figured it felt much the same as opening night for shouts, even if there was a bit more riding on how well I played...

We went through just the same as the practice 2 days prior, but then while waiting backstage, we could actually hear the group before us playing. Then we got on stage. I remembered to slightly close my eyes so I wouldn't be stunned by the sudden brightening of the lights.

And we played.

I have to say playing in a group is so much more satisfying than playing by yourself, being able to hear all the other parts of the music while playing something completely different and yet complimentary is just amazing. The only time apart from this year I've played in a group was in year 8 or 9 where I hit a tambourine a bit during presentation night.

I thought we'd done alright, not excellent, but fairly good. I had made a few mistakes, nothing I hadn't expected. The only effect of nerves was a bit of shaking in my hands, which does make it interesting playing.

We then packed our instruments back into the bus and had lunch at the venue, and to my joy we had a chance to listen to some of the other groups. I quickly realized that perhaps we had not done as well as I thought...
The first group was particularly notable for the fact that they were singing. Traditional Japanese singing is very different from anything else I'm used to, and it's not something I'd go out of my way to listen to. That being said, when you hear music live, it becomes amazing, unless they really suck... But they didn't so it was cool. My favourite was the 3rd group we watched. They played a song that used some horrible chords, but in a way that they worked. It was a very evil sounding bit of music.

After these mostly magnificent performances, we got back on the bus and headed on. We stopped in the next prefecture north, called Kumamoto, and made our way to the Kumamoto castle. I remember the name as one of the 2 past students was acting as a guide for the fun of it and kept saying "Oraiasu, this is Kumamoto castle". I was told she apparently only knows about this much English and so kept saying it to me. 'Twas amusing.

Japanese history I find more interesting than a lot of other human history, maybe because a lot of it is so recent in comparison. Because of the way Japan closed itself from the outside world except through Nagasaki, it retained it's medieval culture for longer, and still does to an extent today. But also, Japanese castles are always fun to look at, and this is one of the 3 biggest in Japan.

Unfortunately it started raining and we didn't have much time so I couldn't enjoy it to the full extent I wanted to, so I dashed to the top, took some photos, and had to dash back down.
We returned to the bus and headed on... to an onsen. That's 3 times in 3 days. Though this one was a meager 39 degrees compared to 40 something. I preferred the heat of the hotel's onsen.

After a refreshing bath, we finally got out of our uniform and headed on our way back to Aichi, after a brief stop for dinner.

So in all it was an excellent experience, much discussion was had on the bus after the competition. We all had to give our impressions, and what we felt about how it went etc. There were a few tears when it came to the third years as it was their final chance to have gone to a zenkoku taikai (apparently we qualify pretty much every year). Being unable to understand the finer points of the language this didn't affect me so much... Though I did get my chance to be greatful for everyone making my 'only' zenkoku taikai experience a good one. Which was the followed by exclamations of how good my Japanese was getting... I still don't believe them.

I haven't found out what we came, but I 'think' today it was mentioned that the other Aichi prefecture school came first. But they may have been talking about something else...

Well that's that, the August-June students have partially arrived in Tokyo. But the student coming to join me at Kikuka hasn't arrived in Japan yet. The Germans and another group get here on the weekend I hear. Then they'll study in Tokyo for a month before being separated around Japan. Just in time for the start of term in September.

Tis all for now, but it is a fair bit... so be happy. Tata.

Semi-season

No, it's not half a season. Semi (せみ ( 蝉 )) in this case refers to a semi large insect, with a squat face, large wings at maturity, and appears to have a long proboscis like mouth. It has 2 main stages of life, that I have observed, juveniles are wingless and have more claw like forelegs for climbing, I assume. Where as the adults have large wings and more leg-like forelegs, as they don't need to attach to trees, falling shouldn't be a problem.
Oddly enough, every time I see them they do have a problem with flying... They don't seem very good at it. They give off an aura of clumsiness and seem a bit stupid (as far as insects go).
I've come across 3 in the last few weeks, a juvenile, and adult, and what my host brother described as a nearly dead one (death by aging), that one was interesting, seeming to have lase transparent wings that seemed more like moth wings, but you could still see the partitions of wing segments. I figured it might just be a different species of cicada, but i really have no idea about these things.
Although I've only seen 3, and various empty husks from when they mature, they will become more and more apparent in the coming weeks by the characteristic noise that they are infamous around the world for...
If you hadn't guessed yet, it's a cicada.

And they're so damn cute:












I've always wanted a new pet, no actually that's kind of a lie.
But these things are fascinating.

... Now I do know some stuff, there are apparently over 30 species in Japan alone (200 odd in Australia by the way), so perhaps the early post-shedding one had shed that day, while the later one was as my host brother suggested, a lot older.
Also apparently the adult males, who make the loud noise, can 'turn off' their ears while calling. That could be handy in many a domestic home.
They can reach sounds of 120dB, which is enough to cause permanent hearing loss to a human if placed next tot the ear...

