Just a short post.

HAH. Yeah, right.

There's so much to talk about in this post that I don't even know where to attack it from, so to speak.

I guess I'll just start on Friday afternoon. I left school right after class let out because I wanted as much time as possible to get all of my stuff together. I got home around 4:15 and we weren't leaving until 6:30ish so I definitely wasn't pressed for time. Everyone took a shower before leaving and a little after 6, お母さんとお父さんと妹と弟 (My host mom, dad, sisters and brother) all left for 四国 (Shikoku) island! You thought I was never going to tell you where we were going... My host family was going to their friend's daughter's wedding and since the RSVP was way before I was part of the picture, I was headed off to do some sightseeing. Exciting stuff right there. 

We drove off in their very boxy blue car and headed off to 北九州市 (North Kyushu City). That took about 2 and a half hours, during which we also stopped by a McDonald's to have dinner (the Japanese LOVE their McDonald's). Now, I haven't had McDonald's in probably close to 2 years, as I've never been a huge fan of it, but I figured how many times have I gotten Japanese McDonald's in my life? Plus, I was hungry and I wanted food. Honestly, Japanese McDonald's aren't that different from American ones. The only difference between the one we went to and the ones in Chicago is that this one was smaller. 

Moving right along. We finally arrived at 北九州市, where we drove right up to a dock because.... we were taking a ferry. Children (even though most of you reading this are probably older than me), I have never been on a ferry before so this was quite an exciting prospect for me. It wasn't anything fancy from the outside so I won't take up space here with a picture but I will talk about the inside. The first room that we walked into was a giant food court type area. There was a bar, a smoking area (if I remember correctly), a place to sit down and eat, COUNTLESS vending machines (in Japan, anywhere there's an outlet, you will find a vending machine), a game room, and an information desk. This area wasn't even that big, mind you, so everything was pretty crammed in there. We didn't stop for any food, so we went right to our room where we'd be spending the night. I was under the impression that it would be similar to a hotel room. Instead, we got this:

 I'm not complaining by any means, it was just totally different from what I was expecting. Basically, it was a giant room for everyone to share. All females, of course, but still took a bit to get used to. You can kind of see what the beds looked like in the picture. The 'pillows' they gave us were basically just blocks of hard foam, except I think I was one of the only people that found them uncomfortable. These were the awesome doors we had leading to the hallway:

There's that button on the left that you press and boom, the door slides open.

The next morning for some reason I woke up at 5:30 by myself. God knows why, but I think it had to do with that pillow...

Pretty much everyone else had left by the time we headed off the ferry (about 7 o'clock) so getting off was quick. We drove for about fifteen minutes and came to my host father's friend's house, which was where we would be staying for the weekend. When we entered the house it was pretty chaotic, to say the least. The parents, their two daughters, the grandma, and the already married daughter's husband were all there, running around trying to get everyone and everything ready for the wedding. I kind of just sat by (which I tend to do a lot right now; I feel like a mute) and watched. 

At about 8:30 or so the mom and bride-to-be left, and the sister, husband, father and grandma left a while later. We left the house at about 10, and I was dropped off at the information center for 松山お城 (Matsuyama Castle) where I met my tour guide for the day. I just made myself sound so tourist-y it's not even funny. She spoke pretty good English by Japanese standards and we were able to communicate very easily, which, trust me, makes a world of difference. First, she took me to the Matsuyama Castle Ninomaru Garden. Basically, it's a giant traditional courtyard-type deal. When we first walked in there was a flower display so we stopped by there. SO. MANY. PLANTS. So many interesting plants. I wish I could put pictures up of all of them but I still have so much to talk about so I'll move along.

After the flowers we moved on to a tea ceremony. GAAAAAAAHHHH so exciting! For anyone that thought they knew anything about tea ceremonies (at all) has another thing coming. It's SO involved and there's so many little rules that I'm sure I probably broke a hundred while I was there. There were two women (dressed in the whole kimono getup) who walked us through the ceremony. One of them was more for talking to us, the other prepared the tea. Whenever she would hand me my tea, I would have to bow with my hands in front of me, with the tips of my fingers and thumbs touching. You hold the tea cup with your right hand on the side, left hand supporting the bottom. After you finish, you set the cup down, and it's polite to look at it afterwards (not complaining; they're really interesting). You bow to either side of the cup to look at the sides of it and then you pick it up and hold it like this:

And I know I look really funny but I swear that that's how I was supposed to do it. By the way, sitting like that is VERY painful. After 5 minutes I seriously thought I had done permanent damage to my feet.

