Mochimochimochimochimochimochi.

Japan. STOP IT. You're making time go by too fast. 

So last time I wrote, I left off when my host family's prior semester exchange student arrived for her almost-week-long visit on Sunday. Good stuff. She's going to be 20 a few days after I turn 18 which only made me realize how old I'm getting. And I know there's people reading this that are saying that I'm super young and whatnot, but I'm about to be a legal ADULT, (in America, anyways) and frankly I don't like the fact that I can be sued at any given time in about 30 days. 

Getting off track... getting back on track. She turned out to be really nice. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but we got along really well (thank GOD, since we had to share a room), and I was actually sad when she had to leave. It also helped that she's from America, therefore speaks English, and I was able to communicate with someone fluently. That feeling is so indescribable. PLUS, she had my exact same host family two years ago so it was really cool to see how everyone has and hasn't changed since she was here, and her perspective on the whole exchange. The first day she was here we didn't do much. She brought s'mores as お土産 (souvenir), and although she brought galletas Marias (Mexicans holla) instead of graham crackers, they were still as nostalgic as ever. Plus, since we don't have a gas stove, my host mom popped the chocolate and marshmallows into the oven for a few minutes, so the chocolate got so. gooey. I don't know about you, but when I make s'mores, that's what I'm always going for, yet can never make happen. I was a happy 外人 (gai jin). 

Christmas Eve ended up being more of a celebration than Christmas Day was. 

My friends from school were having a party for Christmas/an old classmate coming to visit, so I biked to the restaurant we were going to eat at. I don't even have to post pictures of it because it's the exact same restaurant I had gone to the night before with my host family! After lunch, a small group of us went to the mall, took Purikura, and then I had to leave. :( 

I came home from lunch to find a box titled "cookies" from the US. ZOMG I got so excited when I read that because I instantly knew exactly what it was. My mom sent me two types of cookies that my family eats every year at Christmas. I ended up crying a bit of course. >___> I found M&M cookies and Meringues (which, as per Hanes/Jimenez tradition, have always been called White Kisses) in this box. The bag of M&M cookies was a giant gallon-sized Ziploc that was eaten in two days. Quite popular. The Meringues went a bit slower, but everyone liked them too.  

On Christmas Eve my host mom made (be prepared, because none of it is Christmas-y) chicken wings, pasta salad, pizza, and some fried potato bites. As odd of a combination that all sounds, it ended up being the perfect Christmas dinner. For desert, we all had cake. I seem to have a lot of that here. Now I will tease you with pictures of said cake.

What can I say? The Japanese know how to do cake. 

My host family is so wonderful. I can't even. Everyone gave me presents that I totally didn't need, and honestly wasn't expecting at all. My favorite one, however, was probably a set of cards with Kumamoto-ben on them, which is basically local words that are only used in Kumamoto. Kumamoto Dialect, if you will. So yeah, that won major points for my host uncle. 

My host siblings still believe in Santa, so my host parents got them a Wii game (Super Smash Bros.) and blew up a Santa balloon for them to find in the morning. That balloon was a struggle. My host dad ended up using 4 cans of helium to blow it up, and it wasn't even that big. In fact, I think he ended up filling the remainder of it up himself when the helium ran completely out. 

The next few days were pretty uneventful for me. I spent them on my computer, and playing Super Smash Bros. with my host siblings.

Friday was the day Naomi (my host family's previous exchange student), unfortunately, had to leave. My host family actually packed the kids into the car and we all drove her to Fukuoka where she was going to catch a bus back to her University in Nagoya. Again, this trip to Fukuoka wasn't too interesting. We ate ramen, dropped her off at her bus, and headed home. Exciting stuff, I know.

On Saturday, Andres and I went to the mall a few hours before we had to catch a train out to another town about 30 minutes away because it was really close to the train station, and we had some shopping to do... kind of. 

I'm mad I didn't take pictures of the JR (Japan Railway) train I rode, because it was so clean. And believe it or not, it was my first time riding JR. If anyone else in Japan is reading this, they're probably gaping at the screen wondering how I've gone so long without riding it yet. My town's local train is different, so the one I take downtown all the time isn't JR. In any case, it definitely lived up to it's reputation: clean, quiet, and on time. After the first train we took, we had to transfer to another train which finally got us to our final destination. When I called my host mom to tell her we had arrived, she kept telling me that we had to walk to the right and keep going until we got to a convenience store. The way she was saying it was not entirely understood by me, because Andres and I ended up walking down a road almost back into Kumamoto-shi. Oh fun times. After about a kilometer of walking and no convenience store, we figured we should head back. It turns out my host mom meant turn right when you come down these stairs leading to outside. -____- Struggle. 

The whole reason we came to this town was for an exchange student gathering at this woman's house. Sounds shady, but I swear it wasn't. We stayed overnight for some reason, which ended up being very fun. We made gyouza! I ate close to 13 if I remember correctly... They were ridiculously good, what can I say? This woman has two girls around my age, and one of them invited her friends over for the whole thing too, so we spent most of the night doing karaoke on their TV. Until 1:30 in the morning. Yup, Japanese teenagers are the same as American ones in regards to that for sure. Needless to say, I was dead by the time we went to bed.

The next day everyone spent the day making mochi and this thing that I don't know the name of but is really tasty.

Here's a picture of the bowl you put the rice in to pound (the picture of me doesn't show it)

 And here's me pounding away...

 And here's the delicious thing I was talking about  earlier. It's got a bread-y consistency, is sweet, and is made using bamboo over a fire.

This is what I'm talking about. They poured the batter in that pot over the bamboo, and it would cook around it. It looks weird, but it ends up tasting really good.

 On the way home (after SO MUCH FREAKING MOCHI WAS MADE), my host parents bought the kids taiyaki, which reminded me a lot of a waffle with filling. The traditional kind have anko, but since I'm not a fan, I got one with custard in it. Felt less authentic, but tasted good nonetheless. 

Apparently you're supposed to start from the fish's head and finish with the tail, however mine ended up looking funny because I took a huge bite out of the tail and... yeah. 

I think this post lacked zeal. That might be because I'm tired and want to watch How I Met Your Mother. I'll go do that. Hopefully my pictures make up for the lack of enthusiasm.

