Kimonos, tea, some food, and more Engrish! :D

I'm currently sitting in front of a heater emitting the most amazing warmth ever. 

The weird thing about the cold here is that it's really only in the morning and kind of at night. For me, at least. Kumamoto pales in comparison to Chicago winters... It doesn't really get below freezing but biking to school in the cold can be pretty brutal with the wonderful breeze that's sure to 'cool you down' on the way. -___- 

SO. This past Monday was my last 茶道部 (Sadou Bu - Tea Ceremony Club) for the rest of the month because this week is... TESTING! Therefore, in order to let everyone study more than they already are every day, the school gave them ALL of last week's afternoons to do it. Isn't that wonderful? I have a feeling I would be a terrible Japanese student even if I knew the language. I don't think I could commit to as much homework and studying as everyone here does. 

On Friday there was no school so AFS took this opportunity to take the two Kumamoto chapters to try on kimonos and make tea (hehehehehhhh). It was about ten minutes away and all the AFSers host families came too. I got there and the woman who would be dressing me (that sounds awkward...) asked me which of five kimonos I wanted to wear. There was this really lovely blue one that I picked, and just as I was about to put it on, I was informed that Anna (who had gotten there a bit before me) had already picked it out and if it was okay to switch with hers. Ahhhh the cruelty of it all. I ended up in a pink one that was very pretty (however I was still jealous of the blue one the whole time):

As pretty and easy as it may look to get on, I'll tell you this: it's not. I remember reading Memoirs of a Geisha and hearing about the complexity of it all, so I was prepared for it to take a while. I almost expected it to be more difficult to get on than it ended up being. It did, however, take more time than I anticipated. I ended up having to take off my shirt which felt a little weird even though I was in a room full of girls. First came this undergarment thing-y that was really loose and resembled a vest with a white collar that had flowers on it (you can see the collar in the picture a bit). Then there was something to tie around my waist above that in order to keep it in place. After that came a blur of garments to be put on that I don't even remember. Once the kimono was on, the woman had to fold it a few times and keep it where the obi (the big green belt) could hide it. Then came another sash thing-y to tie around my waist (still not the obi), then finally the obi (through which they inserted a piece of cardboard to keep it flat and from moving), some stuff that she stuffed at the top of it... honestly I can hardly remember everything she did. All I remember is that it went from looking like an awkwardly-fitting bathrobe to what I have posted up above. I also remember that the obi was tied in a very intricate way in the back that made it look really cool.

(Don't ask why it's crooked; my camera person did this a lot for some reason)

After the kimono was on, they put your hair in a ponytail and braided it into two separate braids that they then made into a bun. To this, they added some fake hair (which I'm seriously creeped out by) for volume, and gave you a choice of flowers to wear. They also gave you red lipstick that I've never though looked that flattering on me, but I figure since I was going to be wearing a kimono I may as well.

After taking a ton of pictures, we went into a tatami room to do our tea ceremony shenanigans. I'm currently on the most basic type of tea ceremony so this was was totally foreign to me. I did, however, know a little bit about how to receive the 茶わん (Chawan - Tea bowl) and how to eat the sweets they give you (yes, there's a certain was to eat and drink). I was supposed to be sitting in 正ざ (seiza - that really painful way to sit where your legs are folded directly beneath you) the entire tea ceremony, but the pain ended up being too much to handle and I had to switch around. 

Yaaay for kimonos and tea ceremonies. After changing out of the kimonos we all ate lunch. 

The exchange kids then decided to go downtown afterwards and since I'm one of them, that means I went along. The usual happened: took purikura, looked around at clothes, ate ate Mister Donuts, and at the end of the day I finally bought The Girl Who Played With Fire! Ahhhh ridiculous excitement ensues! I also bought this adorable backpack that's a giant smiley. Cutest. Thing. Evaaaaaaar. 

I got home at around 9:40 that night so I was dead tired. I had this delicious don buri that my host mom had made for dinner, took a shower, and passed out almost immediately. 