I'm going to hurry the tea ceremony part up because I could seriously make a whole post about it. After we were done there, we headed to the actual castle. We ended up taking a chair lift, which was amazing and terrifying at the same time.

That was my view, and that's my guide in front of me! It was so much more terrifying in person. There's no seatbelt or anything so you're basically suspended 15 feet off the ground in a tiny chair. 

We got to the top of the lift and continued up the mountain to the actual castle.

That's the main part of the castle and I was standing in a courtyard-type deal. Everything there was very traditional and Japanese-looking. And I know a lot of people will read that and say "Well duh, you're in Japan." But guys, you don't understand until you've been here and see everything in person. 

I can't post pictures of everything because this post is already huge but you get the idea. Awesome castle, so much fun. We spent an hour and a half just walking around. 

I do have to include this one though. That was at the very very top of the whole thing. Everything looks so tiny!

Alright, moving right along, we left the castle and headed off to the onsen bath house! You do not understand how excited I was about this part. I was also very reserved about it for obvious reasons, but it was something I was definitely looking forward to. 

Yup... that's me looking awkward as ever. I don't even care though because I was at an onsen. Dogo Onsen. That's what that sign says. I'm proud to say that before my guide even told me, I could read the first two characters by myself. :D 

So anyways, onward ho. Definitely did not just say that.

We bought our tickets and left our shoes in these cubbies at the front. Then we walked down a hallway and up a flight of stairs to a long room with a bunch of baskets that had yukatas neatly folded in them. We were seated, and once we were ready we headed off to the change room. Which honestly should be called the undressing room or something. You're not really changing; you're taking your clothes off. Yup, all of them. I'll just say that it was SUCH an amazing experience. Which probably sounds really weird to some people but if anyone that's reading this ever gets a chance to try onsen, DO IT. For anyone that had no idea what it is, it's basically a giant hot tub. There you go, reason enough to go to one.

After you finish, you get out, put on your yukata (Japanese-style bathrobe) and head back out to that long room with the baskets where someone brings you green tea and cookies. Good stuff. You're all warm by the time you start drinking your tea and you feel so relaxed it's crazy. 

That was probably my favorite part of the day. 

After the onsen, my guide and I spent the last hour or so shopping, since that part of town is very tourist-y and has a lot of shops. 

At a little before 5, my host family picked me up and I had to say good bye to my wonderful tour guide. T_T We had such a fun time and she was so wonderful, so if she ever finds this blog and reads this: Thank you so much!

Later that night we all had dinner with the family we were staying with (excluding the newlyweds) and I'm happy to say that I could understand little snippets of conversation here and there. 

The next morning we headed out at around 10:30. We drove for I don't even know how long until we stopped at this parking lot at the top of a giant mountain. I had no idea what we were doing until my host mom explained that we were going to walk about 20 minutes to a lighthouse at the very end of the peninsula we were parked on. A daunting task, if I do say so myself; climbing up and down the mountain was super tiring and really the only thing that kept me going was how freaking BEAUTIFUL this country is. No wonder haikus originated here; pretty much anything you see out here you can write a poem about. 

 That's a camping spot that looks so quaint and adorable (especially against the water and the green) that I had to take a picture.

This was at the very tip of the peninsula right in front of the lighthouse...

After the trek back to the car we were all pretty tired so a lot of us fell asleep for a bit.

These pictures are from earlier on but I want to share them with you guys because I want you to see what I'm talking about when I say this country is FREAKING BEAUTIFUL.

