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

For once, school sounds exciting.

PLEASE READ: I've been getting an email from AFS for the past week or so about being a 'welcome family' or a host family to incoming exchange students from all over the world. Unfortunately, the school in my area doesn't accept foreign exchange students so my mom can't volunteer to be one. :( SO, I figured I would post about it and maybe someone would see it and be able to help these kids out. Basically, a welcome family is not the student's permanent family, they just house them for 6-12 weeks while AFS finds a permanent home for them. Which makes it sound like they're homeless (and they kind of are when they get here), so help the homeless and look into it! If you're interested, go here. Just plug in your zip code and it gives you a list of students coming to your area. July 26th is the last day for placements according to the email, so hurry!

Alright, now that that's done, I'll update on my exchange. Nothing super big has happened recently. The only thing worth mentioning is that I got an email officially stating that the Hattoris are actually my host family and I finally got my school information! I'm not going to give the exact name because who knows who's reading this, but I will say that it's a school of about 1,000 students (a third the size of where I go now), boys and girls attend, and it's not religiously affiliated. The information sheet also says that school ends their summer vacation on August 23rd, which is the day that I leave. O_O I'm not sure if that means that I'll be starting school the day after I arrive, but if it does... I'll probably still be super jet-lagged and sleepy that day. 

My school offers baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, badminton, handball, table-tennis, tennis, Judo, swimming, Kendo, Kyudo, climbing, track & field, and rugby. I was secretly hoping that somehow they would have figure skating, but I guess most schools anywhere in the world wouldn't have that kind of facility on campus. I'm thinking either soccer or track & field because those are the only two that I've ever seriously participated in or shown talent in. As far as clubs go, the English Speaking Society caught my attention. I'm still debating whether that would be a smart move or not. On the one hand, I could help people practice their English, but on the other, it's probably not going to help me improve my Japanese as quickly as it could. There's also a class trip that was mentioned where I would be going to Tokyo and Nagano, but it's 8,000 yen (approximately $1,000), and I'm not sure that I can afford it, especially after already spending so much money on the actual exchange. And I really shouldn't complain because I'm so lucky to even be going to another country for 5 months. Seriously, how many 17-year-olds can say that they've ever studied in another country?

I probably should've broken those two paragraphs up even further so you didn't have to stare at two huge blocks of text, but I got carried away with what I was writing. :)

More news hopefully coming soon. Only 30 days, 18 hours and 38 minutes left! (did I mention that I have a countdown set on my phone?)

-Ellie

Fam.

Host family: acquired.

Yeah, that's right. Today, in riveting, wonderful, exhilarating, summer Econ, my teacher was giving the most fascinating lecture on....

Okay, you got me. As difficult as it may be to fathom, I found the lesson to be just a tad too long and monotonous. (Everyone should note my sarcasm) Therefore, I decided that it would be a good time to mess around with my phone. Play some apps, do some stumbling, check my email.... and lo and behold, there, sitting right at the top of my inbox is an unopened email entitled (insert kanji that I have no idea what it means... except for the last one, which I know means 'man'...?). Cue heart skipping beat and a widening of the eyes. This was way better than any Fiat money Mr. Rende could possibly be talking about.

It was my host dad writing the email, and he told me that I'll be living with 8 other people and their dog. O_o The maximum number of people that I have ever shared a roof with has been 3 other people: dad, mom, and little brother. Starting mid-August, I'll have a grandmother, grandfather, little sister #1, little sister #2, little brother, mother, and father. Oh, and dachshund dog. WHAAAAAAT? That's honestly more than I had hoped for. I'm going to have SISTERS. Don't get me wrong; little brothers are great. They practically invite your abuse, they'll fight you, and they keep your girliness in check. HOWEVER. I have never had a sister and ever since I can remember I've dreamed of having one. There's so much more that I'm excited for; the list goes on and on and on and... you get the idea.

Getting a host family has finally brought to life the one that I'll be living starting this August. Hopefully I can prepare myself in time... :S

Of course, AFS was sure to send me an email later today containing some more medical forms that need to be filled out before I leave. Huzzah! -___- It's back to the doctor I go!

AHH! Okay, I'm off to do my Econ homework. I just had to put down how excited that made me, so please excuse my lameness. :P

-Ellie

It's scary how fast everything starts moving as soon as you know where you're going.

No, I haven't gotten my exact location or my host family yet, but as soon as AFS Japan accepted me on May 31st, everything has been moving pretty quickly (or at least a lot faster than it had since January). It probably also has to do with the fact that they told me I was going for sure so close to the actual departure date, but it's definitely made for an exciting and nerve-wracking summer. Speaking of departure, I got my departure email two days ago. Guys, I'm officially leaving the 22nd of August for LAX, staying overnight, and leaving the next day for Narita airport in Tokyo. I don't know the last time I was this excited, nervous, anxious, happy, sad, and (did I say?) EXCITED all at once! I can't imagine how I'll be the week or so before I leave.

Anyway, I know it's a short post, but I just felt like posting what was going on.

Happy 4th of July (if you're in the U.S.)!

-Ellie

Well since I haven't been on here in a few months, and the editing layout has changed quite a bit, I'm hoping that I'm doing this right and that this post ends up on my blog.

So. As you can probably tell from the date right underneath this post, I haven't written anything on here since February. I figured that since I have been freed from school for a few weeks now, I could find some time in my oh so busy (please note my sarcasm) summer to update anyone that's reading this on what's going on with AFS and myself.

On the 31st of May (my last day of school, woohoo!) my mom texted me while I was in line at school to return my books that AFS Japan had finally accepted me and that I really was/am going in about a month and a half! :D I had to severely restrain myself from screaming to anyone in close proximity to me that I would be flying halfway around the world this coming semester.

Consequently, I have acquired about 5 different books on Japanese in order to prepare myself as best I can to survive while I'm away. My most-used books include a book called 'Genki' that a friend of mine's older sister lent to me, and a Japanese grammar book by the brand Barron's (which, by the way, saved my BUTT at the end of April/beginning of May when I had to study for my AP Psychology test). The 'Genki' book I use mostly for kanji learning since it has 100+ kanji with step-by-step instructions on brush strokes and such, and the Barron's book has proven very helpful in helping me to understand how the HELL the Japanese form their sentences. (Curse you, SVO languages for handicapping me so!) Here's a link to the Barron's book and here's the Genki one.

I still haven't received an exact departure date so I haven't been able to pinpoint a time/buy a ticket for LA (my gate city). It's somewhere around the 20th of August so, soon enough! The only downside to this whole thing is that Japan is taking an awfully long time to send me back my application confirming that yes, I can apply for a visa. As such, I cannot visit my family in Mexico for the second summer in a row (unless it gets here SOON), and I'm very sad. :( But, hopefully they can understand that this is a huge deal. And who knows? Maybe next year I'll spend most of the summer down there since I've been wanting to do that to regain my fluency from when I was seven (it's ridiculous; I spoke without even thinking about it before until recently).

Let's see.... I don't have my family yet, but that's to be expected. I'm just assuming that I won't know until I'm in Japan, so if I do get that information sooner I'll be one happy duck. (Did I seriously just call myself a duck?)

Now, since I've been putting off my summer school homework by writing this post instead, I should probably get to that. Unfortunately, I say that, but I'll probably finish this post and switch right on over to my StumbleUpon tab. :) Sorry Mr. Rende, there's more important matters to attend to at the moment.

-Ellie

P.S. I PROMISE that I'll update more frequently when I actually have something to write about. Lately, not much has been going on so I haven't had all that much material to work with.