From what I can work out by image similarities, the 4th image is of this species http://homepage2.nifty.com/saisho/photo/abura/aburazemi.html .
I would assume most of the cicada in the same street would probably be the same species, but I can't say for certain... they seem too different to me. The markings behind the eyes are completely different, so I think I'm gonna stand by saying they're 2 different species.
Still fascinating, I wish I had a camera with better macro... I shall endeavor to find out more about the ones living in my area, but I was told it's very hard to catch them... I've not yet had any problem...

In other news, I can hear fireworks in the distance, as that is traditional summer festivities. Speaking of which I finally found out where to buy some... From a convenience store, they are so very convenient here. Small, everywhere, with everything.

Now let's look in my little notebook that has been sadly neglected too much... resulting in few points to talk about.

We were playing through what we could during club, and the end of the song gets pretty epic in my opinion. So as we're getting all crescendo-y and the songs about to finish, rain starts to build. And when we finish, everyone ends up staring outside cause it is hammering down with rain. The teacher suggested it was the awesomeness of the song that did it. I agree.

I was standing on one side of the pedestrian crossing just outside the station near my school, with my umbrella above my head stopping me from getting wet. It's a nice big one that makes a good walking stick too. I look to the other side of the road, and think nothing of the 6 or 7 people standing there. Till I notice they're not using umbrella's... It wasn't raining.

Oh! I was on the train coming home from Saturday club last Saturday, believe it or not, and out the train window, when about to stop at the station near my house, I see a hedge. But not just any hedge I hasten to add. It was a dragon, a typical eastern dragon, made from a bush.

Hmm, again club related, we were doing an excessive on timing, in this case semi-quavers, so we were saying various 4 syllable words, like 'takahashi' and others. The teacher then made me have a go, I can't remember the word, but after a couple of times saying it the entire club was laughing at my accent. Apparently I was saying the 'o' part slightly wrong... Then I deliberately exaggerated it, just for giggles.

And that's all my notes... So the rest is off the top of my head (as was the cicada bit)

I'm going to go and see the new pokemon movie soon, not for the actual movie itself, but for the pokemon I can download onto my game. A shiney 2nd Gen legendary dog, and Celebi, for those that understand.
I've also pre gotten my ticket to see the new Studio Ghibli movie when it hits theatres, which it may have done already... Going to see that one with my host brother. It has something to do with a very small girl, bug sized, but I only know this from posters. So the story is a complete mystery to me, and I probably wont be able to understand half of it. Good fun.

Well that's it for now, my mind has blanked and I can't think of any more at the moment. I shall endeavor to use the little note pad more so I can tell you all the awesome things that happen, but we shall see.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

July

It's hot, often wet, and PE these days is horrible... So I like to stay inside and do stuff in the house.
But I have school everyday so that's not so easy... And from next week I also appear to have club activities on Saturday. This isn't a problem cause that's the best thing about school at the moment.
Should be, depending on circumstances, heading down to Myazaki to perform in a country wide soukyoku competition, at least that's what I gather it to be... However circumstances include, a form I need to fill out requiring host family's signature, and seeing as I'm supposed to be changing host family sometime I don't know what to do about that yet... Actually that's pretty much it, but it is a problem, I think I'll call up YES and ask them what to do...

Now to my notes, that are few...

I saw a dragon fly on the train... I got on after school, and a large black dragonfly was flying around inside... Made my day. On another day, I was on my last train for the day, and I looked at one of the seats. On it was a woman, and a man sleeping with his head on her. So I assumed they were probably partners. Then I saw the woman give his head this look that said she had no idea who this guy was. Then when we got to my station, she got up and left, he looked around for a moment looking almost asleep still, then I left the train and didn't see anymore. I thought it amusing.

I discovered there is a family of cats living nearby my school. I saw a bunch of kittens playing around outside the school, and had to be careful not to chase one of them too far away from home... Another day I saw their mum, a white bedraggled looking thing with a green eye and a blue eye. Looked incredibly evil, and just glared at me as I passed. I see them every now and then after that.

I think I like Celtic music...

I lost track of what else I might have been going to say here, so I'll end with this final note.
My host families have all had previous students, bar the second that I only stayed with for 3 nights. So to make a good impression you have to be better than previous students, and then life is easy... Though I dunno how well I'm doing at that cause it's rude to ask.

So farewell for now. You have not yet seen the last of me...

2 weeks...