SO MANY MOUNTAINS. I gave up taking pictures after a while because there was so much to take pictures of and honestly, there's nothing like seeing it in person anyway. I was so sad that my family couldn't see any of this because it's so breathtakingly beautiful that these pictures (and any that I could have taken) wouldn't give it the justice it deserves. It's that amazing. I literally spent 30 minutes of the car ride looking out the window as we drove through the mountains because of how gorgeous everything was. The mountains here are completely covered in trees, giving them a very fluffy appearance, and when you look at the actual trees on the mountains, there's a million different types of trees and all of the different textures combine to make the most amazing.... I don't even know. Something. It just looks incredible. I've never seen anything like it. We also drove by a bunch of towns by the sea, all of which were so quaint and Hayao Miyazaki-looking that I thought I was going to pee myself from excitement. Not really, but my level of excitement equaled that. Not even joking there. Plus, oh my Lord, is it beautiful. The ocean winking at you, the mountains, the sky blurring where it meets the water, the WINDMILLS, the plethora of tunnels... This weekend, I fell even more in love with this country. And almost purely out of vanity; it's so... ugh, I can't even find a word to describe how it made me feel. As cheesy as this whole paragraph sounds, if any of you ever are as lucky as I am to come here, you will sound just as cheesy.

Anyway, back to the day. We finally made it to the ferry that we would take back to Kyushu. During the boatride I spent most of my time on deck where I got to watch the water and more beautifulness. Which isn't a word but it should be. I saw jellyfish! So many of them, too! You could see them just under the surface of the water, big white blobs. I've never seen a jellyfish in my life so even though it wasn't a clear view of one, I was excited and enthralled nonetheless. 

Oh, and the WIND on deck. Crazy stuff. I'm surprised my hair wasn't completely ripped out of my scalp. As graphic as that is, that's about how hard the wind was blowing. By the time I got back inside the boat my hair was totally windblown and a giant mass of knots. And all worth it. :)

We got home at around 8:30 because we stopped to get food on the way home and everyone went to bed right away because we were all completely spent. 

I'm sorry for how long this post was. Truthfully, I could have made it 4 times as long; I left out a bunch of details for the sake of not boring you all to tears. I'm still really mad that I can't show you what I saw in person because it really is one of the greatest things I've ever seen. If you ever get the chance to go to 四国 island, DO IT. Or any part of Japan, really. It's all gorgeous. 

Japan, I've fallen in love with you even more.

-Ellie

Last minute posts...

This post is (hopefully) not going to be as long as they normally are because it's almost 10 o'clock and I don't feel like sleeping in tomorrow and missing school. Actually, I wouldn't mind that, but AFS would, so I'll go anyway.

I say last minute because I wasn't going to update until about half an hour ago when I decided that it's probably best before the next few days.

I'll get right to last weekend. "What?" you're saying, "You already talked about it on Saturday." Yes, yes I did. However, the fun didn't end there. The day after, on Sunday, my family took me downtown to Kumamoto City to watch a local festival. The name of it escapes me, which I feel really bad about because it was actually really fun. My host father said it was Dentetsu... But when I searched that on google nothing came up so... Either we had another miscommunication or this festival is unpopular enough to not make it onto google. And judging by the amount of people that were there, it was NOT unpopular. 

We took the train (電車 look at me and my kanji... ain't it beautiful?) downtown which only took about 25 minutes and then walked for about 7 until we came to the busiest street in the area. After walking past what was probably about 50 small stands altogether (it looked just like what you would imagine a Japanese festival to look like; very traditional looking. If you don't know what I mean, go watch some anime), we came to.... wait for it.....





A SHRINE. Holy crap I was so excited when I saw what we were doing.

Before you walk into the actual shrine you have to rinse off your hands; cleanliness is important when you're praying. There's a fountain thing-y with these cups on sticks (I'm positive that there's a word for them, but my gai-jin phrasing will have to do) that you dip into the water and pour over your hands.

 That's the back of my host sister's head.

 So here's the shrine. SO. FREAKING. COOL. I felt very Japanese, as lame as that sounds. That's my dad, other sister, and brother. I hope you're enjoying the backs of everyone's heads, cause that's pretty much all I've got.

 This is where you take your money and throw it. Woah that sounds really dumb. It's kind of like the fountains when you were little and you would ask your parents for a penny to throw in... No one else? Really? It doesn't have to be much; I threw in 1 yen. It's a box with these slats in the top that the money falls through. You throw the money in, put your hands together in front of you and 'pray'. And I say 'pray' because I didn't really do anything, I just did it for the effect. I'm not even sure if I was supposed to be praying, but I felt totally legit either way.