The next day was fairly relaxed. I really just read the whole day... That sounds really lame, but that's honestly what I did. I need to know what happens with Lisbeth and Blomkvist and all the wonderful happenings in Sweden!

My host mom did, however, after hearing my brother mention it on a skype we had this weekend, make me a 焼きそばパン (Yakisoba Pan) Which is exactly what it sounds like: a yakisoba sandwich. Allow me to make you hungry with delicious pictures of sexy food.

There's your food porn for this post. I'm not sure if that even looks that good to anyone that hasn't had it, but trust me, it was delicious. But then again, I think anything with that many carbs is bound to be delicious. Why Japan, WHY?

Today wasn't that eventful either. I did go shopping and bought some boots and a pair of shorts for super cheap! And the boots are heels so I'm boutta be one tall-ass human being when I come home. :D Actually I'll probably be average height back home. Here, however, I think I'm a giant with them on (I'm already considered pretty tall without any heels... I'm 5' 3.5". And yes, the .5 is important).

After shopping, the entire household headed off to get a family picture taken. I think it's my host family's tradition to get these done with their host students or something. Not that I'm complaining; it was really nice. :) Not sure how they look, but I'll get back to you guys on them!

That's pretty much it for the weekend...

I'll close this post with some Engrish I found on Friday while I was downtown:

They're called discarded black cats. Nobody knows how cute and cuddly they are. Although they had dirty hair or faces. Gradually, their individual personalities emerged.

A for spelling... not sure what else to say.

DLEWJGFETOKHRBGKMF

-Ellie

太る！

I've run out of creative ways to intro these things so I'll just jump right into my week.

This week wasn't too out of the ordinary. My school, as usual, switched the schedules around a bit (they do that A LOT for some reason) and that was probably the most exciting thing to happen at school. I'm living life in the fast lane, I tell you! I'm sure something exciting happened, I'm just having a brainfart...

OH, so I haven't even mentioned this but instead of doing Track and Field I'm now doing 茶道部 (Sado Bu - Japanese Tea Ceremony Club)! It's on Mondays and Fridays after school, and I like this one because not only does it give me some days where I can have some free time after school, but it's also super Japanese culture-y. And intricate. How hard can it be to pour someone a cup of tea? My friends, the Japanese have perfected the art of making it harder than it needs to be. In doing so, however, they have made it into an art. I don't really mind the intricacy, so I'm really enjoying it. The only downside is that I have a feeling that club is going to greatly contribute to my weight gain (contrary to what many people thought would happen, I've GAINED weight). >____> Every day we have club, we sit down at the end, drink tea, and eat mochi, or some other anko product. This past Friday, after already being full from earlier that day, we ate ぜんざい, which is pretty much an anko soup with mochi cakes floating around in it. Sounds gross when I put it that way, but I can definitely see why people like it. That being said, I am not one of those people. I like mochi (especially when it's baked, and then dipping it in soy sauce with some sugar... yes), however ever since I first tried anko I knew I was destined to battle it's recurrences throughout my stay here. It's just too sweet. I know, I know, America consumes some of the grossly sweetest products there are on a daily basis. I agree. So I can't really tell you what it is about it. You have to try it to know what I mean. For me, however, it's almost sickly sweet. But I drank that soup like a champ. Yup. I called myself a champ. The upside to it's sickly sweetness is that it balances nicely with green tea, which is very, very bitter. I'm alive, and I did it. That's all that matters.

Saturday was fun. :) I hung out with some friends from school. There were four of us altogether, which is the perfect number for... you guessed it (or you didn't)! Purikura! We went downtown and took it two times, and both times my eyes managed to look one hundred times creepier than everyone else's because of how wide it made them. I legit look like an alien or something. Whatever, at least I have proof now that I have friends here. We spent the entire day window shopping, and took a break at lunchtime to eat ramen. I'm sorry to say I didn't take a picture because it was too delicious to stop eating and take the time. Seriously. Best ramen. If you're ever in Kumamoto city, go to Tsuruya and find the floor with all the restaurants. Go to Manriki Ramen (I think... wow I don't even remember the name). I ordered mine with a soy sauce-y broth but they also had a salted one (as if it needed any more salt). At the end of the day, I wasn't sure which bus to take so (I felt like a helpless 7-year-old or something) my one friend stayed with me to help me find it even though she took one that came before mine. Can I just take a moment to say I have the BEST friends here? If they ever read this, みんあ大好きー！ Japanese friends are good people. That is all.

