So many things... Can't even put a title on this one.

Oh hey, look at that; I did. 
 
Ahhhh wonderful air conditioning. You have no idea how much you appreciate it once you don't have it all the time. It's been averaging about 32 degrees Celsius which is about 90 in Fahrenheit. Cue fainting. I know it's cheaper and more environmentally friendly, and I seriously admire all Japanese families that make it most if not all of the day without it. Props to y'all.

Following up on the speeches at school... they went pretty well, actually. I got into school and was told that I would have to do a third speech in front of the entire school. I never thought I'd say this but thank the lord for Sophomore year speeches. It honestly wasn't so bad. And I spent most of the assembly astounded by the difference from an American one. For anyone that hasn't been to an American assembly at school, they're loud, all of the obnoxious people decide to talk as loud as they can, and no one really pays attention to what's happening. An assembly in Japan, on the other hand, is on the other side of the spectrum. Sure, everyone walks in talking loudly and whatnot... but when the principle or whoever is speaking calls for attention they stop. Like, dead silence. It's weird. Even the kids that look like they don't care about school as much as the others. And then the speaker will have you stand and bow... and EVERYONE does it at the same time. At one point everyone had to move up a few steps and since everyone was quiet, all you heard was a soft but definitely audible rumble from all the footsteps (you have to take your sandals off when you enter the gym for an assembly so it's all feet with socks on). When I went to give my speech, I started off with おはようございます！ (Good morning!) and the whole gym said it back. Ahhhh so cool. Honestly, that put me so much more at ease. 

I had this misconception that all Japanese students are all well-behaved and really serious whenever talking to a teacher. The girls in my class are surprisingly... normal. Which should be expected, I guess. A teenager is a teenager no matter where you are. After I did my speech in front of an English class (in English), pretty much every girl in the whole class came up at least once to say hi and introduce themselves. This was totally unexpected because everyone has been telling me how shy Japanese students are and that they won't approach you do you have to do it yourself. If you're planning on doing an exchange to Japan and you're scared of that, don't be. 

Oh, and since I spent an entire book talking about school, I should probably show you what my uniform looks like...

I look legit, yo. Seriously thought it would look ten times worse. It's still hot as a mofo in that thing though. Oh, another thing that I (for some reason) thought... Japanese people never sweat. Like, I knew that they sweat a bit but I never thought that they sweat as much as they do. Most girls at school have a towel somewhere that they can wipe their faces off with every now and then. Yum. ;)

Okay, onto other things (yes, there's more). 

If my grandpa is adorable then my grandma is awesome. I met her on Tuesday (I think). She walked in the door and had this huge smile on her face and she goes "こんいちは！！” Maybe it was something else but whatever it was she said it with such ENERGY. My god, the woman has more than I do. She's 70+ years old but she doesn't act a day over 30... or something. Seriously she looks like she's 10 years younger than she is. And then today she gave me this really beautiful bag for who-knows-what (it's perfect for makeup though...) and some styling wax. Why styling wax? Who knows. But I definitely use it. It's amazing that she somehow knew that...

It may sound like it's too soon to say yet, but I seriously feel my Japanese improving. Not so much my speaking quite yet, but I understand a considerable amount more than when I got here earlier this week. Even if I don't understand everything, all I need is a lot of vocabulary.

My host mom is an amazing cook. Of course there's always stuff that I don't like, but even that stuff I have to admit is good food. She made the most amazing yakisoba earlier this week and for God knows what reason there are still leftovers. Everytime she heats it back up and puts it on the table I'm astounded that there's any of it left. And today she made RAMEN!!! Legit ramen. I felt like Naruto Uzumaki or something. 

Are you jealous yet? And the bowl was a monstrosity. I couldn't even finish the whole thing (which I apologized profusely for). T.T

In other news... I haven't been to school since Tuesday, and tomorrow is my first full day (Tuesday was a super short day). Freaking out just a little bit. :S I have a feeling that I'm going to be totally lost...

-Ellie

日本

こんばんは！ Or good morning or hi depending on where you are, I guess.