 This:

Is basically what happened during the whole parade that we watched. And that was not meant in a bad way. It's basically 60+ different groups of people that dress up in traditional clothes and waves fans in the air, beat drums, and scream at the crowd to get everyone excited. Now that I say it like that, it sounds like a high school pep rally. But BETTER.

 With every group comes the fan wavers (for lack of a better word), a horse (which I'll get to in a sec), someone carrying a massive flag, and this guy. ^^ A man with a microphone. Who yells. Now, I couldn't understand a word any of them were saying but judging by the energy that they were creating, my guess is that they're there to excite everyone and really get them all into the festival. Oddly enough, it works. Normally I can't stand anyone yelling at me but these guys were strangely engaging.

 Here's the horse I was talking about. Only there were 60+ different ones and I didn't take a picture of each one. I know how much you all wanted to see them ALL.... I still don't really understand the point of the horse. I got the impression that it wasn't tame because each one had people on either side of it holding it as they lead it through the street. Kind of terrifying at times, especially when it would all of a sudden jerk towards me.

 More people; as you can see, every group had a different color.

 And this was me taking a creeper shot of a random person's shoes because I was thinking of this blog and how I wanted to show what their shoes looked like. They really really really look like socks to me. And some of them made people's feet look very Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-y which was greatly amusing to me.

I'm not usually one to like crazy loud gatherings of people (and believe me, this was one of the loudest things I've ever heard in my life), but this was so different that I SO enjoyed myself. Everyone in the parade was smiling and laughing the whole time. It was so great to see everyone enjoying themselves so much. 

End mushiness. 

All-around a great day. Unfortunately, we didn't stay at the festival very long; not too sure why, but we were only there for about 2 hours. Sad Ellie. One of these weekends I'll go back downtown and come back with a load of awesome pictures.

Not much else to report; school pretty much consumes my week so I don't have much time to do anything worth mentioning. This weekend I'm doing plenty, however, so whoever out there is reading this: I'll have plenty to talk about next week. ;)

-Ellie

Go read Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

By the time I get into bed every day I'm surprisingly tired all of a sudden so actually getting around to updating this thing as often as I'd like tends to become quite a task. I've now made it through my second week at school and I'm happy to say that it's going pretty smoothly. Hopefully I didn't just jinx it by saying that since it's practically my third home (after the US and host home) and I spend most of my day there. The whole "HERMAGERD GAI JIN" phase has dissipated and I usually just get the occasional stranger saying hi to me (always a girl).

Apparently the boys here are shy. This is a concept that is totally foreign to me, and anyone from the States reading this will agree when I say that many boys in the States have no problem striking up a conversation with a girl (provided there's something to talk about). Not so much here. Even the really loud, cocky guys tend to shy away from conversation with a girl. Weird. And sometimes it gives me the feeling that there's something on my face whenever I'm around or something. Hopefully once I enough of a grasp on this language I can actually start and hold a basic conversation.

At this point I can say very very very basic things mixed with some English here and there. It sounds a lot like that telegraphic speech stuff I learned about in psychology where I speak in mostly 2-word sentences. Sometimes I even revert back to baby talk, where I say one word to try to get across a sentence. It's quite frustrating, and if I wasn't so determined to learn another language I probably would've given up by now because there are definitely some people that I could get away with talking in English with them (as long as I spoke VERY slowly and ENUNCIATED. Everything.).

So there's my language breakdown. Anyone else that may be considering doing an exchange like this: STUDY STUDY STUDY STUDY before you leave! I know it sounds tedious and annoying and troublesome and like it's encroaching on the last few months you have with your family and friends but it will make you feel much more confident when you get here. If I had known that I would've started studying a lot longer than before I did. Plus, you naturally pick up the language faster since you're so much more familiar with it. Of course, this is a theory and I may be completely wrong, but that's my take on things. Now that I said that the other exchange kids from the States that spoke hardly any Japanese will probably end up speaking more than me by the end of this. (Miah and Sam! I expect a conversation in Japanese from you guys.)