Today was my host mom's birthday (which I'm proud to say I remembered)! And what do you do on your birthday?  You take your study abroad student to a 琴 (koto - traditional Japanese instrument) concert! It was three hours of traditional Japanese instruments, and by the end of it all, I felt like Sayuri from Memoirs of a Geisha. In all honesty, it was actually really cool. You'd think it'd be boring, but the sound of it all was so interesting that I didn't even realize it was so long.

The things in the back that look like they're playing recorders sure sounded like them, but they had a different name that escapes me now. In front of them are the shamisen and then the koto in the front. The way they played the koto made it look very... not sure what the word for it would be in English, but in Japanese you'd say かっこい. Like, it looked so cool and legit. Yup, that's the best I can do.

After that, my host mom and I stopped by a Mister Donuts and I bought both of us one. :) Big spender, right here. We also picked up a cake for her birthday.

Tadaaaaaaa! Japanese people are so fancy when it comes to cakes. It tasted as good as it looks (which is very delicious).

We also had やき肉 (Yakiniku) for dinner.

So delicious! It's basically a grill in the middle of the table and you eat as it all gets cooked. THIS is why I'm getting fat, people!

Anyway, that was pretty much my week/weekend. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but it's still weird and awesome to me that I can say this is all going down in Japan. This Friday there's no school, and AFS has something planned for us　留学生 (ryugakusei - foreign exchange students). Something about wearing kimonos, so I'm excited!

FLIUER.KBNWALEOFROIUHFV
-Ellie

The only thing harder for me to be fluent in than Japanese, is this.

Hello human beings from around the globe. (I feel like I've used this intro already...)

This is going to be a post dedicated to something other than what I did this weekend, because it's something that I've been wanting to share with everyone for a while. Now, you may or may not have heard of Engrish. If you have, though, you've never seen it like this. I knew that the English slogans around here were kind of ridiculous, but I had no idea how much so, and how FREQUENTLY it happens. I think I've seen maybe two products during my entire stay that, if they were read aloud by someone, those standing around them would not think they were mentally deranged. 

It's everywhere: t-shirts, tags, posters, Purikura, signs... the list goes on. It's especially funny because the way that it's written always screams, "As I sat in my giant leather chair of class, I was attempting to make this sound as deep and poetic as possible," and then it just ends up making Ellie want to take a picture of it to post on here.

So, without any further ado, I present some of my Engrish photography collection.

 This is by far the one that has made me laugh the most. It was on one Anna's notebooks (I think...?) and the second I read it out loud I died laughing.

 I dub this one: The One That Makes So Little Sense That it's Not Even Funny. This was on a bag for a store in the mall around where I live, and as a person who's pretty into the whole proper syntax and spelling thing, I was pretty appalled by this one.

 Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....

 I kind of get what they're trying to say... but....

 Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'suit' should be 'suis'. Not a horrible one, and it's not even Engrish (Frapanese?), but it caught my eye nonetheless. It says 'I am always happy.'

 If you can't read it, it says, "(I can't remember the first line, and I didn't take a picture of it because that wasn't the funniest part and I felt awkward taking a picture of the wall in a clothing store) Dream Pink, Dear Pinky [tiny print]: Pink latte beer is a medicine of all diseases. Her dream is the most beautiful in the world." That pained me to just type it. e____e

"You are a lovely person. Please spend wonderful time." Thank you, kind box filled with cake!