And before I end with my random lettering, I'd like to clear up exactly what that is, because it was brought to my attention during a skype session with my family back home that most people don't know what it is. Now that I think of it, it is a little obscure. I'm not really sure how to explain it other than I don't know what else to say, so I put random letters as a way to imitate spazzing out and ending the post. If that makes any sense whatsoever. It's honestly just my way of ending posts. That explanation probably made it even more obscure... If you still don't get it, it's okay. You're not missing out. Promise.

JFO;ERGNKJBOTJILKNMBFDK
-Ellie

All Kumamoto souvenirs have Kumamon on them.

It's late, and I know it. Yesterday my host family's last exchange student came to visit and she's staying with us for a week so I didn't really get a chance to write anything.

This week my friend from school had to give a speech in English (everyone has to for English class) and she chose events from 2012. I was one of them, and she made a little poster with a couple pictures of me and then my name on it. :3 I felt so special. I'm not even really thinking about going home yet so I haven't gotten too sad... meaning that I'll probably be a mess when I actually am leaving.

I had my last day before Winter Break on Thursday. Everyone else still has class until... drumroll please...



the 28th! Yes, they have school on Christmas. I was shocked too. I knew Japanese students worked hard, but I found that bit kind of ridiculous. So of course everyone was super jealous when they found out I was done. Muahahahaahahahaa... I also had to take all of my stuff home for some reason. It felt really weird to leave my spot empty and a little foreshadowing. :/ After the break I bring everything back, though, so no worries, I get to go through the very heavy process of transporting everything back again!

On Saturday I went on a money binge. And the part that I should feel very good about is that all of it but one thing is for others. I tend to be stingy about money in large quantities however, so as I kept handing over money and my arm kept getting heavier, I continued to plunge deeper and deeper into Spending Shock. And yes, I'm sure that's a thing that I'm not just making up. I won't say how much I bought, but I will say that a few times I caught my jaw hanging open.
This was one of the places I went to buy お土産 (souvenirs). It's right near Kumamoto Castle and free to go into this part so... yeah. It's basically a mini-town type thing that has a bunch of shops to look for stuff to buy. Most of it has Kumamon on it. 

 And THIS is what my lunch looked like. No need to be jealous... only you should. Because it was one of the single most delicious things I've eaten here. It was tempura chicken on rice with and egg and the best sauce I've ever had. It was kind of spicy but not to the point that I needed anything to water it down... Just perfect. I have to give Andres credit, though, because he's the one who suggested it. I've made it up in my mind that I have to go back before I leave.

 For anyone in the States, you'll recognize the top two bags in the next picture! It's this really cool, 409 yen shop that has a bunch of really cool stuff. I just happened to stumble upon a Target and Kohl's bag... even though they have neither in Japan.

 Yesterday, my family's previous exchange student came to visit for a week, so I spent a lot of the day talking to her. She's from Massachusetts so yay for fluent English! She's really nice, so I have a feeling it'll be a fun Winter Break.

For dinner yesterday we went to a buffet called Healthy Eating. Now that I think of it, it wasn't too healthy but whatever. It reminded me of a really high-end, expensive retaurant because of the interesting plates and the setup.

This was the first of four plates. Starting from the top going clockwise: potato salad, potato gratin, sashimi salad (salmon), something I don't know the name of, hamburger, potato, chicken drumstick, potato wedges, and the middle in pasta salad. ALL of it was delicious.

I decided to give you guys a little perspective. ;P

And here's my dessert! Ice cream with corn flake-type cereal (that's very popular here) and chocolate sauce, sponge cake and chocolate cake, a saltine with fruit and cheese (I think), and fruit with yogurt. BEST MEAL OF MY LIFE.

After dinner, everyone just wanted to go to sleep so there was no time to update this thing so I'm sorry that's it's a few hours late.

But I gave you pictures of food, so it's okay, right? Right?

JWFCEJD;LW'FRFIEGJTIJRM
-Ellie

3 and a Half Months Already...

I have a month and a half left. 

Do you know how sad that makes me? I'm actually about to cry at the end of this and it's gonna be embarrassing. Plus I hate crying in front of or with people so that'll be fun. >___> Even though I hate crying in public, unfortunately for me, I cry very easily. I think the most ridiculous thing I've ever cried at is either a Dove commercial or that one Olympics commercial where it had the moms waking up early in the morning to take their children to practice in the morning for their sport. My mom's always told me that you cry at everything after you have kids. If I ever have kids, the way I seem to be turning out, I'll be crying if I put my shoes on the opposite feet. 

ANYWAY. I'm not going to think about that for now... at least, I'll try not to. It doesn't help that AFS sends me returnee information every day of my life (slight exaggeration, if you didn't catch that). 

So anyway the 11th was my お祖父ちゃん (grandfather's) birthday. Having nine people in the same house is good and bad. Good because there's a birthday almost every month, and bad because that contributes to the food baby I get everyday that I have a feeling is going to start to turn permanent. The cakes in Japan are so pretty though that I almost don't even care. They seem like they actually had effort put into them. Also, for my お祖父ちゃん's birthday dinner, we had SUSHI which, oh my goodness, made me so happy. I spent the entire day looking forward to dinner alone. Feast your eyes:

Keep in mind that there were two of those. You can see the other one on the left so you know I'm not lying. Heaven. Deliciousness. Perfection. That is all. Sushi is definitely my favorite food, no doubt about that. Needless to say, the trays were left completely empty by the time we were through with it. I'll also quickly say that the wasabi in Japan is 20x better than the American kind. 

And now here's the cake:

Doesn't that just make you want to dance? Or eat the screen? The little oddly-cut things with the black animal on them is chocolate. The black thing on them is my prefecture's mascot, Kumamon who, in my opinion, is a little creepy unless he has his eyes closed. He's a giant black bear with these saucer-like eyeballs and it's just... interesting. I still love him since he stands for my prefecture, but it's unfortunate because I don't want to take any of his souvenirs home in case they terrify my friends and family back home. 
 
I digress. The cake. It was delicious. Not as delicious as the sushi, but delicious all the same. There wasn't much excitement that went on that day aside from the food. That sounds sad, but it was a good day all the same because of how normal it was. Know what I'm saying? It was just a night where everyone celebrated お祖父ちゃん (grandpa)'s birthday. :)

Yaaaaay okay onto Saturday. Saturday, while my family went to the mall together by car I.... also went to the mall. By bike. 7 kilometers so it wasn't totally awful (most of it was downhill anyway), but it's not something I'd like to do on a daily basis. Plus, oh my.. it was so humid. Dx So anyway, we (the 3 friends I met at the mall and myself) ate at the food court first since two of us were hungry and I don't function without food. Everyone back home will be surprised to hear that I've had McDonald's twice so far. And it's all been meat!