ANYWAY. My life. Earlier this week my host dad told me that we'd be going "melon picking" today. Melon picking? In Japan? Didn't know that happened. We left at about 9:30 this morning and drove out even farther into the country than we already live (which is pretty far). Lots of fields, corn, and rice. After about 15 minutes of driving we got to this patch of dirt that looked like it had been used to grow corn or something but then was abandoned to let cars park on it. Japanese cars are definitely not made to go off road. Q, I thought of your Jeep! The cars here basically all look like the Cubes we have in the States. Very boxy and low to the ground. NOT for driving in the dirt. So we get out and walk up this path with a few other families and we see trees on either side of the path with these fuzzy-looking things hanging from them. That sounds scarier than it actually looked; it was obviously some kind of fruit or... something. My host dad points to one and goes "melons". And I'm just like ._.

Turns out he had been saying マロン (ma-ro-n), which means "brown" in French. And it also turns out that he meant to say "Japanese chestnuts". SO MUCH CLARITY. We laughed for a while about that; it's one of the biggest misunderstandings we've had so far. It turned out to be very hot, humid, but fun. The people running the chestnut picking handed us all buckets and these two sticks.

The bucket it obviously where you put the chestnuts and the sticks are what you use to pry the out shell open with to get at the chestnut. They're spiky.

Just like that. They're green when they're on the trees (not ripe) and then when they turn brown and are ready to be picked they fall to the ground. Fun stuff. SIDE NOTE: Japan has a ton of spiders. It might be because I'm in the country but there's hella spiders out here. And they look considerably different (bigger) than in Chicago.

 That's what them chestnuts look like after they're been cooked and cleaned. The family sat around this basket that had a bunch of the chestnuts and ate them. At first, I was just biting them and trying to peel them with my hands. Strug life, let me tell you. So then this woman came over with a peeler and voila!

They taste a lot like a baked potato. Which I totally wasn't expecting but after I got over the initial weirdness of it, I kind of liked it.

Okay, this is where things get exciting.... for me. We made... ぎょうざ！ Aka: DUMPLINGS. Ohmagod I was so excited when my host mom told me that. I don't think she even realized how happy I was because I couldn't express my joy with words, but I think she saw how much I was smiling the whole time we were preparing them.

 There's the meat (pork or beef... I think pork) and the wrappers. The meat was mixed with some spices I think and onions. Ohhhh so delicious.

 You basically wet the edge of the wrapper with some water...

 And wrap it up! I got pretty pro at it by the end of the folding party.

My host mom fried them in a pan in some oil and here they are. Not sure if that would look good to someone who didn't have them but trust me, they were SO. GOOD.

There's my excitement for the week. Oh, and I'll throw this one in just for humor. On Thursday, I'm sitting in homeroom when my English teacher walks up to me and goes, "Yes, Erisa (that's how you say my name in Japanese), you were ummmm involved in a car accident this morning?" This is my face: O_O I told him that no, I didn't remember hitting anyone on my way to school. He rephrased the question to see if I understood what he was asking me and again, I said that no, I definitely hadn't been hit by anyone on my bike that morning. I was tempted to joke that unless the crash had given me amnesia I couldn't remember that happening. But sarcasm doesn't tend to be understood here, plus I decided it probably wasn't a good thing to joke about in English. Yeah... that was an interesting conversation. Apparently a teacher from another school had seen me get hit by a car. I would like to know how she knew who I was. And I don't think I even ride by any schools on my way to mine so... yeah. That was odd. For a few minutes I went through my whole morning in case I really just wasn't remembering correctly. NO WORRIES MOM, I DIDN'T GET HURT.

That's all for now. Hopefully I entertained you for a bit. I'll update within a week, PROMISE!

-Ellie

P.S. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is an amazing book that everyone should read.

高校 and お金

(High School and Money)

I'm finally starting to really fall into my routine here. The time change and the 'culture shock' that so many people apparently experience isn't even the hardest part of doing this kind of thing. The tough part is being on the go for 5ish days and then living in a new house. Not even because it's in a different country, it's just a different house that you have to find out how to fit into without disturbing everyone else's daily routine.

With that being said, I'll get to my update. 