I know it wasn't that much since you'll probably read through them really quickly, but that's all I've got. I've also seen a pack of towels with a tag on it saying, "Enjoyed a good boom." SAY WHAT? Yeah, sounds a little suggestive if you ask me... And then my host sister has the greatest shirt ever. The only part of it that I remember is the first few lines because they're the funniest: "I love that I have friends, and that I am unbearable..." and then it goes on to talk about other things in Engrish. I'm not really sure why you'd want to be unbearable, and honestly, if I were that shirt's manufacturer, I would fire my designer. Or whatever. Because why would people want to walk around saying that they love to be unbearable?

So yes... hope that made you laugh at least a little. Again, a short post, but I didn't do much this weekend. On Saturday, I went downtown all day with Anna and Andres, and then today I got to help out with my host sibling's　小学校の祭り (Shougakkou no matsuri - Elementary school festival). This involved a lot of me running around with my younger host sister to all of the games and activities they had set up all over the place. 

That sums up my life right there.

Oh, and tomorrow is the halfway point for me. Can my family and friends just come live here? For real, not liking this whole going home in February...

FWHIOWJWI3OTRIEUI
-Ellie

This is.... Japanese culture!

It hasn't even been the weekend yet, but today I had something happen that I can talk about. No pictures on this one, however, and it'll (maybe) be short.

Today, my school had a uniform check. Dear lord are these things for real. Basically a group of male teachers come around to inspect the boy uniforms and a group of women for the girls. They're checking to see that everything's neat and tidy and whatnot. They take the boys in one big group out into the hallway and girls in another group separately, have you line up and go up and down staring you down. In case you couldn't tell, it's not a pleasant experience. Since the boys were checked before the girls, and we had to wait in the classroom while they did that, I didn't really get to hear what they were checking for, but from what I saw, they looked at whether their pants were sagged (something the majority of the boys at my school in America would fail miserably), and their hair. 

Here's where I'll say that this cleared up a lot of confusion for me. I've spent the past two and a half months perplexed by the hair all of the boys here have. I could never quite put my finger on it, but I always knew something about it looked off. Today, I realized that it's because their hair is a regular, not too short but not super long length except for around their ears. I guess their ears have to be completely exposed, so they get this haircut that a decent length that would naturally cover the ears, and then they get it cut around the ears. It's difficult to explain, but let me just say that this cleared a lot up for me today. 

And now back to the uniform check. One of the boys in my class apparently had his hair too long around his ears (I personally thought it was fine, but what do I know?), so they made him cut it in school. Over a garbage can. WHAT IS THIS? I was utterly baffled by this when I saw that they were serious. He held the trash can under his head, and another boy got a pair of scissors for cutting paper (which isn't good for your hair mind you), and just started snipping away, like it was a hair salon or something. I was completely fascinated by this, and they were cutting his hair right in front of me, so I spent a good seven minutes with an incredulous smile in utter shock. Another note: after this boy had had his hair cut, he saw that I'd been watching in total amusement, and he just goes, "This is... Japanese culture!" It was even funnier the way he said it since it was with a Japanese accent. Plus, he said it a good three times, as if I didn't hear it the first time. Ahh, good times.

So after those fun shenanigans, it was the girls' turn. For us, they checked that our skirts weren't rolled (they're pretty long if you don't), our nails were cut/not painted, hair was up and cut, that our ties were right.. or something, I didn't really understand this one, and that we weren't wearing makeup. I didn't know about the nail thing so a few of mine were deemed too long and, even though they didn't make me do it right away, I did anyway. I'm not a fan of these things, personally, and I hope another one doesn't happen while I'm here (I probably just majorly jinxed myself). I was terrified the entire time that I forgot something important that I was going to be severely punished for. 

But I'm alive!

And speaking of going home, why is it that AFS has already sent me my itinerary for going home? I'M NOT EVEN HALFWAY DONE. -__________- Why AFS, why?

Lastly, if you live in the States and you're reading this, I hope you voted (if you can, of course)! I'll be sitting in class as the results are being announced so I probably won't be paying any attention to what's going on in class.