...and a day of actually living in the same prefecture I get my education. That's a new record, by 2 weeks and a day. I must say it's quite refreshing not having to get up so early... except that it's not cause I get up at the same time, it takes just as long to get to school, well a bit less, and I've decided to start attending the morning sessions of my club so I end up leaving earlier and I've lapsed into the habit of evening showers. Except that I have them when I get home from school, which this week happens to be about midday, due to end of semester tests. That happen to be starting almost exactly a month before the actual end of semester...But short days for the rest of term, is a good thing. I' have also worked out why the total holidays for students in Japan is shorter, it's cause half the actual schooldays are short for some reason...I have been typing like I think...jumping here and there in one long paragraph that can't really be separated easily... ごめんね

I was doing some study in my club time last week, as the club decided to spend the first hour of club time studying for tests, and I read someones English lesson book. It had a phrase "don't stop to translate every word." I like this, and have decided to try it while reading my manga, with limited success. I have to find the right words to stop and translate so I can follow whats going on, but skip the superfluous ones so I can read at a decent speed to keep me engaged...
むずかしい

Well another thing I did last week was rather stupid... You play the Koto with a kind of pick that loops around your thumb, well 3, one on the thumb and one on each of the index and middle fingers. My thumb one broke, glue probably was dissolved by my acidic sweat of death or something... So I put it aside and decided to try without it. Then we decided to play all of what we could, this ended badly for my thumb, I spent the rest of the day with a nice blister. Which I eventually got sick of and I wont go into he gory details of what happened then....

I'm reading off a list of things to put in my blog, and next regards LANGUAGE!! In particular the horrible situations that can potentially be caused by differences... Honky, this is a fun word, a playful word, one that you could snigger at easily... However, in Japanese there is the unfortunate word 本気 (hon ki) which sounds remarkably similar... It means "serious" as in "I'm deadly serious so you'd better not laugh", at which point English speakers will burst into gleeful giggling at the serious look of the mans face as he says "honky". Most unfortunate... I have yet to have this happen to me, but it will...

I got a chocolate euro the other day, it was tasty.

The principal at my school, I had been told, was a most interesting man (the word interesting that I know is generally used for "entertaining" as it can mean humorous). So today, as I was studying hard (hardly studying, looking at my test results) in the kokusai center (international room), and having a light conversation with Watanabe Sensei, the principal comes in. Both of us are quite surprised, I'm supposed to be very polite to him... We then have a short conversation, Watanabe Sensei explaining that I'm studying for my test the next lesson, and at the end of that I do my new habit of sticking up my thumb in a sort of "good on ya mate" fashion (while not meaning exactly that). We then get onto how up is good and down is bad, then the principal starts to show off other finger gestures he knows... Peace sign with back of hand facing outward, I quickly explain this is rude. Then he closes his fist and puts up his little finger, and says this is Watanabe Sensei, we all just cracked up. I think I can agree the principal is an interesting man.

Trains are an endless source of entertainment thankfully, as I spend a lot of time on them. It's just fascinating to watch the train staff go about their business. They have windows into the cabin, and most train drivers and, I'm gonna call them back-men cause they sit in the back and do everything else that isn't driving, leave the blinds up. This means I can carefully watch what they do. They do everything so precisely and to the letter. When driving, you see them point at their papers, then point to their eyes, and then point ahead, and then point at their eyes. Maybe they're on camera and they're showing that they're performing the checks correctly. I dunno...
The back-men make all announcements required, assuming they don't use the automated ones, like in Tokyo. But the curious thing is, they all have exactly the same slightly higher than normal pitch nasal voice when doing this... I start to think they train them almost too carefully. (lol train)
But they do what a lot of people don't, they appear to take great pride in their work. I have utmost admiration for their work, and I am proud to be able ride their trains.

In other news, a fish tried to eat my finger. Warning, this is not for the faint of heart. The fish is extremely aggressive and I could have lost my finger...



I want to keep him, he's so cute...

Farewell Olly-Watchers! Till next time (find me if you can)

さびしいよ

Means "lonely", and is used when one misses someone.
So that applies to me, regarding missing people in Australia, but oddly enough, I'm more referring to the 2 German students that I only knew for 2 months, and left for Tokyo yesterday after already being here for a year.

I met Aline on my first day in Gifu, when my new host mum's sister had a BBQ, and Aline's host family were neighbours and so were invited too. It being the first time I met my host family, and it being a large social gathering, and me still having less than skilled Japanese, I ended up hanging around her and speaking English and trying not to break down in despair and nervousness. After that I met up with her a couple of times so she could show me around Gifu, and I went to her farewell party, and then for some reason the next day her host family took us shopping...

I met Alex on my fist day at school in uniform, I had been to the school 2 days prior to that, but only to meet Kawahara Sensei and get info about the school. He came into the kokusai center (international center) and shook hands with me, followed by the whole 301 class, which was to be my class. Although this year he was in 1st year (last year he was also in 1st year, but being an exchange student they just put us where we fit, it's very casual for us), and I'm a 3rd year, we had a couple of classes together. A 1st year science class that I was put into cause I like science, and twice a week we had a Japanese lesson with Steven Sensei (Canadian). We also had 2 other Japanese lessons together.

So in the end I managed to become good friends with both of these people, and got out of school to see them leave for Tokyo, it was a teary affair (not for me) and made me realise I'd miss them alot cause I'd probably never see them again, unlike all you Aussies. It also made me realize that I'm already 1/3 through my trip and time was moving on...