And I really don't have anything major to report so I'll just start off by going through my daily routine (because I know you're all dying to know what I do every single day. Bear with me on this part). My day starts at 6:00 a.m. because I'm crazy, and all of my close friends know that I tend to get up at times that are really unnecessary. I don't actually leave the house until 7:30. Usually it takes me about 20 minutes to get ready, I head downstairs and my host mom always has some awesome breakfast prepared and set out for me. It's kind of awesome. Usually breakfast in Japan (at least in my house) consists of a hard-boiled egg (I know everyone at home is totally shocked that I'm actually eating eggs here; I HATE EGGS), some sort of vegetable (cucumbers, tomatoes, white radish on one occasion), and toast. No rice, surprisingly enough, but I guess since you eat plenty of that the rest of the day you don't really need it in the morning. I head out at 7:30 on my BIKE, and I usually make it to school at around 8:10. That gives me 15 minutes to get into school and in class. Which I need because (not to be gross), but you definitely don't arrive at school as clean as you left the house when you ride your bike. So I take a few minutes to cool down and dry off.... In case you were wondering how many people bike to school, here's your answer:

And that's just the 1st and 2nd year bikes. The 3rd years (basically the Seniors of the school) park above ground; they have their own spot for their bikes. Basically EVERYONE bikes to school. If they live close enough, they walk, but pretty much everyone in my class bikes to school. Aside from how hot it is here, it's not too bad. I personally like time to myself and a bike ride in the morning is really good for that. I bike for about 30 minutes too, so plenty of me-time.

I have 7 periods a day, 50 minutes each period. The only difference between here and home is that school starts at 8:25 and ends (on Mondays and Fridays) at 3:40 and (Tuesday-Thursday) at 4:40. WHAAAAAAT? Yeah. I'm kind of dead by the end of the day, and I don't even do any work. You'd be surprised how exhausting it is to just sit for 7-8 straight hours. At 12:30 the whole school has lunch in their classrooms (there's usually no cafeteria in a Japanese school). For anyone that doesn't know, a Japanese high schooler's mother (of father maybe...?) still makes them lunch. Only it's not a sandwich and chips. It's an おべんと (obento) and it's very carefully made. Some parents put more effort into it than others but they're all above and beyond what you usually get in North America. Here's what mine looked like last week:

Erm... something's being weird because it's the wrong way. Whatever. The right container is rice, some seaweed boiled in soy sauce and sugar (I think; it's really delicious), and UMEBOSHI. Dear lord that stuff is amazing. It took me a bit to get used to it but it turned out to be delicious. It's so strong that you can use that tiny piece for the entire container of rice. The left hand container has some chicken with a white radish sauce (yellow), some kind of seafood patty thing-y... I never really figured out what it was (light green), seaweed or something... again, don't really know what it was, but it was good (dark green), and tomatoes. Some kids have really elaborate ones. This one girl had a nori cutout of a bear that her mom put on her rice. 

After lunch the entire school does 'soji', which is literally 'cleaning'. The students and teachers all take about 20 minutes to clean the school themselves. Sweeping, taking out the trash, cleaning the courtyard, etc. It's really weird to see so many kids cooperating. Back at my school in the states, there would definitely be some kids slacking off. Not here; EVERYONE participates. Even the kids that look like they don't really care about school. 

At 3:40 or 4:40 (depending on the day, and sometimes we run late so it goes a few minutes over), school's out, but most people don't go home. Most students have an afterschool activity/sport. In my case, I'm in the 2nd year play for the October festival so I have practice everyday after school until 6 or 6:30. 

I usually get home at around 7ish or a bit before. Looooooong day, but it keeps me busy and I really don't mind that much. I haven't been getting much homework so I almost can say that I enjoy school (GASP). 

In other news... today I visited the local mall with my family. It's pretty popular among the town I'm in, and usually an outing to the mall is a big deal for a family. It's kind of a day trip type thing. I ended up running into the host mom that picked me up from the airport the day I got here and the exchange student that she's hosting. I shopped with them for a couple of hours while my family went home and I found some souvenirs for people at home (I can already see everyone at home's anticipation through the screen). I finally got change for my 10,000 yen bill hurrahhh! Legit Japanese money, check it out:

Sorry about having to crane your neck so much. Front and back of everything, in case you were at all interested. 

Welp, that's about all I can muster today. I'm thinking about doing an extra post on school so I can talk about the differences between it and American schools. There's A LOT more than I mentioned here. 

That's all for now, hopefully college apps will let me update again soon. Sigh.