FWAHWFEJLAHELUHLJWIJVRRR
-Ellie

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.

I hate titling these things.

Another week gone... Dude, this whole thing is going by insanely and altogether too fast. I have about 97 days left in Kumamoto and I'm absolutely certain that I will 100% not be ready to go home come February 3rd. I didn't realize what this experience would actually be like until now; it's been 100x better than anything I imagined. Sometime after I began applying to AFS, I started reading this one person's blog about their adventure in Japan. Everything they did sounded so cool; they lived in a big city, did exciting things everday (it seemed) and I remember wanting my experience to be similar. WHY DID I EVER WISH THAT? Anyone reading this that wants to come to Japan on a homestay should never hope that their experience is anything like anyone else's. This is YOUR experience, and yours only. It's unique, and beautiful and wonderful and only you can say you've experienced exactly what you have. Anyone even considering doing something like this should by all means do it. Do it while you can. It's something that you can't even realize how much it'll change you as a person, and I mean that in a totally positive way. 

Okay, now that I'm done giving my study abroad advertising... on to the post!

This week there wasn't too much worth mentioning. I have 部活 (bukatsu - club/sports activities) everyday after school and it has convinced me that I'm never going home because it'll kill me before I do. These people are たいへん (taihen - hard workers).

On Friday I didn't go to school. Yes, rebel right here. I'm totally about to start randomly skipping class. Yeah, that totally sounds like me... And what was I doing on my rebel-day-off? Volunteering to help some Thai foreign high schoolers around Kumamoto-shi. Quite the bad ass, if I do say so myself. There were two others from my school (a friend of mine and a first-year boy who I didn't know) and a few from two other schools. All of the high school volunteers were put into a group, but the groups didn't stay separate for very long, and eventually everyone just joined groups and went as one. We started the tour at 熊本城 and after showing the foreigners around a bit, we all piled into a bus that took us to 熊本大学. 

We ate lunch in the school cafeteria (which had absolutely anything you would want to eat), and were then shown to a really nice, carpeted room that had a bunch of tables with 書道 utensils at each chair. A professor from the university spent a good hour and a half teaching us all techniques on how to draw pandas, flowers, bamboo, a shrimp and an eggplant. After we were adequate at it (and I say adequate because no one got anywhere near to where anyone else in his class would've been), we were all given a fan that we could decorate however we wanted. Since I absolutely sucked at everything he taught us besides the bamboo, I decided I would just do a bunch of that...

Yay for bamboo! I never had time to do the other side, so I'm considering sneaking it into my weekly 書道 class at school to finish it. With my amazing smuggling skills, that should be no problem. (That was meant to be very sarcastic)

After that, everyone went out to a commons area-type room to be put to shame by the teacher and his students. Seriously, the man painted a giant Kumamoto castle with rolling mountains in the background like it was no big deal.

The thing that made everything hilarious, however, were the GIANT brushed attached to poles that he used to paint with. Quite amusing and fascinating at the same time. It was really cool to see the whole thing come together though; at first I couldn't really see where he was going with the whole thing and then BAM, all of a sudden there was a castle and mountains. There was a giant bucket of water that this one girl would dip a giant brush into and use to wet the entire paper as the people painting progressed. The water gave the ink the water-color-y, abstract-y look that you might be able to tell from the picture. Then, all of the students were asked to write their name and draw a few flowers at the bottom. It turned out to be a pretty nice collaboration. :)

That was the basic gist of my day on Friday. Volunteering went until 5ish and by the time it was over I was pretty exhausted. 

THEN on Saturday morning, I headed over to another university to watch my classmates participate in an English debate against a few other Kumamoto schools. If any of you guys ever read this and can understand it, YOU DID SO AWESOME AND I'M SO PROUD OF YOU ALL. I honestly have no idea how they debated in English. That's like me trying to debate in Japanese... Even though we didn't win anything, I was beyond impressed and entertained by the whole thing. There were various debates, and the whole event ended up going from 9 am to 4 pm. Props to y'all, I could never have done it. 