So on Sunday I flew into Kumamoto on a one and a half hour flight. Compared to the 10-hour one that I had just taken that was nothing whatsoever. And I slept through the whole thing. Say whaaaat? Actually, I tend to sleep on airplanes, so no surprises there. I flew in with two other kids, one from Germany and one from the Philippines. As we were getting out baggage from baggage claim we looked outside the doors and there, holding a giant 'WELCOME AFS' banner are more than 10 people, waiting for us. Pardon my lameness but it made me feel like a celebrity or something. ;D So the three of us walk over to them, and the two boys found their families straight away. There I am, looking for a family that was not my host family because they wouldn't be home until later that day. There's me looking totally lost when all of a sudden a woman was like "Ellie-chan? Ellie-chan?" and in my head I'm just like "Thank god, you found me!" Turns out they had no idea what I looked like so we were both just as lost as the other.

They are currently hosting a kid, who came along with. Which was great because he was from the U.S. so I had someone that could help me for the first hour with translating and being a companion in general.

Before I even went to their home, however, we had to drop him off somewhere for a club of his, and so I was left with this family. They turned out to be so. nice. Ridiculous. There was the mom, dad, two daughters and a boy. AAAAANNNNNND, they took me to a sushi restaurant. :DDD BUT. Not just any sushi restaurant. One of the ones with the moving belt that circles around the restaurant to bring you your food. I know. You should all be jealous. It was kind of awesome.

That's it, pretty much. You order from this touch screen menu and it comes out in literally 90-120 seconds. You have no idea how happy that made me. Every now and then the sushi would be sent out on this mini-shinkansen train (shinkansen in the train in Japan that goes something like 200 mph; very fancy), it would stop at your booth, you'd take your sushi, press the button to send it back and voila! Pure awesomeness. Each plate of sushi only had 2 pieces though, so you had to get quite a few plates. We ended up getting something around 20 plates. Probably more. It was so nice of them; I wasn't even their host kid. 

After eating too much sushi, they took me back to their house and I ended up having a broken but very fun conversation with the host mother. She ended up being intrigued by my nose ring and my tattoo; not judgmental, which kind of surprised me. She was so nice; she set up her bed upstairs so that I could take a nap if I wanted and everything. 

At 7 o'clock, my host mother came to pick me up! :) On the way home we stopped by a grocery store and she bought stuff to make dinner at home. 

When I got into the house I was greeted by pretty much the entire family except for my host grandparents. The kids were pretty shy, but they said hi... Before sitting down to dinner, I handed out my gifts for everyone, which I think everyone enjoyed because who doesn't like getting free stuff?

Dinner was... a lot. Rice, yakitori, tofu (:S), and a bunch of other stuff that I don't even remember. And everything was good except for the tofu. I have always wanted to like tofu, but this was just too much. The texture was just not my thing. 

By now I was so. Hot. Like, boiling and nasty and sweaty. Tmi. So when they announced that I could take my both/shower I was so happy. I'm getting undressed in the room next to the shower and guess who was keeping me company? A cockroach. Yup. The little guy was perched on a plastic bag, staring me down. I like my privacy in the bathroom. I didn't appreciate this cockroach waltzing in on my time for myself. I stepped into the shower, trying to forget about it, and when I came back out it was still there. Sigh. By now I was doing my really weird thing where I talk to an animal to try to stop myself from freaking out. Needless to say I hurried into my pajamas and went to say good night to everyone.

Most of this morning was pretty uneventful. I talked to my host mom a lot. Showed her my photo album, told her about life in Chicago. At 2ish we left to go to my school so that we could get my uniform and schedule. Meeting the principle was terrifying. I was afraid that I would do something to offend him by accident. And it was impossible to read his face so I couldn't tell if he hated me or not. 

Next  I talked to my counselor. We got my uniform and schedule and he told me that tomorrow I have to give 2 speeches; one to my teachers and the other to my classmates. Each one minute. In Japanese. Dx Yeah, I kind of died. He said that I an read them but I'm still terrified. After coming home I immediately started them, and with the help of my awesome host mom I was able to scrap something together. I don't even know that the one is 1 minute but by the time I was done I was too exhausted to care.