After shopping around for a bit (Japanese shopping = <3) my friend's mom came to pick us up and take us to the skating rink. It was pouring, so thank God for her. It seems like the sky likes to rain on Saturdays, and Saturdays only....

Skating was a blast. And excuse me for possibly sounding lame when I typed that, but it was. One of my friends went home because she had to, but the other two that went with were so cool about it even though they hadn't skated in years. One of the boys in my class was there too... alone. I think he was secretly glad when we showed up. We skated around for about two and a half hours (or three, can't remember). There weren't any ridiculously good 11-year-olds there today so whenever I did a spin or a jump, everyone there was staring at me. Not only do I not look Japanese, but there I am, twirling and jumping around so... yeah. At one point, one dude tried videotaping me while I spun. When I saw what he was doing I got too embarrassed to do anything so, much to his dismay, I ran (skated?) off. A few young kids came up to me a few times to tell me how good I was... which, in case anyone is wondering, I'm not. I mean, I'm not awful but I'm not anywhere near a regional competition, much less national or the Olympics. But this isn't a blog about my skating ability!

After skating (we left around 6, and that boy stayed until 7... he was there for five hours. O.O) my friend's mom drove us back to the mall (bless her giant heart), and my host dad ended up picking me and my bike up (bless his giant heart too). It was pouring, so I didn't really object. If it hadn't been I would've totally ridden my bike home. Plus, I'd forgotten my rain coat thing-y at home...

Today was pretty low-key. I cleaned my room in the morning because a) it needed it and b) my host family's former semester kid is coming to visit on the 23rd. That took a surprisingly long time, considering my room is pretty little, but it got done, and I'm happy. This is a really boring paragraph so far, I'm sorry. 

At around 1, my host father, youngest sister and I went to go fly kites since apparently in Japan (at least around here), around the New Year, you fly kites. It also helped that today was around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I could've walked around in a tank top! Kyushu has very odd winters...

Kite-flying was alright. I got one really good one and then, since I'd let out a lot of the string, I ended up with a giant wad of tangled string. I spent a good 20 minutes working on it, gave up, and then my host mom came and finished unknotting it. 

That was pretty much the excitement that happened today. I just realized I didn't really take any pictures. :/ I'm thinking I'll start just taking pictures of my dinner most nights so you can see what my diet is like (be warned, I'm pretty sure my host family eats more からあげ [fried food] than most families).

I'll leave you with a picture I took in October (I think):

And my usual
SJGIFEJ;SOKROIGJTRNJFM

-Ellie

No snow this year for Chrismas. :(

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaashhhhh!! (I'm not sure what that's supposed to be...)

I know this is a day late. I definitely meant to get around to it yesterday but you'll understand later in the post why I'm only just getting around to it.

Be forewarned: it was a good weekend. 

And the fun didn't even start until yesterday, yet somehow it more than sufficed for Saturday as well. 

I'll quickly mention my ride home on Friday from school because it was just so Japan. Basically I was riding home from school on my bike, and at the halfway point it starts to rain. And there was lightning. It probably would've been a better idea to go to a convenience store and have my host mom pick me up, but I figured I could make it, cause I'm just like that. Anyway, I was wearing my giant winter coat (it's been pretty cold lately) so everything but my hair stayed dry. My poor smiley bag got wet. It made him look very sad. (Btdubs, he needs a name, so すすめ (recommendations) are welcome! Hopefully I'll get around to posting a picture of him soon) Needless to say, I probably looked like a wet rat by the time I got home. Only in Japan, children. Only in Japan. I tried sneaking upstairs so my host mom wouldn't feel bad, but she saw my wet bag by the door and immediately goes, "えりちゃーん (Ellie-chaaaaan)". It honestly wasn't that bad though, and I tried to convince her that it was no big deal and she shouldn't feel bad... I don't think it worked. 

That was my fun Friday. Saturday morning, my host family took me to buy freshly made もち (mochi), which is basically just rice that has been pounded to oblivion. Or until it gets a doughy consistency. But I prefer the first description. 

That metal bowl to the side has boiling water, because the wooden hammer has to be kept warm the whole time. The people beating the rice (I'm sure there's a more elegant way of describing the process) take turns, and if they're really feeling it, they exclaim things, most commonly, "よし！(yoshi!)" Except when they say it it doesn't sound like the green and white Mario character.  

We bought some mochi, brought it home, and ate it for lunch. I personally like mine baked and dipped in soy sauce with a little sugar. Sounds weird, but it's surprisingly good. 

Sunday morning I went to see mochi being made again. This time we walked from home because it was two minutes away, and I ended up helping to make some! I even go to try the hammer! (Don't worry, I kept myself under control... no one was hurt) It was, however, surprisingly fun. I wasn't expecting it to be so enjoyable. 

That's me making the mochi into it's signature ball shape! Excuse my struggling appearance... it was windy and cold. The mochi was really warm, so everyone making it into balls was fighting to make them because of how cold our hands were. Notice how much taller I am than everyone. (I won't mention that I'm wearing heels in the picture... oops.)
Yesterday, AFS had a Christmas party thingaling. There were a bunch of kids from other countries because these 2-week-long kids came too. New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia... I think that's everyone. My friends from school came too, which they do everytime, and have I mentioned how much I love them? They're a whole 50% of the reason I don't want to go home (the other being my family here). For real. It's crazy we've only know each other for three months and yet I'm closer to them than most people I've known for years back home. 

Anyway, I think the highlight of the party was when my お祖父ちゃん (grandfather) took up a tamborine with the band that was playing Christmas music and proceeded to tap out the rhythm for the band. He's so wonderful, I can't even. That instantly dubbed him an 'adorable grandpa'. 

After the party, a group of 13 of us went to Machi to do some shopping and show everyone around the city. Andres, Anna, my friends from school, and a bunch of exchangers came. There were so many of us that we had to split into two groups to take purikura. Fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, Andres and I had to leave shortly after getting to Machi because our families were having dinner together that night. Turns out it was with one of the exchange girls that had been at the party and her host family. Ate... too... much... As usual. -___- After dinner (the had MANGO JUICE by the way ;)) everyone went to take purikura, only this time it was with our host families. Yayayayayayaaayy :) 

I got home around 8:30, still had to take a shower, and do some *gasp* homework for today, so I didn't get around to this.