And now we arrive to today. Today, my dear friends (and some strangers), my wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL host family took me to 阿蘇山 (Aso san - Aso mountain) to go to a spa there. Honestly, though, I would've been perfectly fine just going for a drive in the mountains. I've decided that driving in the mountains with my iPod is one of my favorite things to do in Japan. 

And after today, I can say that I've been to the clouds and back. Legitimately in the clouds. Because that's how high we were.

 At one point, we stopped the car to look into this crater and as I took more and more pictures I got more and more frustrated that the pictures didn't look as breath taking as the real thing.

 That, in the bottom right-hand corner is a road, just to give a little perspective. The fog hanging around is cloud.

There was almost no blue around us because all we saw was cloud. Crazy stuff!

We stopped at this really quaint, adorable restaurant for lunch, and I ended up ordering a hamburger and a slice of apple pie. Allow me:

The hamburger plate was GINORMOUS. Just as a side note, I've noticed that a lot of times, a hamburger in Japan means only the actual hamburger; no bun. I'm totally fine with that, I just though it was worth mentioning. The hamburger plate was rice with a hamburger patty on top, and an egg topping it all off. Yeah, can't even see the rice in the picture, but it's there. 

So after becoming fat, we were off to the spa! The spa we went to was located in this huge mini-town full of souvenir shops.

The spa was very... interesting. Don't get me wrong, I definitely liked it, but it was different from what I imagined. Basically, they give you a shirt and a pair of pants that you wear (no underwear -- and yes, they clean everything after each use). After you've changed you head into this giant room with a whole bunch of mini hut-like structures all around the room. There's an area to sleep/rest, to drink some water or tea, and a spot to sit around. The huts all had wooden doors that opened into a room that was very warm, and scented with some kind of herb. My host siblings didn't really like the smells, but I actually found it very relaxing. Inside the huts, there are pillows lined up around the edge where you lay down and just relax. Definitely not what I expected, but enjoyable nonetheless. There was one Icy Cold Room that, as the name suggests, was really cold and was really nice after sitting in a hot room for a few minutes. We spent a good hour and a half in the spa, and when we finished, we went back to some of the little shops to look around and see what there was. 

We got home at around 6:30 and here I am now a few hours later. All in all, a pretty great weekend. AND I just found out on Saturday that the ice arena here opened today so HURRAH I'M GOING FIGURE SKATING NEXT WEEKEND. Which is also kind of terrifying since I haven't skated since August... We'll see how that goes and I'll definitely be giving an update on that. :)

FKLJDKLSKMDDVKJGNK kbaiii.

-Ellie

長崎に行った！ (I went to Nagasaki!)

So this weekend AFS had a little excursion planned for the three other exchange students and myself. No biggie, just going to 長崎 (Naga-saki). You know, the usual. とても楽しかった！ It was fun just hanging out with the people I went with.

I left on Saturday morning. Our AFS chapter president came and picked us all up: that kid that lives near me (and since he mentioned to me that I never say his name on here, I'll refer to him by his name from now on), Andres, then me, then Anna (the other girl in my chapter from Germany, and the other boy Julian who's also from Germany. Fun stuff. We rode in the car for a good four hours, which was filled with struggling to get a toy open, food, and lots of making fun of Andres. But what else is new? :P

When we got to Nagasaki, we went straight to the Atomic Bomb Museum, no kidding around, we went straight there after eating lunch. As it probably sounds to most people, it was super interesting and at the same time kind of eery. Pretty much anything on exhibit there was from the rubble found after the explosion. Think about it... you're going through multiple rooms filled with the remains of a horrific part of history that real people lived through.

That was the first room that we walked into. I'm not going to post all of the pictures I took but this was one of the rooms that was probably the creepiest. It was also a very difficult room. Like, it just didn't want to cooperate with my trying to take a picture of it. It was dark for maybe a minute, then it would light up for maybe 5 seconds, and then go dark again. HDGHSIUENVFJUHSEURTH. Curses! So, yeah. I got this one and then gave up. 