It did amuse me to find out that Alex left after his 3rd host family, while I'm already on my 4th, and should be moving to my 5th in just over a month...

In regards to my new host family, they're kind, happy and I'm still a bit nervous and unsure of myself around them. I have more access to the internet, but I keep getting told I shouldn't use it too much. I don't know what else I should be doing atm around them, everyone seems to do their own thing, in their own rooms. The host mother seems to be the only one that does any housework, and I try to do what little things I can to help out there, though that hasn't been a lot yet. Though I was relieved yesterday to get a chance to sit in front of the TV watching 'Evolution'' in Japanese and chatting with my host brother (22). He went to Australia for 7 months 2 years ago (I think it was 2 years ago), so his English is good, but not excellent. So he prefers to speak Japanese but can speak English if I really don't understand. I think that's a good situation, as it should push me to use my Japanese more than in previous host families, but it wont be so bad if I can't understand what they say.

Ooh, I bought the full series of a manga, fairly cheap, about $5. But I'm not gonna say which one, cause then you'll all find it on the internet in English and read it first (Damn your sudden but inevitable betrayal). I also got the first volume of Lupin III, then to my horror realized it didn't have furigana, which is the small hirigana used to show the reading of some kanji, for younger readers...

Looking at other students blogs on Japan is interesting, I only know one from my group, but I found a whole bunch from the last group, so I'll have a look at them soon.

It's getting warm, rather warm, not Australia warm, but it's also at a regular 60% humidity...all the time.

Should be heading to the Tokugawa art museum tomorrow, should be interesting.

And I can't think of anything else right now, oh wait, sports day the other day, Japanese sports day is certainly more interesting, but I got sunburned and it was hot and so generally it was meh. Hopefully I can get a copy of all the photos taken on the day, cause mine are all from too far away to see anything...
It's summer, which means that fireworks should be available for public purchase somewhere...

Tata for now, I'm gonna blow up some stuff.

Time...

...keeps moving on.
The last group of exchange students are leaving in about a week and half, and I get to go to 2 farewell parties. Yay!
We`ve been having group and class photos for the yearbook today, they said they`d send it to me when everyone else gets it in March (I think) next year.
Oh btw, I`m actually doing the equivilant of yr 12 here.

One of my teachers greets us in English `Hello noisy girls and nice boys.` He`s an amusing teacher. I often find in this school you can end up without a teacher for a lesson for no reason and no warning... I find the teachers attitude towards their schooling dissapointing. Nah, I don`t mind.

I`m finally moving, heading to my 4th host family on Monday next week. Apparently they have an 18 year old host sister and 20 year old host brother who`s been to Australia for a year. Though my host family has as yet refused to tell me where it is I`m actually moving to...
[Sentence deleted for privacy and reputation reasons, my apologies to those involved, no harm was intended].

Soukyokubu is getting more and more enjoyable. We started learning the song we`d be playing at the competition thing next month, and after a slow start of learning it, we can play the first part almost perfectly with all parts. 2 koto parts, a shamisen part, and a part for the bass koto (which I can`t remember the nme of). However we don`t have anyone playing the shakuhachi (flute) so it wont be quite complete... But still fun.

I`ll hopefully put up some more photos soon, though dunno when I`ll get the chance. Internet is a hard thing to come by as an exchange student, cause everyone thinks you can use it in Australia so you don`t need it here... I think it`s okay to an extent, like for a bit every weekend maybe, or the odd email. I don`t plan on spending a whole day on it here, that I can do in Australia and is rather against why I`m　here. Though sometimes I`ve found it useful to have my computer as I`ve been able to help out with various things at the school using my computer, which is probably the best in the school when I take it. Which I don`t often.
It`s one thing to carry a bag around for a few minutes between lessons, it`s something else to carry it for 1 hours on 3 trains and a 20 min walk... Also I worry for it when I do that, it being very valuable to me.

I`m curious about how different my Japanese will be from the students staying in other parts of Japan. I`m learning Gifu-ben and Nagoya-ben (dialect effectively) which I hear can be quite different from Tokyo-ben and others, especially those living north of Tokyo, or south of Osaka.

Well I`ve run my mind dry again for now, so tata.

Some time later...

It`s test week, Yay!.
Not really, I have 4 tests, all Japanese, and the rest of the time is self study, which is why I`m on the puter writing in my blog (That happens to be the reason why some of the characters I type look odd, the keyboard is different so it doesn`t have the right apostrophe).

Anyway, recently I`ve had a bit of a cold. For me colds have often been rather like a one way conversation, I ignore them, and they try to make my life hell. I spend one day feeling like poop, and about a week pissing everyone off by coughing constantly.
So I told my host mother that I`d be fine soon and not to worry. She accepted but was still a little worried, more for her kids than me. After the peak of my cold she told me again her concern for her kids, as they had caught a cold and she wished me to take medicine so I would be better sooner. Medicine is expensive and I figured I only had a day or 2 left of the cold. Which was mostly correct. Unfortunately either it didn`t quite leave, or I just caught it again. At which point my host mother was really not happy with me when it came to this cold (otherwise everything was happy), and so I agreed to go to the doctor and get some medicine, which shall be covered by insurance.
So, go to the doctor the first time to avoid worry if you ever get in this situation...

