I survived this weekend!

What's poppin' peeps? It's in this last month here that I've realized how much I miss that kind of talk back home in Chicago...

So this weekend was fun. And I'm not even being sarcastic. Totally for real. We (my host family and I) did so much stuff that it's almost troublesome to have to write it all down. But I'll do it. For this blog's occasional reader.

I'll start on the second of the month, though, because that's when my host brother's birthday was. Who is, by the way, one of my favorite people in this universe. He's one of the funniest people I've ever met and he only just turned seven. So the 2nd was his birthday. Funnily enough, everyone but him went to a gaming store that day because my oldest host sister really wanted to buy some manga. I'm not quite sure why he didn't come now that I think about it... Anyway, the store was GIGANTIC. And they sold EVERYTHING (besides food). Clothes, accessories (phone, hair, etc.), video games, music, manga... the manga. I can't even. It was just.... so. Much. Manga. It reminded me of a Borders (RIP) filled with only manga. They had everything you could possibly imagine, and since the store sold them used (which I actually prefer), they were all around 150 yen (a little over $1.50). Which is RIDICULOUS considering the manga I buy in the States (in English, mind you) is around $10.00 apiece. I spent a lot of time looking at that, and getting lost. I'm serious guys. It was a giant building. And there were so many aisles at weird angles all over the place that I got lost a few times. Carlos, I though of you, because I know you would've been in paradise surrounded by so many video games.

Apart from that trip, the 2nd was very laid back. We had sushi for dinner which totally made my day, though. And then there was cake of course...

That was by far the best birthday cake I've had here so far. There was even a little mini cheesecake on it!

So then, on the 3rd, my host parents decided we should all take a walk, "for our health!". It wasn't until we (host parents, siblings, and myself) were already a good ways away from the house that someone told me the walk was 3 kilometers one way. I wasn't exactly dressed for that kind of walk, so it was kind of a struggle, but it ended up being really fun. We walked to this small mountain (yes, in Japan, there IS such a thing as a small mountain) that we climbed straight up (there were stairs of course). A daunting task it seemed, but we made it!

Yaaaaaaay! There's my little country village. Look at all them farms...

So after the climb (.... I did not just make a Miley Cyrus reference...), we started back down a different way. On the way down, we came upon a little park that we, of course, had to stop to play on. What was funny about this park (to me, at least), was that it was all on a very steep hill. WOAHHHH! I know, crazy, right? Well, in Illinois, everything's pretty flat, so I'm not used to that kind of thing.

 Yeah... I know you can't really see the park, but you get the idea... hopefully.

Going home wasn't as bad as getting to the mountain; it warmed up a bit and thanks to all the walking it was much more bearable.

The day after that, we were off again. This time by car to Aso!... again. Which is completely fine with me because I've come to love car rides in Japan. And not the ones in the city. The ones in the country. And I'm talking few to no houses and mountains everywhere. EVERYWHERE. And trees. And in the winter, a faint sprinkling of snow on the mountains. Doesn't get better than that. I'm serious.

Last time we went to Aso was when we went to that spa with the dome rooms on the Aso Farm resort, and the Aso volcano. This time, we chose to forgo the volcano and instead opted for a shrine. Shirogawa shrine, to be exact. Apparently it's also home to the origin of a river that flows all the way back to Kumamoto (aka, civilization). There was a part of the stream that you could drink from, even.

Then we got to do omikuji, which is random fortunes written on pieces of paper that you fold up and tie onto a string. If you watch anime or read manga, you know what I'm talking about.

I still am not quite sure what mine was about, since my host parents don't speak much English and the fortunes are really obscure Japanese that even my host siblings didn't fully understand. All I got from it was that I should study... Only Japan, people.

Onward! We went back to the Aso Farmland Resort because they had a bunch of Christmas lights set up that my host parents wanted to take us all to see. It wasn't as elaborate at the one we went to see by car, but it was pretty anyway.

At the very end of the resort there's a bunch of little dome-shaped buildings that are apparently used for people who pay to stay. Like a hotel, basically, only 20x cuter. I was too busy being astounded to take a picture.

 

 So that'll have to do. It's off of google, but that's pretty much what they look like. Dear Lord are they cute. I want to come back to Aso just to stay in one.

On the way back, we stopped by that giant crater we went to the last time and found that this time it was covered in snow. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make my host siblings really excited. There's a huge pond there that froze over as well and the kids really wanted to see it. So see it we did. Not only did we see it, we walked on it. It was something like 10 cm thick, though, so I was terrified the whole time that it was going to break under me and I'd go down into the icy water. Even my host dad, who's six feet tall, was able to walk around, albeit with a constant crunch of ice cracking underneath him. 