For the entire time I've been here, for one of my class' English classes, they've been doing these Show & Tell presentations. Basically, you introduce anything you want and bring something in to illustrate the speech. It's in English, obviously. Mine was in Japanese. THE STRUG LIFE. Actually, this one was a hundred times easier that the first day of school. I'm happy to say that I wrote 100% of it on my own and had minimal corrections done to it. And it was about four minutes of me talking about Mexican food. Needless to say, I was incredibly hungry afterwards.

Speaking of hungry... today was Monday, so I had 茶道 (Sado - Tea Ceremony). We made tea ceremony okashi today, which is the stuff you eat with the tea. I only got a picture of the sugar candies because I was busy the rest of the time, but these are pretty cool.

And pretty! You press the sugar into those molds and they come out in the shape of the mold. Weeeeee... Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of most, if not all, tea ceremony okashi... If you can believe it (coming from an American) it's all way too sweet. I still wouldn't choose nattou over it, but it's a close one. I'm so mad I don't like them. *pouty face* 

That's it for this post. OH! I'll quickly mention that the foreign exchange kids from the party yesterday came to my school today. We had a period where we rotated around the room and got to talk to them all. Good stuff. The boys in my class were loud and insane as usual, but that's why the girls in the class love them.

Oh, and I know I mentioned it a while back, but I finished The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest last weekend and they're PHENOMENAL. Honest to God. Go read them. I don't even know if they'd be your type of book, but I highly recommend them... and it's very hard to get me interested in most books, so take my word for it.

Before anything else comes to mind, I'm going to close this post.

JF;REKLOE4IJUHGJNFMKDM (I got punctuation and a number in that one.. boss.)

-Ellie

Christmas Whales.

I haven't had a real bento since last Monday and it feels relatively weird.... There was testing all last week except for Monday so I got out of school early every day. Waaaaahhhhhhh! :) Last time we had testing it had only lasted for three days and then Friday we had class. So it's Thursday last week and I'm all like, "Yaaay for you guys! You're tests are over!" And my friend just goes, "Nope, we have them tomorrow too." Doing the utmost. Tests at my school back home are never more than three days. Seriously. Four days of testing and I'd be dead, I don't know how everyone here does it.

So aside from a fun trip after school to a Joyfull nearby (a chain restaurant that serves surprisingly good food...), once again, my town was devoid of anything worth mentioning. Joyfull was on Tuesday I believe. I went with Andres and ended up eating too much. As usual. For anyone back home that thought I would lose weight here, WRONG. So wrong, and I wish you hadn't been. I'm pretty sure I've gained a pretty substantial amount while I've been here because of all the delicious food that has been surrounding me. But hey, I figure I'm in Japan, so I may as well eat as much of the delicious food that's here while I can since I won't be able to in two months.

TWO MONTHS. That's another thing that happened recently. Well, not that in particular but I've officially been with my host family for 100 days and I've been gone from home for 102. Say whaaaaaaaat? The first week I was here I remember thinking that I'd never get here, and yet here I am. I don't even know where time has gone while I've been here. It's so easy to waste a day or to take it for granted and I realize that now. Look at me, trying to be all poetic. And failing. And if you decide to do this too, you'll probably have the urge to spew poetic verses like it's a hobby. It's great.

My one interesting thing that probably deserves some mention is what I did yesterday. There's this Christmas lights show/display thing that my host family had been talking about for like a month beforehand and we FINALLY went yesterday. I totally wasn't ready for it though. Like, they told me the day of and then let me know we were leaving about 15 minutes before. Thank god it was the one day on the weekend that I took the initiative earlier that day to actually change out of my pajamas before 12 o'clock. We drove for about half an hour and then had to wait in line (in the car; this was all seen in the comfort of our warm 'box') for about fifteen minutes. The displays were all pretty awesome, I must say. However, it was a little odd seeing Christmas lights in Japan since I don't normally associate Christmas outings with Japan. Nevertheless, I got to see this stuff, so it's all good:

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what a giant (and by giant, I mean MASSIVE) whale has to do with Christmas, but they had a whole bunch of miscellaneous scenes made out of lights. I saw a Little Mermaid one, even.

As we were leaving we noticed that the line of cars waiting to get in had grown considerably. There were cars going back at least a mile if not a mile and a half waiting to see these things. You could have almost saved yourself the trouble of waiting and just drive up and down the street looking at the car lights, as my host sister cleverly put it.

I also got a package from my mom back home yesterday with candy and STICK DEODORANT. I haven't seen stick deodorant yet, so I made it clear that I was going to need some or Japan would be in for an awful treat in odor form. She also sent me Poptarts (blueberry) and I decided that since I can eat them as much as I want when I go home, I'd give them to my host family to try. Apparently I won't need to share them that much because most of my host family found them too sweet. The only one that really seemed to like them was the older of my two host sisters. And since she someday wants to study abroad in the States, it's probably a good sign that she likes processed food like that. :)

Today I took it upon myself to go downtown all alone (yup, I'm sad) because I decided that I couldn't wait any longer to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. And buy it I did. I was so ridiculously happy. Not only because I got the book, but because I somehow managed to go downtown and get home by myself without getting lost a single time. HUZZAAAAHHHH.

Yeah. That's my interesting week. I apologize if anyone's been checking in to see if I've had any more adventures like the one when I went to 四国 (Shikoku) or something. I have a feeling I'll have another one of those at some point before I leave. Plus applying for college scholarships has been forcing me to cut these a bit shorter than I'd like. >___> ANYWAY, I'll see all of y'all sometime this week or next Sunday. Or whatever day it is when you read this.

IFOUEROIHGRFDSJOESR,
-Ellie

Kimonos, tea, some food, and more Engrish! :D

I'm currently sitting in front of a heater emitting the most amazing warmth ever. 

The weird thing about the cold here is that it's really only in the morning and kind of at night. For me, at least. Kumamoto pales in comparison to Chicago winters... It doesn't really get below freezing but biking to school in the cold can be pretty brutal with the wonderful breeze that's sure to 'cool you down' on the way. -___- 

SO. This past Monday was my last 茶道部 (Sadou Bu - Tea Ceremony Club) for the rest of the month because this week is... TESTING! Therefore, in order to let everyone study more than they already are every day, the school gave them ALL of last week's afternoons to do it. Isn't that wonderful? I have a feeling I would be a terrible Japanese student even if I knew the language. I don't think I could commit to as much homework and studying as everyone here does. 