Two thing I greatly miss from Australia are Cadbury Chocolate and Farmers Union Iced Coffee. While they have both chocolate and iced coffee here, the chocolate has little selection (milk, white and dark) and the iced coffee isn`t milky enough.

There is more to write, but I`ve currently forgotten it, and I need to get of the puter soon and go home so tata for now my viewers (who happen to be few).

Edit:
I remembered something to write about, trains are interesting things in Japan. The occaisional person reading an English lesson book, one Japanese person reading the level 1 JLPT grammar book, and this morning I saw someone reading a Java textbook. I saw a family with a gaijin dad and Japanese mum and a kid. The kid looked at me and said `What is that?. Many people sit there playing gameboy, a few times I`ve heard various mario sounds on the train and I`ve looked around trying to find the source. I swear some of the train staff on the train that I just missed have made fun of me, with their hand infront of their face `nya nya`.
I think I wish gaijin perimeter was a bit stronger on the morning trains. They get so packed that you don`t have to worry about falling over anymore. But when wearing a bag on one`s back, you tend to get off the train and have to get your back back into position. I see a train where a person is pushing and struggling to get on, due to the amount of people already on, and think `yeah, there`s room on that for me`, and then hop on aswell. I sometimes rush a little to get on a train, even though I know they come every 30 seconds in some places (in Kinshicho they literally did come that often).
I had a bit of a look around Nagoya station yesterday, it`s huge, and incredibly easy to get lost in. Most of the time I only use a small section that I know well enough, but when I explore I find whole train companies I didn`t know existed, twisting passages that eventually make it to somewhere else I recognise but don`t seem like they should be able to make it there.

Anyway, enough pdating for now.

I forget exactly how many weeks...

...but it's been about 2 months since I left.
My resolution turned out slightly better than I thought, though not by design, I have been unable to find time to get on the internet for over a week... Partially due to being busy, having joined the soukyoku club (Japanese harp) I now get home anywhere from 7 to 8:30, and I can't use internet then cause the kids are home and bringing my computer out in front of them unrestrained is a bad idea...The only reason I'm able to now is for the next 2 days school ends early to give the first years some orientation, and since I'm a third year I get half the day off, and the kids are at kindy. Then I'll have Thursday off entirely, school on Friday, and then no school till Thursday due to 'Golden week', which is a convenient string of public holidays that causes large events, special offers in shops and so on.
Well I've actually started school now, I'm in the international course class, which means everyone there went to either Australia or New Zealand last year (according to my spell checker it should be "New Zea land"). So their english is not too bad, but they don't use it much, which is good. The other consequence of this class is that it's almost entirely English lessons, with a bit of Japanese, history, and P.E. sprinkled around. So about half of the lessons I spend moving around the school going to extra Math, Science, and even "Piano muck around time" which appears to be an actual lesson....
My class consists of 2 boys, me and one other, aswell as 10 very happy bouncy noisy girls.
In most lessons I can't understand most of what's being said, though this is mostly not a problem, as the science and math so far I've done it all last year or earlier, and the English is English. Though I do have fun finding out things about English grammar that I ever realized.
I think my Japanese is improving slowly, but I still get myself slightly down when I see Alex, the German exchange student who has already been here nearly a year, speak and understand fairly good Japanese.
Some of you may know that most Japanese students attend 'club activities' after school on some or all days of the week. Thankfully mine isn't 'all' days of the week, but it is all 'school' days. If you've seen Kung Fu Hustle, those guys with the flat harps attacking the main character are using koto's (I think) and that's what I'm learning to play every day after school now (unless it's not the same thing, but either way it's similar).
I went to Gifu castle yesterday, which is a decent castle on one of the taller nearby mountains, nearby in that the mountain is practically in the city. It gives a nice view of the surrounding area, so I took some photos and plan to make a panorama out of it soon.
I think I've covered most things recently, so for now, fare thee well.

Week...4+5 and a bit

Well I didn't update the Sunday I had the chance and then I moved later that week to another family and didn't get the chance to use the internet, till I moved again, yesterday.

I have played golf once, and that meant I got about 18 tries at whacking the ball from the tee as hard as I could, which wasn't very hard. Last week I went to a golf ball hitting place, where one goes to take out their anger an the little white balls by smacking them as far as they can, unfortunately without the worry of hitting some unsuspecting passer-by. I hit maybe 150 balls and greatly improved my swing, but my accuracy is still pretty shit...