 

That was it, really, for the 4th.

The 5th we (host parents and siblings) left for 大分 (Ooita) to meet up with my host father's parents and do some sightseeing.

We picked them up in 北九州市 (Kitakyushu City) and stopped by a church headed by a friend of my host family's. We didn't even sit through a service, just stopped to talk to the priest (pastor? I'm not sure what you call that person in my host family's religion) and some friends that were there. We were there for about twenty minutes, and then were back on our way to Oita. We stopped again a few hours later to see yet another shrine. This time, walking up to the actual shrine was much more difficult because it was on a hill.

This was the entrance...

 And here's a tree that's some 200 years old. It might have been 800... I'm not sure why, but I'm getting those two numbers confused. :S

In any case, it was a really old tree. What's fascinating about this (and pretty much any) shrine is that any place that people throw money to as an offering is within grabbing distance, and yet no one ever takes any.

After stopping by this shrine, it was straight to 別府 (Beppu -- the town we were staying in) and our hotel.

That night, we all stayed in a 旅館 (Ryokan -- Japanese-style Inn). The truly nice thing about this place was... it had an onsen! That you could use whenever you wanted. Say WHAT? So happy. I ended up going twice that night: once right when we arrived and again after I took a bath before going to bed (the bath was the same room as the onsen).

Dinner last night... guys, it was a lot. So I'm just going to post pictures of it and explain each one briefly.

Here's an individual pot with rice in it. It cooked for most of dinner and we ate it towards the end.

 The plate of meat was for shabu-shabu, and then the other big plate was... dun dun duuuuuun... blowfish (hence the title of this post). I was terrified I was going to die. At least I would've died eating something delicious.

Here's me making my shabu-shabu. Everyone got their own thing to cook their very own. 

 That's some delicious sauce I dipped the pork in after I cooked it.

 This is eel (that's been mashed, I'm pretty sure). I wasn't a huge fan of this one.

 This is crab. Like, an entire crab.

 Yup, definitely a crab. And you can eat the whole thing! It was pretty good, actually, especially the legs.

 This was dessert. Some jelly thing with Kinako on it.

 And here's the rice. It wasn't white, but it was just as good.

If I hadn't done that in pictures, it would've taken an eternity to explain.

Here's the basic gist of what the room looked like. 

 It was all tatami and we got to sleep on futons that they kept in....

Those closets.

The next morning we all got up too early to eat breakfast. Somehow I was able to drag myself out of bed and put myself together for that. Not too sure how that happened.

Shortly after everyone finished breakfast, we were off to our first destination of the day: 地獄めぐり (Jigoku Meguri -- A bunch of natural onsens). The first onsen we looked at was called 血の池地獄 (Chi no Ike Jigoku -- Blood Pond Hell). Why is it called that? I'll tell you, friends, even though it's pretty obvious from the picture below. The clay in the pond is red! Didn't see that one coming, didja? Apparently (according to my pamphlet) the steam is supposed to be red too, but it wasn't.

I'm mad I can't teleport you all to the pond because the picture does it no justice. The steam stretch so high up it was surreal. And it smelled. So maybe you wouldn't want to be teleported.

Next up was a geiser.

I think it was somewhere around 105 degrees CELSIUS, it came every 30-60 minutes, and lasted about 6-10 minutes each time. The one that we saw was probably one of the longer ones. This one was called たつまき地獄 (Tatsumaki Jigoku).

Next up was 海地獄 (Umi Jigoku -- Ocean Hell). This place was very big on 鬼 (demons), so that's why all the names have to do with hell. Plus, they're all HOT.

Here's the Ocean one. Can't remember quite how hot this one was, but it was definitely too hot to touch or anything. It was so blue, though, that I kept finding myself tempted to jump it. This one smelled particularly bad...

This was the last one we saw (though there were more): 鬼石坊主地獄 (Not really sure how to translate  this one... The kanji mean: demon-stone-monk-lord/master-hell).

The pictures of this one don't do it justice. It was basically this thick-looking grey goo that was bubbling in certain spots. It was really fascinating to watch.

Lastly, there were a few animals on display. It was almost like a mini-zoo or something... The most interesting one, however, was this elephant.

There was a family there before us that was feeding it crackers. The kids would throw them (there was a fence to keep spectators far away enough from the elephant) to the elephant and she (or he... I'm calling it a she) would pick them up with her trunk. Typical elephant. But then if she couldn't reach the cracker, she'd let out a huge breath and blow the cracker back to the kids so that they could try throwing it again. Coolest thing of my life.