On Friday there was no school so AFS took this opportunity to take the two Kumamoto chapters to try on kimonos and make tea (hehehehehhhh). It was about ten minutes away and all the AFSers host families came too. I got there and the woman who would be dressing me (that sounds awkward...) asked me which of five kimonos I wanted to wear. There was this really lovely blue one that I picked, and just as I was about to put it on, I was informed that Anna (who had gotten there a bit before me) had already picked it out and if it was okay to switch with hers. Ahhhh the cruelty of it all. I ended up in a pink one that was very pretty (however I was still jealous of the blue one the whole time):

As pretty and easy as it may look to get on, I'll tell you this: it's not. I remember reading Memoirs of a Geisha and hearing about the complexity of it all, so I was prepared for it to take a while. I almost expected it to be more difficult to get on than it ended up being. It did, however, take more time than I anticipated. I ended up having to take off my shirt which felt a little weird even though I was in a room full of girls. First came this undergarment thing-y that was really loose and resembled a vest with a white collar that had flowers on it (you can see the collar in the picture a bit). Then there was something to tie around my waist above that in order to keep it in place. After that came a blur of garments to be put on that I don't even remember. Once the kimono was on, the woman had to fold it a few times and keep it where the obi (the big green belt) could hide it. Then came another sash thing-y to tie around my waist (still not the obi), then finally the obi (through which they inserted a piece of cardboard to keep it flat and from moving), some stuff that she stuffed at the top of it... honestly I can hardly remember everything she did. All I remember is that it went from looking like an awkwardly-fitting bathrobe to what I have posted up above. I also remember that the obi was tied in a very intricate way in the back that made it look really cool.

(Don't ask why it's crooked; my camera person did this a lot for some reason)

After the kimono was on, they put your hair in a ponytail and braided it into two separate braids that they then made into a bun. To this, they added some fake hair (which I'm seriously creeped out by) for volume, and gave you a choice of flowers to wear. They also gave you red lipstick that I've never though looked that flattering on me, but I figure since I was going to be wearing a kimono I may as well.

After taking a ton of pictures, we went into a tatami room to do our tea ceremony shenanigans. I'm currently on the most basic type of tea ceremony so this was was totally foreign to me. I did, however, know a little bit about how to receive the 茶わん (Chawan - Tea bowl) and how to eat the sweets they give you (yes, there's a certain was to eat and drink). I was supposed to be sitting in 正ざ (seiza - that really painful way to sit where your legs are folded directly beneath you) the entire tea ceremony, but the pain ended up being too much to handle and I had to switch around. 

Yaaay for kimonos and tea ceremonies. After changing out of the kimonos we all ate lunch. 

The exchange kids then decided to go downtown afterwards and since I'm one of them, that means I went along. The usual happened: took purikura, looked around at clothes, ate ate Mister Donuts, and at the end of the day I finally bought The Girl Who Played With Fire! Ahhhh ridiculous excitement ensues! I also bought this adorable backpack that's a giant smiley. Cutest. Thing. Evaaaaaaar. 

I got home at around 9:40 that night so I was dead tired. I had this delicious don buri that my host mom had made for dinner, took a shower, and passed out almost immediately. 

The next day was fairly relaxed. I really just read the whole day... That sounds really lame, but that's honestly what I did. I need to know what happens with Lisbeth and Blomkvist and all the wonderful happenings in Sweden!

My host mom did, however, after hearing my brother mention it on a skype we had this weekend, make me a 焼きそばパン (Yakisoba Pan) Which is exactly what it sounds like: a yakisoba sandwich. Allow me to make you hungry with delicious pictures of sexy food.

There's your food porn for this post. I'm not sure if that even looks that good to anyone that hasn't had it, but trust me, it was delicious. But then again, I think anything with that many carbs is bound to be delicious. Why Japan, WHY?

Today wasn't that eventful either. I did go shopping and bought some boots and a pair of shorts for super cheap! And the boots are heels so I'm boutta be one tall-ass human being when I come home. :D Actually I'll probably be average height back home. Here, however, I think I'm a giant with them on (I'm already considered pretty tall without any heels... I'm 5' 3.5". And yes, the .5 is important).

After shopping, the entire household headed off to get a family picture taken. I think it's my host family's tradition to get these done with their host students or something. Not that I'm complaining; it was really nice. :) Not sure how they look, but I'll get back to you guys on them!

That's pretty much it for the weekend...

I'll close this post with some Engrish I found on Friday while I was downtown:

They're called discarded black cats. Nobody knows how cute and cuddly they are. Although they had dirty hair or faces. Gradually, their individual personalities emerged.

A for spelling... not sure what else to say.

DLEWJGFETOKHRBGKMF

-Ellie

太る！

I've run out of creative ways to intro these things so I'll just jump right into my week.

This week wasn't too out of the ordinary. My school, as usual, switched the schedules around a bit (they do that A LOT for some reason) and that was probably the most exciting thing to happen at school. I'm living life in the fast lane, I tell you! I'm sure something exciting happened, I'm just having a brainfart...

OH, so I haven't even mentioned this but instead of doing Track and Field I'm now doing 茶道部 (Sado Bu - Japanese Tea Ceremony Club)! It's on Mondays and Fridays after school, and I like this one because not only does it give me some days where I can have some free time after school, but it's also super Japanese culture-y. And intricate. How hard can it be to pour someone a cup of tea? My friends, the Japanese have perfected the art of making it harder than it needs to be. In doing so, however, they have made it into an art. I don't really mind the intricacy, so I'm really enjoying it. The only downside is that I have a feeling that club is going to greatly contribute to my weight gain (contrary to what many people thought would happen, I've GAINED weight). >____> Every day we have club, we sit down at the end, drink tea, and eat mochi, or some other anko product. This past Friday, after already being full from earlier that day, we ate ぜんざい, which is pretty much an anko soup with mochi cakes floating around in it. Sounds gross when I put it that way, but I can definitely see why people like it. That being said, I am not one of those people. I like mochi (especially when it's baked, and then dipping it in soy sauce with some sugar... yes), however ever since I first tried anko I knew I was destined to battle it's recurrences throughout my stay here. It's just too sweet. I know, I know, America consumes some of the grossly sweetest products there are on a daily basis. I agree. So I can't really tell you what it is about it. You have to try it to know what I mean. For me, however, it's almost sickly sweet. But I drank that soup like a champ. Yup. I called myself a champ. The upside to it's sickly sweetness is that it balances nicely with green tea, which is very, very bitter. I'm alive, and I did it. That's all that matters.