Oh! My Ojii-chan came home today! He's so adorable. I was sitting at the table writing my speeches and he comes over with a drinkable yogurt bottle. He read me the bottle and I think he told me that I should try it. It was pretty good, actually. He comes back over about 5 minutes after he notices I finished the yogurt with a big bottle of milk tea, says a bunch of stuff that I didn't understand, and ended up giving me some of that too. Funniest thing ever. He's awesome. And he's my height, if not shorter which just catapults his awesomeness.

Anyway, there's so much more that write about but I don't have time if I want to be able to get up on time tomorrow. Wish me luck on my speeches! :S

-Ellie

Tired. And hot. But in Japan! :)

So I definitely didn't write anything for yesterday but that's because I was on my way to LA at 5 in the morning and ended up having a super packed day. I'm impressed I'm even writing anything today because if anything today was longer and even more tiring.

Cutting to the chase...

I'M IN JAPAN! :D Yes, me and my 66 lbs. of stuff made it in one piece... somehow. I left on Wednesday on a flight at 8:30 in the morning. e__e My mother and friend Q took me to the airport and sent me off on the plane, teary-eyed and already missing them. I was on a plane that allowed me to pick my own seat when I got on the plane and I was determined to get a window seat. Surprisingly enough, I did... and I had a lovely view of the plane's wing.

Breathtaking, isn't it? I thought so too.

A 4-hour flight brought me to LA where I actually managed to find the shuttle bus that took me to the hotel that the Japan (and China) group was staying at. There are five girls besides me that came from the US, all around the same age (16-17). Surprisingly, there weren't more of us but because of that I think we became closer much faster than other larger groups.

Cutting to the chase (because I've been awake for almost 24 hours for the second day in a row and I'm tired), this morning our Japan group boarded the plane to Tokyo at 1:30 in the afternoon. 10. Hours. Seriously. Longest flight of my LIFE. For anyone traveling long distances like that, I recommend sleeping through A LOT of it.

The plane also fed us twice... which filled me up very quickly since I had already had breakfast and lunch. How could I resist? They were so adorable!

You can't see the whole thing, but in the lower right-hand corner I had some rice on one side and an egg/beef type... thing. I wasn't really sure, but I was actually able to eat it without my usual gag reflex when I eat egg. The bottom left thing was a bowl of noodles, small strips of ham (I think) and ginger. Pretty good; they gave us a small bottle of noodle sauce that gave it a nice flavor. There was also a piece of cooked salmon that was really delicious. The flight attendant also came around to everyone and gave us miso soup in a paper cup. Definitely not how I'm used to eating it, but it made me feel foreign and cool in an absurdly lame way. We also got some green tea that I sipped at every once in a while.

And then came ice cream...

The fact that it was organic would have made my mom sing for joy. So by then I was pretty full...






A few hours later it was time to eat again! -___-

This tray of food was my opponent. It was something that I had to find the strength inside to defeat. And defeat I... kind of did. I ate the plate of pasta with a tomato sauce (bottom right), the salad and some of the yogurt. After that, I was too full to eat any more.




Overall it was a really nice flight. A little hot at times but for the most part it was really comfortable and relaxing.

As we were flying into Tokyo, I managed to get some shots from the airplane. It's so GREEN and WATERY...


And the MOUNTAINS. AGH. So pretty.

Our group finally made it to our hotel for orientation, where we met people from 18 different countries, played some bonding games and now I'm in bed. Woot. I'm so tired. おやすみなさい！ (Goodnight!)

-Ellie

My feet are freezing...

...because I've got cold feet. Which I'm assuming is fairly normal this close to when I'll be leaving but I'm still terrified.