Staying with a family for a month and you get a little attached to their ways. It's different now.
When I moved to the second host family, they had a barbecue party for me. It was at my host mother's sister's place with the neighbors as well, and they happened to have a German exchange student. I was a little overwhelmed, especially when I had to mention I didn't like fish, veges, fruit, sauce...etc.
I spent the first night thinking how much worse this was from the last host family. However, when I moved again yesterday, I found myself comparing this host family with my second in exactly the same way. Just goes to show that what I was complaining about was the change, and not the specifics, as they were different, not worse.
Back to my second host family, My host mother had stayed in Canada for a year so her English had a strong American accent. She lived with her husband, their son and daughter, and her husband's mother.
It was very different from my first host family, firstly the house was rather large, but more so my host mother was eager to improve her English and help me improve my Japanese. Given that I stayed with them only 3 nights not much progress was made either way but the effort was there.
Before meeting them I got to order my new uniform... not casual enough in my opinion.

New host family. They have a dog who gets very noisy at the sight of strangers. I was told that with a previous student that stayed with them for a week had the dog barking at them the whole time. However the dog is sleeping on the floor next to me atm so that may not happen with me, not the whole time anyway. The house is small, this is not a bad thing, it's kinda cool even. Steep stairs, doors that I have to duck through, a bathroom that I can barely turn in, kinda fun.
Yesterday I saw almost all of Ponyo for the second time, however I saw the second half then the first half... The kids put it back on when it finished.
I start school lessons on Monday next week, and I wear my uniform first time on Friday... really not casual enough...
I'm mildly worried about how things will go, but we'll see when the time comes.

I've made a bit of a resolution, I'm gonna try and stay off facebook and msn and even the internet for as much as possible, I may come on once a month if my plan works, if it doesn't, more often. Internet in general I think more often but I'm staying away from social mediums apart from email. Though, I'm only with this family about a month again so who knows what will happen.
If you need to contact me then use my phone email, if you don't know then you can get it from someone who is likely to have it.

Japanese Drivers

I've heard it said by some individuals that Japanese driving sucks. At the time I thought it nothing but a racist comment.
However, during my time here I have come to a different conclusion. To a degree I think the person's comment was semi justifiable. In Japan, courtesy when driving is very different. It is normal course to jut out in front of other cars in small back road t-intersections, or anywhere that you want to enter the flow of traffic.
In Australia this would be considered rude and dangerous and would yield comments such as "Japanese people are shit drivers".
I think this works in Japan because these people are perhaps in general more attentive, and are 'better' drivers than most Australians.
If an Aussie went to Japan and drove like an Aussie, they may also be considered a bad driver in some ways.
In the end I think driving in another country is like learning another culture, you need to be open to the differences, on both ends, though still try and adapt to the local customs.
Fascinating the things I think about.

Week... 3

Well I appear to have failed at coming up with an interesting name for this weeks update.

First things first, or last cause I'm doing the last things first... Anyway, I can see Mt Fuji out my window, though not for much longer cause it's getting dark. I didn't really know where it was, so I thought it was further north. I saw it, checked my computer for it's location, cause I didn't think I should be able to see it out that window, and yay for me I was wrong. It was Mt Fuji (which is very distinctive anyway). Though I asked my host sister about it by pointing and saying 'fujiyama' (yama meaning mountain) and she laughs and says Fuji-san, as though Mr.Fuji. My host father did the same, so I'm gonna assume that this is normal practice, and a part of the culture that I hadn't come across before. It's seems they anthropomorphosize their mountains, or at least mt Fuji.
Quite awe-inspiring, seeing it's vast form silhouetted against the sunset sky. A sight that my camera does absolutely no justice...

Slightly further back in time, two days ago to be precise. I was walking with another 2 of the Aussie students, and I see some tourists taking a photo of a vending machine, or of one of the drinks in it. So I say to my fellow companions "Look, taking photos of vending machines. They must be tourists." Now, I hurry to point out that from my last trip here I have quite a few photos of vending machines, and while it does rather suggest you're a tourist, I see nothing really wrong with that.I thought I said this quietly enough so m companions may hear and the a fore mentioned tourists wouldn't, as they may take offense, which apparently they did. I also probably embarrassed my companions. In any case, I apologize for the encounter, and I've felt kinda bad about it since.

I think I want to get a new DS, however if I manage to find a cheapish one, I don't know what I want. DS, DS lite, or DSi? Furthermore, it would be most useful if I had my R4 card with me, as I don't know how I can get one here, aside from over the internet. As such I don't think I'll be able to decide before the week is out and I'll have to find a new place to get one once in Nagoya.

I get the feeling I wont know enough Japanese by the time I get to the school tobe able to understand what's going on. This could be fun...

Ooh, I was planning some afternoon to go to Jasper's host family's candy shop, cause I like candy, and it's close. But I didn't need to go later cause my host mum took me there today with my host siblings, cause they go there often. We played SSBB, and I pwned them. We played Wii Resort, and I lost horribly at the sword swinging, cause he had unfairly played before...