Saturday was fun. :) I hung out with some friends from school. There were four of us altogether, which is the perfect number for... you guessed it (or you didn't)! Purikura! We went downtown and took it two times, and both times my eyes managed to look one hundred times creepier than everyone else's because of how wide it made them. I legit look like an alien or something. Whatever, at least I have proof now that I have friends here. We spent the entire day window shopping, and took a break at lunchtime to eat ramen. I'm sorry to say I didn't take a picture because it was too delicious to stop eating and take the time. Seriously. Best ramen. If you're ever in Kumamoto city, go to Tsuruya and find the floor with all the restaurants. Go to Manriki Ramen (I think... wow I don't even remember the name). I ordered mine with a soy sauce-y broth but they also had a salted one (as if it needed any more salt). At the end of the day, I wasn't sure which bus to take so (I felt like a helpless 7-year-old or something) my one friend stayed with me to help me find it even though she took one that came before mine. Can I just take a moment to say I have the BEST friends here? If they ever read this, みんあ大好きー！ Japanese friends are good people. That is all.

Today was my host mom's birthday (which I'm proud to say I remembered)! And what do you do on your birthday?  You take your study abroad student to a 琴 (koto - traditional Japanese instrument) concert! It was three hours of traditional Japanese instruments, and by the end of it all, I felt like Sayuri from Memoirs of a Geisha. In all honesty, it was actually really cool. You'd think it'd be boring, but the sound of it all was so interesting that I didn't even realize it was so long.

The things in the back that look like they're playing recorders sure sounded like them, but they had a different name that escapes me now. In front of them are the shamisen and then the koto in the front. The way they played the koto made it look very... not sure what the word for it would be in English, but in Japanese you'd say かっこい. Like, it looked so cool and legit. Yup, that's the best I can do.

After that, my host mom and I stopped by a Mister Donuts and I bought both of us one. :) Big spender, right here. We also picked up a cake for her birthday.

Tadaaaaaaa! Japanese people are so fancy when it comes to cakes. It tasted as good as it looks (which is very delicious).

We also had やき肉 (Yakiniku) for dinner.

So delicious! It's basically a grill in the middle of the table and you eat as it all gets cooked. THIS is why I'm getting fat, people!

Anyway, that was pretty much my week/weekend. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but it's still weird and awesome to me that I can say this is all going down in Japan. This Friday there's no school, and AFS has something planned for us　留学生 (ryugakusei - foreign exchange students). Something about wearing kimonos, so I'm excited!

FLIUER.KBNWALEOFROIUHFV
-Ellie

The only thing harder for me to be fluent in than Japanese, is this.

Hello human beings from around the globe. (I feel like I've used this intro already...)

This is going to be a post dedicated to something other than what I did this weekend, because it's something that I've been wanting to share with everyone for a while. Now, you may or may not have heard of Engrish. If you have, though, you've never seen it like this. I knew that the English slogans around here were kind of ridiculous, but I had no idea how much so, and how FREQUENTLY it happens. I think I've seen maybe two products during my entire stay that, if they were read aloud by someone, those standing around them would not think they were mentally deranged. 

It's everywhere: t-shirts, tags, posters, Purikura, signs... the list goes on. It's especially funny because the way that it's written always screams, "As I sat in my giant leather chair of class, I was attempting to make this sound as deep and poetic as possible," and then it just ends up making Ellie want to take a picture of it to post on here.

So, without any further ado, I present some of my Engrish photography collection.

 This is by far the one that has made me laugh the most. It was on one Anna's notebooks (I think...?) and the second I read it out loud I died laughing.

 I dub this one: The One That Makes So Little Sense That it's Not Even Funny. This was on a bag for a store in the mall around where I live, and as a person who's pretty into the whole proper syntax and spelling thing, I was pretty appalled by this one.

 Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....

 I kind of get what they're trying to say... but....

 Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'suit' should be 'suis'. Not a horrible one, and it's not even Engrish (Frapanese?), but it caught my eye nonetheless. It says 'I am always happy.'

 If you can't read it, it says, "(I can't remember the first line, and I didn't take a picture of it because that wasn't the funniest part and I felt awkward taking a picture of the wall in a clothing store) Dream Pink, Dear Pinky [tiny print]: Pink latte beer is a medicine of all diseases. Her dream is the most beautiful in the world." That pained me to just type it. e____e

"You are a lovely person. Please spend wonderful time." Thank you, kind box filled with cake!

I know it wasn't that much since you'll probably read through them really quickly, but that's all I've got. I've also seen a pack of towels with a tag on it saying, "Enjoyed a good boom." SAY WHAT? Yeah, sounds a little suggestive if you ask me... And then my host sister has the greatest shirt ever. The only part of it that I remember is the first few lines because they're the funniest: "I love that I have friends, and that I am unbearable..." and then it goes on to talk about other things in Engrish. I'm not really sure why you'd want to be unbearable, and honestly, if I were that shirt's manufacturer, I would fire my designer. Or whatever. Because why would people want to walk around saying that they love to be unbearable?

So yes... hope that made you laugh at least a little. Again, a short post, but I didn't do much this weekend. On Saturday, I went downtown all day with Anna and Andres, and then today I got to help out with my host sibling's　小学校の祭り (Shougakkou no matsuri - Elementary school festival). This involved a lot of me running around with my younger host sister to all of the games and activities they had set up all over the place. 

That sums up my life right there.

Oh, and tomorrow is the halfway point for me. Can my family and friends just come live here? For real, not liking this whole going home in February...

FWHIOWJWI3OTRIEUI
-Ellie

This is.... Japanese culture!

It hasn't even been the weekend yet, but today I had something happen that I can talk about. No pictures on this one, however, and it'll (maybe) be short.

Today, my school had a uniform check. Dear lord are these things for real. Basically a group of male teachers come around to inspect the boy uniforms and a group of women for the girls. They're checking to see that everything's neat and tidy and whatnot. They take the boys in one big group out into the hallway and girls in another group separately, have you line up and go up and down staring you down. In case you couldn't tell, it's not a pleasant experience. Since the boys were checked before the girls, and we had to wait in the classroom while they did that, I didn't really get to hear what they were checking for, but from what I saw, they looked at whether their pants were sagged (something the majority of the boys at my school in America would fail miserably), and their hair. 