After the museum, the six of us (two adults and the exchange kids) went to two different parks, the second one being the more amusing of the two, in my opinion. The first one was the Peace Park, and it was basically a fountain, and a path lined with statues that led to this giant plaza thing-y with a GIANT statue in the middle. 

The picture doesn't do it justice, because it looked so much bigger in person. It's called.... the Peace Statue! Wonder where that came from. The park apparently commemorates those who died from the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. So there you have it.

The second park we went to was the Glover Garden, complete with a mansion and giant garden. Massive. Like, you can't even see the whole thing from one spot. The thing even had a giant pond with a bunch of koi fish. And these aren't the tiny ones you normally see in a Japanese steakhouse in the states. They were literally 1-2 feet long and probably weighed a good 25 pounds.

SO MANY KOI FISH.

After the Glover Garden, we stopped to grab some ice cream. I got this castela flavored stuff since apparently castela is a really popular bread in Nagasaki. It's Portuguese, and just like regular bread, it was introduced to the Japanese by the Portuguese and therefore has a Latin-sound to it. Yay history!

After eating our ice cream, we headed off to the hotel to check in and set our stuff down. Then it was off to dinner. We ended up in Chinatown (kind of funny, for some reason. Chinatown in Japan...?) and as such we ate at a Chnese restaurant. We ordered some noodles and this mound of meat, vegetables, crunchy stuff, and sauce. Wow I'm descriptive. The point is that it was all surprisingly delicious, considering the presentation of them.

Once we finished eating, we walked around Chinatown for a bit before heading back to the hotel. For some reason we all got our own room. I wasn't complaining, it just seemed like sharing rooms would've been more cost-effective. Why am I criticizing the room choice? No idea, because it was actually really nice having a room to myself.

When we got back from dinner our chaperons went to bed and of course the four of us stayed up for a good two hours and were ridiculous together. A lot of embarrassing dancing that will never be spoken of to anyone happened. 

The next day we ate breakfast at 7:30 and were out of the hotel by 9. Our first stop was to see the Cosmos flowers.I've never seen so many of the same flower in such large quantities.

And there was more than that my friends, my camera just couldn't fit them all. THIS is why haiku was born here, people. Because it's so easy to find something to write about!

Our second and final stop before heading back to Kumamoto was an outdoor museum-y thing. Either my English is getting really bad or I just suck at describing these things. It was a whole bunch of houses that had been buried by a volcano that erupted a while back. At first I thought the houses had been incorporated into the ground or something and then I realized they were just buried. O_O

Once I was done being stupefied by the fact that these houses had actually been buried under ground, we drove off to get something to eat and catch out ferry back to Kumamoto. The ferry was something I was quite pleased about, as I've liked them since the first time I rode one. I saw jellyfish again, but the ones I saw this time were unfortunate looking as opposed to mysterious and pretty like the ones I saw the last time I rode a ferry.

The trip didn't have any epic ending but it didn't really need it. Everyone (or just me....) was too tired to talk much on the way home. And alright, maybe I was the only one that slept practically the whole way....

All in all, a fantastic weekend, and thanks to the three other 留学生 (and AFS) for making it that much more fun. :)

I'm going to close this post by mentioning something hilarious that happened to me today. I'm sitting at my desk at lunch, and one of my favorite teachers walks in with a book. This woman is kind of on the crazy side, and that's probably why I like her so much, and she's always got something very odd to say. Today, she held up this book and asked me if it was famous in America and if I knew it. The book was called What's Your Poo Telling You? If I haven't said it before and meant it I'll say it again and mean it this time: I died. The funniest part was that she was dead serious. She teaches English, so I'm pretty sure she knew what the title said, and for some reason she was totally serious about her question. So if anyone reading this has ever heard of this book... that's a little weird, and please let me know. 

On that smelly note, I'll end this post abruptly with my name. Shocker, I know.

-Ellie