-Ellie

Finally feeling more settled...

Yaaaaaaay stability!

So Friday was my first official day of school... And somehow I forgot that it was Sports Day. For anyone that doesn't know, Sports Day is a day that most Japanese schools will have where you basically just play.... you guessed it! Sports! All. Day. Not only is it hot as a beast here, but you're playing dodgeball, soccer, volleyball and basketball outside in the heat. Sweatsweatsweatsweatsweat. All of it was so much fun but I felt disgusting by the end of it.

I have friends! (Really?) Japanese-speaking friends. As if. 4 years ago that was my dream. There's about four or five that I talk to on a regular basis. One of them lived in America for four years so she's pretty decent at English and she tends to play the translator when there's something that I really need to say but don't know how. Eventually I'm hoping I'll rarely need translations but for now it's nice...

There's a definite difference between Japanese and American students. Maybe it's the uniforms but it seems to me that everyone here is 20x nicer. It also might help that I'm an exchange student, but everyone seems much more... unified? That's probably the wrong word for it, but there's not as much separation between people's groups, whereas in America it's clique city. Considering the fact that my school has had plenty of exchanges in the past, I'm surprised at how interested a lot of the students are in me. And I know that doesn't sound very humble at all but I'm not even joking. Random people will come up to me in the hallway, smile and say "Hello", to which I always respond, "こんいちは！" And then they look at each other with super wide eyes and act very impressed. This is all girls, by the way. They boys at school could care less that they have an exchange student.

Monday was my first day of real classes, which went well and was pretty uneventful.

Today, however, I had my first Japanese gym class. Anyone from Homewood-Flossmoor High School reading this knows from at least Freshman and Sophomore year about gym. It's a total blow off, most of the gym teachers could care less about the class, and pretty much 3/4 of the class spend the entire period laying down on the dirty gym floor talking about anything but gym. Be glad that you don't have it in Japan. I would compare it to a military training session. They have you line up (and everyone gets in a PERFECTLY straight line...), and today, one of the teachers (there's two) came up and down the rows to check to see that our hair was up and out of our face. If it wasn't, she would point and mutter something, and that person would quickly tie it up in a ponytail. Even if you had pieces of hair hanging down the sides of your face she would motion towards them and mutter something else. Honestly, I've never actually been afraid of a teacher but this woman did. And NO ONE spoke while she was talking. At one point, I had my legs crossed and the other teacher told me I had to sit with my legs up against my chest in front of me. AAAAAAHHHHH. So. Stressful.

Not much else has happened recently, so I'll briefly talk about my room (more precisely my bed)... because I'm boring like that.

Basically my room is half of one big room, split down the middle with a blanket. The other half belongs to one of my host sisters, however she never sleeps in there. Since I didn't bring much (darn you, weight limit), the room is pretty spacious. Now the bed... it's not really a bed. More like a very thin mattress. Before you start judging it, I would just like to say that it's not that uncomfortable.

There it is, in all of its glory. I know it looks bad, but I actually like it. And in the morning, I wake up, get ready, and fold my 'bed' away.

 Yaaaaaay convenience! Tuck it against the wall and I'm set.

This actually makes my room much more spacious so it's actually pretty nice.

Did I mention that the Japanese seem to always have two separate bathrooms? At the hotel in Tokyo that I stayed at and at my host home, there is one room for a toilet and another for showering and a sink. When I walked into the shower room in my hotel room in Tokyo I was really lost for a good hour because I had no idea where I was supposed to 'go' if I needed to. I heard my two roommates each go to the bathroom and flush the toilet (awkward?) so I knew it must be somewhere... and then I realized that there was a whole other room.

A quick note on bathrooms here. At least, at my house. The toilets are INSANE. There's no handle to flush; it senses when you get up off the toilet and flushes automatically. It's like I'm at the mall or the airport or something. PLUS, there's a whole slew of buttons you can press for things like a bidet feature. Teehee at the stick figure pictures... What all of the buttons say I can't tell you. All I know is that I'M LIVING IN THE FUTURE. This is what you have to look forward to, U.S.! High-tech toilets!

That's all for me today. I rode my bike to school for the first time today and I'm beat. 30 minutes there and back. And lots of hills. Lots. (Illinois, people!)

-Ellie