Here's where I'll say that this cleared up a lot of confusion for me. I've spent the past two and a half months perplexed by the hair all of the boys here have. I could never quite put my finger on it, but I always knew something about it looked off. Today, I realized that it's because their hair is a regular, not too short but not super long length except for around their ears. I guess their ears have to be completely exposed, so they get this haircut that a decent length that would naturally cover the ears, and then they get it cut around the ears. It's difficult to explain, but let me just say that this cleared a lot up for me today. 

And now back to the uniform check. One of the boys in my class apparently had his hair too long around his ears (I personally thought it was fine, but what do I know?), so they made him cut it in school. Over a garbage can. WHAT IS THIS? I was utterly baffled by this when I saw that they were serious. He held the trash can under his head, and another boy got a pair of scissors for cutting paper (which isn't good for your hair mind you), and just started snipping away, like it was a hair salon or something. I was completely fascinated by this, and they were cutting his hair right in front of me, so I spent a good seven minutes with an incredulous smile in utter shock. Another note: after this boy had had his hair cut, he saw that I'd been watching in total amusement, and he just goes, "This is... Japanese culture!" It was even funnier the way he said it since it was with a Japanese accent. Plus, he said it a good three times, as if I didn't hear it the first time. Ahh, good times.

So after those fun shenanigans, it was the girls' turn. For us, they checked that our skirts weren't rolled (they're pretty long if you don't), our nails were cut/not painted, hair was up and cut, that our ties were right.. or something, I didn't really understand this one, and that we weren't wearing makeup. I didn't know about the nail thing so a few of mine were deemed too long and, even though they didn't make me do it right away, I did anyway. I'm not a fan of these things, personally, and I hope another one doesn't happen while I'm here (I probably just majorly jinxed myself). I was terrified the entire time that I forgot something important that I was going to be severely punished for. 

But I'm alive!

And speaking of going home, why is it that AFS has already sent me my itinerary for going home? I'M NOT EVEN HALFWAY DONE. -__________- Why AFS, why?

Lastly, if you live in the States and you're reading this, I hope you voted (if you can, of course)! I'll be sitting in class as the results are being announced so I probably won't be paying any attention to what's going on in class.

FWAHWFEJLAHELUHLJWIJVRRR
-Ellie

I finally have clothes!.... wait, what?

Hello international friends.

I'm gonna jump right into Friday, because that's kind of when my weekend started. I didn't have class om Friday. Can anyone guess why? Anyone? No, not a holiday, anyone else...?





I walked 30 kilometers with the entire school.

Yup, you read right. Thirty. That's about 18 miles, all on foot and all in one day. Dude, my school doesn't mess around. So I think the lower half of my body pretty much died that day; by the last ten kilometers I was limping along with everyone else in my group. The people walking by us probably had a good laugh, though, as we greatly resembled little old men and women. Only not as cute because we're a bunch of high school kids. Most of the walk wasn't uphill, however, so I'll be grateful for that. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made it if it had been. Everyone was at school by 6:20, changed into their winter gym suits, and we were on the buses and off by about 7:20ish. At around 9:30 everyone started off in very high spirits. Lots of laughing, joking, ridiculous dancing, and singing. At one point my group was one of the last ones and apparently my group wasn't having that, so we jogged a good kilometer and a half or so with backpacks on. At about 1 everyone stopped at a park to eat lunch for about 20 minutes and then head off again. By the last five kilometers I seriously think everyone was a lifeless body just going through the same motions of the past few hours. My group got split up at one point because some of us seriously needed to rest or our legs were going to fall off. We got back to the school at around 3:30, so that means we probably walked for about 5 and a half hours altogether. That number still baffles me. However, now I can say I've walked thirty miles, from the absolute country/mountains to suburbs.

After getting home I used my host family's massage chair on the leg setting three times. This was probably the first time I've ever actually needed that thing. I was a cripple the rest of the night; everytime I stood up and walked around I felt pathetic because of the limp I had. But it's okay, because the next day...

I went skating! No, I'm not insane, and somehow my legs were able to work enough the next day for that to happen. This rink is only open during the fall because apparently during the summer it's a pool. O_o It was 1000 yen which is a little over 10 dollars, which, compared to my rink at home, is pretty steep. So I get my skates on, walk on out to the rink, step on the ice, push off, prepared to begin gliding across the ice, and whaddya know? I stop pretty much directly after pushing off and fall on my hands and knees. Now, I'm probably missing some detail or something, but I have come to the conclusion that the metal on my blades became funny after having notbeen used for so long. At the time, I wasn't thinking straight and I was kind of freaking out, though. After about fifteen minutes of stroking around the rink, though, they went back to normal. Surprisingly enough, even after two months of no practice, I still had my spins and my jumps (including my axel, Katie!). A pleasant surprise, after I'd been so nervous about losing it all.

After skating we went shopping for clothes and I finally bought some shoes and shirts for winter, and then came home.

Saturday was also my host father's birthday, so after dinner we ate the most awesome cake ever:

ALL of the cakes at the store we bought it at looked as awesome as this one. Japanese rock at pastries, let me tell you. They all looked super elaborate (by American standards, anyway) and carefully made. And they're all TINY. Back home, when you go to the supermarket and buy a cake it's about the size of my torso. Here, they're a little bit bigger than my hand (I have tiny hands, too). Needless to say, it tasted just like it looked.

Today, we left at about 10ish for Fukuoka because it's my host sister's birthday this Wednesday and she loves Egypt and there's an Egypt exhibit going on at the Fukuoka art museum. None of it was in English, so it was kind of the struggle of my life to read anything, but it was super cool to be able to see everything regardless. The theme was The Book of the Dead and it was an exhibit from Britain. There were a bunch of sarcophagi, statues, and other mummy-related artifacts. 

I know this post was shorter than most of mine. :S Hopefully next weekend will have more to write about. 

JFIJXIRLGJXKNRJLK.

-Ellie
p.s. MOM, I gave my host dad gpa's artwork for his birthday and everyone seemed to really like it. They were really fascinated by how abstract and odd it looked. And they liked his signature faces and name on it. :) They say thank you.

I hate titling these things.