I got me a little notepad that I shall endeavor to keep on me at all times and a pen, so I may write all the little words I hear and need to know what they mean when I don't happen to have a dictionary on me at the time.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for the moment, so till next week, or before if I think of anything, Fare thee well.

Week 2

I'm hoping I don't end up sticking to a boring update every week with what I did and name each update 'week x'. I think I'd find it tedious.

Ooh, I wrote the last one just before the Onsen didn't I. Well, if you ever get the chance to go to Japan, and if you ever get offered a chance to go to an onsen, ignore your usual "omg I don't wanna get naked in front of strangers." and try it. For them it's normal that people go to onsens, and they don't make a huge fuss over being naked, you're being typically foreign if you hesitate, and you all know how much you hate 'tourists' (using the term with utmost derision).
Anyway, after ignoring all that and not thinking about everyone else, you can have a very relaxing time, and it's an experience you wont experience elsewhere.

I've had a couple of interesting meals in the past week, one last Sunday, called Shabu shabu if I remember rightly. We had 2 pots boiling away and we'd dip various meat, vegetables, and fungi and cook it. The meat cooked in seconds, then I was dipping mine in sesame sauce and eating with rice. Quite nice. The second involved a similar principle, though employed a fry pan rather than a pot of boiling water. I also had that for lunch today at a restaurant.
That brings me to noodles for some reason, slurp, loudly. They do it, and it cools the noodles as you slurp them. Very handy.

Yay I got to play with Lego, so much fun, and they have more than we ever did, but then so do alot of people. I made a gun, and pretended to shoot people, but they didn't pretend to die. Perhaps its cause last time they did the same to me, I pretended the bullets bounced off my chest, as though my chest were a magic mirror for bullets.

I notice slight improvements in my language skills. I remember more words, but I still have little confidence in actually speaking, listening is easier. The lessons are mostly fine. There is one teacher I don't happen to like as much, but not for any reason I can think of. Perhaps I just don't like them as much as the others so my mind decides to dislike them, cause it thinks I'm supposed to. My mind is a fickle thing at times...

I've been exploring every afternoon a bit to see what's around, I ended up in Akihabara again, cause I love that place so much. I didn't buy anything, but I do find things I may think about buying later. Akihabara is the place for all computer nerds, electronic nerds, and otaku (very nerdy anime nerds). Though, there are quite a few things that our culture would consider a bit questionable, so it's not a place for the innocent. A while back I, when with someone else, we found what at first appeared to be just a cosplay shop, upon closer inspection we discovered it was a bit more particular than just 'cosplay' so we left...
So many computer shops though, and I've managed to find that I can get a hard drive case for 3.5" IDE drive for about $20 or an IDE-USB cable for about $25, not sure what is the norm though, so not sure if this is worth it.

We visited a girls senior high school on Thursday, and had to make a small presentation about Australia. It was a short speech followed by a quiz to see if they were listening, all in Japanese. That was also the day the Thai students came. So there was, a Korean, European (Germany, Finland, Sweden), New Zealand, Aussie, and Thai presentation. Oddly enough, the one NZ girl is Asian, can't remember which specific part though... Aussies being Aussies went on about the sheep to her.
We got a tour of the school, there were koi in a pond. I don't think I'd seen any that big before...

A button came off my Pj's! Some people I know may wonder how that is possible...
Odd the first time I vote I'm not even in the country, let alone the electorate I'm supposed to be voting for.
Panoramas are fun to make with Hugin.
Kohane-kun like soccer, so does Ashita-san. Ooh, he got me to tell him how to type in an underscore on his keyboard, what's worse, I knew how... I have been in contact with Japanese keyboards for only the past 2 weeks, and for about 10 mins 4 years ago, and he's had them most of his life presumably. Ah well, perhaps they just don't use that key often, try asking an Aussie where the 'tilde' key is.
I've been noticing my lovely gaijin powers on occasion, for those of you who know what I'm on about.

Anyway, I'm getting a touch sleepy right about now, in fact I'm getting sleepy about all the time. So I bid thee all farewell again till next time.

Week 1

Well hai thar everyone,here I am after having partially settled in for the past week.
I am currently living in a building on the third floor, I'm not sure if the second floor has anyone in it... and the bottom floor is like a garage and my host father's dogs are kept there. They keep 3 goldfish, 2 turtles and an axalotl in the main room, and a bunch of dogs, Ashita-san breeds them, in cages in the 'garage'. The other family members are Shinobu-san, host mother, Kohane-chan and Tsukino-chan, host sisters 9 and 8 respectively. I always note that Japanese people seem younger than they are.

EDIT: Umm... interesting update, Kohane is a actually a guy. The forms I got were apparently wrong.

