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.