I forgot to post that I finally got my visa on Monday, but then I also figured that it wouldn't make that much of a difference if I told you guys then or later. Japan has the prettiest visa! For all I know all the AFS kids going to Spain, France, Italy, Russia, etc. may have prettier ones (hell, the U.S. might have a nicer one) but I personally am very content with mine aside from my ID picture. Thankfully it's in black and white and grainy so you can't see how hooligan-like I look. Anyway, it has a light pink background with a few cherry blossoms at the top and GAHSJKFLSJLGN it's so pretty. I would post a picture but I'm not sure that Japan would like that very much and I don't feel like running the risk of some creep finding it on here.

But yes, the visa pickup went well. This time, however, there was a Japanese family (with 2 adorable kids) and a young woman. I have no idea what either were there for because the family didn't talk and the woman was speaking Japanese so fast that the only thing I picked up was a bunch of very high-pitched "はい！はい．．．はい！！" (Yes! Mhmm... yes.)　Even though I'm hardly taller than most Japanese (5' 3") I still felt massive around this woman. And not even because of how much smaller she was, but because of how tiny her voice was. She made me sound like I was talking through a megaphone...

Aside from that... I started school yesterday. The number one thing that everyone asks me is, "Why are you here?" And they're no being rude; they're genuinely curious. One of my teachers that I talked to even said that. The answer is that I wanted to let my teachers know that I would be gone but would be back February 4th or 5th. That way if there was any work that I would be missing that first month they could prepare it before I got back.

Only 6 days left! Terrifying but so exciting at the same time!
-Ellie

Oh visas...

 Woaaaah new layout say what say whaaaaat?

I don't know if I'm totally crazy, the Japanese are ridiculously thorough and concise, or I've just been anxious, but visas take FOREVER. Not sure how it works for other countries, but for Japan, I had to send in an application to apply for an application for a visa in April. Didn't make sense? It shouldn't. Because it's CRAZINESS. Basically, I sent an application to Japan asking for a Certificate of Eligibility saying that I wasn't a crazy psychopath, and that I'd be safe to be let in. I'm sure the people at the Japanese Consulate in Chicago were terrified when a 5' 3", 17-year-old girl walked in and asked for a visa. I digress. So I sent that application in April... just got it back on Monday (2 days ago, in case you didn't feel like thinking for too long). Unlike myself, my mother is not a procrastinator whatsoever (unless it has to do with making a phone call), and as such, she made sure that before I got the COE back I would have my visa application prepared so that we could apply for one right away. 

That happened today. Woohoooo, we sure don't waste time, right? Alright, it was too late to go on Monday, and yesterday I had already made plans and really, what difference would 1 day make? So after some traffic, including a man on a motorcycle blasting his soul music for all to hear (in all honesty, I thought it was hilarious), my mother, brother and myself made it to the Consulate. We ended up parking in this super fancy parking garage (most likely because it was directly underneath Neiman Marcus...) in which I felt extremely out of place. Out of place in a parking garage? What? Yes. Being surround by Mercedes and Lexuses (?) and mustangs and god knows what other $90,000+ cars can be a bit intimidating when you arrive in a Toyota Rav4. 

Anyway, (clearly I was fascinated by the elegance of the place) we made it upstairs and were ushered into a cramped little room, walls littered with Japanese news, precautions to be taken whilst in the room, etc. The security guard that let us in (yes, it was locked) scanned us for... weapons I'm assuming. As I mentioned earlier, I'm very intimidating. He also offered us hand sanitizer... however I'm not sure if offered is the right word; he kind of just gave it to us before we were even ready so I'm assuming it was mandatory. On to the little window with the word 'visa' on it. I started giving the man my papers, and then remembered that I had to ask about a few things that I didn't fill out in case I did it wrong. Let's just say when I went to write down what I needed to, I did it in the wrong blank and did the whole thing over again. Staleface. At first, the guy waited for me to finish, but then when he saw my epic failure he left to do other things. Finally! I finished the papers! A new person came to take those, checked them over and told me that the visa would be ready on Monday! :D 

Wow that took me a while... Sorry for the book. The scary thing is, I could have made this post a LOT longer. But I won't torture you all.

Stay tuned! Only 14 more days!!
-Ellie