After seeing those four hot springs, we went to eat lunch at a restaurant called 西洋料理 (Western Cooking), even though it felt very much like an American Chinese restaurant.

Then we dropped my host father's family off at a train station and continued on our way home.

Our last sightseeing spot was a bridge in Aso (or near Aso... can't quite remember)... was this monstrosity:

I don't know how, but I wasn't afraid the entire time we crossed that thing. To give you perspective, they had a picture of the bridge and godzilla next to each other; the bridge was taller!

That's pretty much what happened to me this weekend. Leave it to my host family to come up with awesome places to sight see. I think they're planning on taking us to some monkey zoo soon... stay tuned for that, since from the sound of it, it sounds pretty interesting...

JFOKORFOEFKDSMLWELP
-Ellie

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year humans!

I figured that since it's such a big deal in Japan, I should write a post. 

Now, maybe it's because I live amid cows and corn and rice fields, but the New Year celebrations in Japan were nothing like what I would have imagined. At least in my host family. I'm sure it was different for everyone, but for me, it was fairly uneventful. Yesterday was, of course, New Year's Eve, and that was spent staying up until 12, eating snacks until I'm sure I gained a few pant sizes, and teaching the older of my two host sisters some English. However unconventional that may sound, it was surprisingly fulfilling; exactly the amount of stuff I would want to do on New Year's Eve. Teaching my host sister English was probably my favorite part, though. She's really into it, but is too shy to ever ask me straight out how to say something or show her the pronunciation. Her, my host mom and I have a system: she asks my host mom while I'm sitting next to her, and my host mom will either try to get her to ask me herself, or will ask me to which I respond (facing and looking at my host sister, mind you). The first few months of this shyness was, to put it bluntly, rather off-putting, but she's definitely grown on me. Probably because in a way, we're similar, since we're both the oldest and we're both girls, etc., etc. ANYWAYS, teaching her English. Most of the English I ended up teaching her was fairly useless in everyday speech, but it was fun nonetheless. Some examples from yesterday's 'lesson' are: violent, garlic, screeching and monkey. Yaaaaaay for weird words! She totally remembered them, though, which is the funny part. If you're wondering why she wanted to know words like screeching, violent, and monkey, let's just say my two youngest host siblings are going to be getting a lot of insults in the next few days that they can't understand. ;)

I ended up going to bed at around 1, and everyone had to wake up in time to leave for church at 9 in the morning... which ended up being 9:30 anyway. Not only was it too early, but it's also especially difficult to wake up when it's ridiculously cold in your room. 

Somehow I woke myself up with enough time to eat breakfast, and by 9:20ish, we were off. After the service everyone sat down to eat a bit, and then we came home to relax for the rest of the day.


Yes. That was my New Year's Day. And it was fun all the same.

Now, since I'm done with my fascinating New Year's update, I'll bombard you with pictures of food that I've accumulated since I said I'd try taking pictures of more meals (and by 'bombard', I mean giving you a playful punch on the shoulder... because it's not that much).

This is pickled 大根 (White Radish). I don't remember what the brown thing is... But the pickled white radish is actually quite popular in Japan. I'm not a huge fan, but I prefer it over regular white radish.

 This was dinner on the 30th. Trust me, I took more than I have right here. There's fried chicken, chopped cabbage, and, of course, rice.

 This was lunch on the 31st. My host dad made it, actually, and it turned out to be really tasty. It's pretty much fried rice, only I feel like it's an easier version because he made it in less than 5 minutes. O_O

 Here's my New Year's Eve dinner! Apparently it's pretty traditional to have this in Japan around New Year's. It's just soba with some chicken thrown in and some green onion.

 This, children, is the beginning of greatness.

 This is what greatness looks like after it's come out of the oven for approximately 30 minutes -- a.k.a: too long. (Btw, if you can't tell, it's メロンパン [melon bread])

 For dinner tonight, my host mom made some tiny meatballs (of which I think I unknowingly ate most of), and then I also had some mochi, which is what I have in this here picture (mochi is rice that has been pounded into a stretchy, chewy, dough-y-like mound, which is much tastier than it sounds). I ate it how I always do: baked, dipped in soy sauce with a little sugar.

And here we have a snack that's not Japanese, but I found it here and damnit, it's delicious. Not as good as the real thing, but they'll do.

So there you have it. Hope I didn't make you too hungry. :)

JRIFVOPEFKOSODLK;LH,;

-Ellie

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