Every day I get up at around 6:45 and have a shower, eat breakfast, usually bacon and eggs, and then walk most of the way to the train station with Kohane and Tsukino. We split off and they go to school and I get on the train to Funabashi, meet up with Jasper, though probably not anymore cause he said he'd be going on an earlier train now, and travel to the language school with another 3 train changes.
I'm hoping the constant exposure to Japanese will help improve my Japanese faster, so having the rule that we are only supposed to speak Japanese in the lessons should help. But rules are made to be broken it seems...Nah, we do alright.
On Monday we were given a test to sort us by our Japanese skills. We were split into 2 classes and I'm not in the higher class. One from teh lower class has moved to the higher class, but I don't know if it would be a good idea for me...
Just about every day I've been having ramen for lunch. とてもおいしいですね～。However if I do that every day I'm gonna use up my monthly allowance on ramen alone... So I need to find a cheaper lunch, probably from the supermarket, which is also close.
After school, I usually have a bit of time to explore some part of Tokyo. So far I've been to Akihabara, where I bought a Aussie-Jap power adapter cause there are few power points in Japan that use the ground pin, and it works fine. I've been to Shibuya, where I walked around and took photos that will make my siblings jealous, various landmarks that they'd recognise. I've been to a couple of book stores and gone crazy over the manga section, but haven't yet bought anything, I don't know enough Japanese to read them well enough.
Last night, m host family took me to a ramen place, cause they knew I liked ramen. There we met up with some family friends and I discovered that Japanese people can be just as crude as the rest of us. Ashita-san was constantly calling one of the other guys gay. But it was all good. I did notice that kids in Japan are very quick to trust you. There was a little girl there, I think a bit younger than Tsukino-chan, who was by the end of the night treating me just like all the other adults, a leaning post and seat.
This morning I woke and found I don't know where anyone is... and I don't know what I can do about breakfast...
Ah well, in short I'm having an awesome time here, though there are people home I do miss, some more than others. Oh and btw, I'm apparently returning on the 23rd or 24th... Really 'just in time' for Christmas.

Tomorrow...

... I leave for... Brisbane!
That's right, you remember do you not? I might've previously mentioned I fly to Brisbane, then on Friday I fly to Cairns and then onto Tokyo with the other 9 students.
I now know who I will be staying with, Mr. and Mrs. Yamagami. Which I presume to be 山紙, meaning literally Mountain Paper, but don't take my word for that, I could be very wrong.
They have 2 daughters, 8 and 9, and no one my age.

Leaving tomorrow eh? Excited?
That would be an understatement, but me being the person that I am, I wont have a huge outward display of excitement or emotion, cause that would embarrass me.
I have been cleaning my room as a sort of... project, over the last few days. My room is empty, it's missing a lot of things that now reside in boxes in the corner. I have also started packing, this is odd for me because it is not actually the day that I leave yet... Though I suppose that one must make allowances when leaving for 10 months.
Hmm, I have a few things I think I might need, but probably wont be able to get hold of before I leave.

Well, until my next declamation, I bid thee all farewell.

Kikuka

That's the school I'm going to, or something like that. Kikuka Senior High, in Nagoya. I will be attending that school, as far as I know, for the whole time I'm there, except for the first month at the language course.
After receiving this news I decided to look on Google maps to find it, and found that it's quite well imaged, and I circled the building in streetview to look around to find the entrance. I found it too. There was a school girl standing there and she didn't look that happy, though it's hard to tell when that blurry. She could've been just surprised to see a car with an abundant amount of technical equipment and cameras on top, I was when I saw one at a petrol station one time.
Anyway, if you want to take a look at it search Kikuka Nagoya on Google maps. Or check out this site for the school http://www.kikuka.ed.jp/.
After spending a fair amount of time looking at the site I think I've decided that I'm excited, regardless of the uniforms...which are thankfully better than they could've been.
Only 49 days and 7 hours till the day I go, I downloaded a gadget for my sidebar to countdown for me. Ooh, and I learnt how to put up videos and images onto the blog so I can do that when I feel the need, and I have a youtube account to upload videos so you can find them all in the same place. Not that there is anything there yet. http://www.youtube.com/user/OliasBartel

53 Days

The countdown is getting closer.
It appears I have a camera lined up for me as long as I can pick it up before I head off.

I now leave home on the 25th of February, travel to my Aunt's place by QANTAS, then on the 26th I fly to Cairns where I meet with the rest of the group and we fly to Tokyo by Jetstar (food does not come with the ticket, so if I get hungry I'll have to buy food, sadface), where I will commence a 4 week Japanese course. Then we will be distributed to schools around Japan and live with various host families for the rest of the trip.

Turns out my laptop may be too heavy to take as a separate piece of carry-on luggage, which means it would have to come out of my 7kg meaning I'll only be able to take just less than 4kg of carry-on.

Well after 5 years of Japanese language I managed an 11/20 as my final score for it... I'm confident that I should be right language-wise, by the end of the trip.

Anyway, I've had a few complaints that I'm not updating this, well I'm not actually in Japan yet so that's why. That being said I may update it again as it get's closer to the 25th. Don't hold your breath.