Another week gone... Dude, this whole thing is going by insanely and altogether too fast. I have about 97 days left in Kumamoto and I'm absolutely certain that I will 100% not be ready to go home come February 3rd. I didn't realize what this experience would actually be like until now; it's been 100x better than anything I imagined. Sometime after I began applying to AFS, I started reading this one person's blog about their adventure in Japan. Everything they did sounded so cool; they lived in a big city, did exciting things everday (it seemed) and I remember wanting my experience to be similar. WHY DID I EVER WISH THAT? Anyone reading this that wants to come to Japan on a homestay should never hope that their experience is anything like anyone else's. This is YOUR experience, and yours only. It's unique, and beautiful and wonderful and only you can say you've experienced exactly what you have. Anyone even considering doing something like this should by all means do it. Do it while you can. It's something that you can't even realize how much it'll change you as a person, and I mean that in a totally positive way. 

Okay, now that I'm done giving my study abroad advertising... on to the post!

This week there wasn't too much worth mentioning. I have 部活 (bukatsu - club/sports activities) everyday after school and it has convinced me that I'm never going home because it'll kill me before I do. These people are たいへん (taihen - hard workers).

On Friday I didn't go to school. Yes, rebel right here. I'm totally about to start randomly skipping class. Yeah, that totally sounds like me... And what was I doing on my rebel-day-off? Volunteering to help some Thai foreign high schoolers around Kumamoto-shi. Quite the bad ass, if I do say so myself. There were two others from my school (a friend of mine and a first-year boy who I didn't know) and a few from two other schools. All of the high school volunteers were put into a group, but the groups didn't stay separate for very long, and eventually everyone just joined groups and went as one. We started the tour at 熊本城 and after showing the foreigners around a bit, we all piled into a bus that took us to 熊本大学. 

We ate lunch in the school cafeteria (which had absolutely anything you would want to eat), and were then shown to a really nice, carpeted room that had a bunch of tables with 書道 utensils at each chair. A professor from the university spent a good hour and a half teaching us all techniques on how to draw pandas, flowers, bamboo, a shrimp and an eggplant. After we were adequate at it (and I say adequate because no one got anywhere near to where anyone else in his class would've been), we were all given a fan that we could decorate however we wanted. Since I absolutely sucked at everything he taught us besides the bamboo, I decided I would just do a bunch of that...

Yay for bamboo! I never had time to do the other side, so I'm considering sneaking it into my weekly 書道 class at school to finish it. With my amazing smuggling skills, that should be no problem. (That was meant to be very sarcastic)

After that, everyone went out to a commons area-type room to be put to shame by the teacher and his students. Seriously, the man painted a giant Kumamoto castle with rolling mountains in the background like it was no big deal.

The thing that made everything hilarious, however, were the GIANT brushed attached to poles that he used to paint with. Quite amusing and fascinating at the same time. It was really cool to see the whole thing come together though; at first I couldn't really see where he was going with the whole thing and then BAM, all of a sudden there was a castle and mountains. There was a giant bucket of water that this one girl would dip a giant brush into and use to wet the entire paper as the people painting progressed. The water gave the ink the water-color-y, abstract-y look that you might be able to tell from the picture. Then, all of the students were asked to write their name and draw a few flowers at the bottom. It turned out to be a pretty nice collaboration. :)

That was the basic gist of my day on Friday. Volunteering went until 5ish and by the time it was over I was pretty exhausted. 

THEN on Saturday morning, I headed over to another university to watch my classmates participate in an English debate against a few other Kumamoto schools. If any of you guys ever read this and can understand it, YOU DID SO AWESOME AND I'M SO PROUD OF YOU ALL. I honestly have no idea how they debated in English. That's like me trying to debate in Japanese... Even though we didn't win anything, I was beyond impressed and entertained by the whole thing. There were various debates, and the whole event ended up going from 9 am to 4 pm. Props to y'all, I could never have done it. 

And now we arrive to today. Today, my dear friends (and some strangers), my wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL host family took me to 阿蘇山 (Aso san - Aso mountain) to go to a spa there. Honestly, though, I would've been perfectly fine just going for a drive in the mountains. I've decided that driving in the mountains with my iPod is one of my favorite things to do in Japan. 

And after today, I can say that I've been to the clouds and back. Legitimately in the clouds. Because that's how high we were.

 At one point, we stopped the car to look into this crater and as I took more and more pictures I got more and more frustrated that the pictures didn't look as breath taking as the real thing.

 That, in the bottom right-hand corner is a road, just to give a little perspective. The fog hanging around is cloud.

There was almost no blue around us because all we saw was cloud. Crazy stuff!

We stopped at this really quaint, adorable restaurant for lunch, and I ended up ordering a hamburger and a slice of apple pie. Allow me:

The hamburger plate was GINORMOUS. Just as a side note, I've noticed that a lot of times, a hamburger in Japan means only the actual hamburger; no bun. I'm totally fine with that, I just though it was worth mentioning. The hamburger plate was rice with a hamburger patty on top, and an egg topping it all off. Yeah, can't even see the rice in the picture, but it's there. 

So after becoming fat, we were off to the spa! The spa we went to was located in this huge mini-town full of souvenir shops.

The spa was very... interesting. Don't get me wrong, I definitely liked it, but it was different from what I imagined. Basically, they give you a shirt and a pair of pants that you wear (no underwear -- and yes, they clean everything after each use). After you've changed you head into this giant room with a whole bunch of mini hut-like structures all around the room. There's an area to sleep/rest, to drink some water or tea, and a spot to sit around. The huts all had wooden doors that opened into a room that was very warm, and scented with some kind of herb. My host siblings didn't really like the smells, but I actually found it very relaxing. Inside the huts, there are pillows lined up around the edge where you lay down and just relax. Definitely not what I expected, but enjoyable nonetheless. There was one Icy Cold Room that, as the name suggests, was really cold and was really nice after sitting in a hot room for a few minutes. We spent a good hour and a half in the spa, and when we finished, we went back to some of the little shops to look around and see what there was. 

We got home at around 6:30 and here I am now a few hours later. All in all, a pretty great weekend. AND I just found out on Saturday that the ice arena here opened today so HURRAH I'M GOING FIGURE SKATING NEXT WEEKEND. Which is also kind of terrifying since I haven't skated since August... We'll see how that goes and I'll definitely be giving an update on that. :)

FKLJDKLSKMDDVKJGNK kbaiii.

-Ellie