February

This month has been quite busy, I started at Maryknoll Girls School on the first of February, a school that I share with Ellen an Austrailian exchange student (i have to take they train to get there which is quite exciting). It's quite different to what i'm used to, every time a teacher comes into the room at the start of the class we bow to them and welcome them, we then do the same saying thank you as they leave. I like to think that i have made some new friends, dispite them not knowing any English and my Japanese being minimal. They like to touch my hair a lot, and looking at my ear piercings (none of them seem to have these).  I was only at school one day and a half before it started snowing and we were all sent home, of course we went back the next day but I was only there for about an hour before going to my first Rotary meeting. The afternoon it snowed however, my host family took me up to a temple in the mountains, it was like being in a winter wonderland.

My first Rotary meeting with my host club went well i think, i gave a presentation on New Zealand in English whilist  a Japanese girl who had been to Australia a few years before translated for me. After this my host parents took me to see the marriage of the foxes at our local shrine, which is part of the bean throwing festival. Every year a couple is choosen to be the foxes, they are married with fox masks on at the shrine infront of the crowd of people. Afterwards they threw packets of beans into the crowd for people to catch, which is part of the bean throwing festival. I managed to catch some I was seriously over the moon. That night my host club threw me a welcome party and i met all of my host families, the second of which i will be moving in with this weekend.

That weekend I went to a Japanese tea ceremony where we drunk tea and ate traditional Japanese sweets, there were these two woman dressed in beautiful kimono's playing the koto which is a Japanese 13 stringed intrument. I have joined the koto club at school and am now learning how to play, I also joined the art club, i am enjoying both of these and have already finished one painting in the art club.

My host mother took me to the public bath whilist my host father was away the next weekend, it was an interesting experience considering everyone goes in nude. I was a little uncomfortable even though men and woman have separate baths, but once i got in there it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be and i actually really enjoyed it.

I also went to the snow festival in Gifu with five other exchange students for a weekend, it was great being able to talk with everyone and making some new friends. It was very cold but totally worth it, there were so many ice sculptures some being incredibly large. The theme of the dragon ran clearly threw most of them, it being the year of the dragon. We also went on this snow train ride which we told the driver to go "super high speed" on, and he did, it was excellent.

That night we had dinner with the Nagaragawa rotary club, where we had to introduce ourselves and our countries. They also threatened to make us sing, which i was actually looking forward to but in the end it didn't happen. They did bring in some Bugaku dancers however, which is a Japanese mountain dance. These three ladies then tried to teach us and the rotary club (consisting of business men mostly all of whom were over forty) the dance. It was hilarious, i was horrible at it but had a tone of fun. The next day we drove up to this village consisting of these old straw roofed houses, which were really quite magical in the snow. We had Yackisoba, a fired noodle dish, for lunch, which is quickly becoming one of my favourate foods.

My host family took me out the next weekend to a sushi place, I love sushi, i don’t think i will be able to eat sushi ever again after this year because the sushi here is so good. That night i cooked dinner for them, which was disastrous but i think they enjoyed it.

The next day we went to the city of Nara, which was Japan's first capital city. It is home to many very old temples, the ones that we visited were 1,600 years old. This included wooden buildings that were five stories high, they all had incredibly old and in some cases scary statues in them (some were of demons that snarled at me as i tried to take photo's of them). The detail in the architecture was amazing, with little men and dragons holding up roofs and pillers. The best part of the day was the afternoon however where we went to the Toudai-ji temple which is home to the largest wooden building in the world. We walked up to it, surrounded by many people and deer, (who are alowed to run free because they are considered to be the messangers of the Gods, but also like to head but you and eat your food, one tried to eat my shopping bag) and came to this huge gate, that looked so old and beautiful with two very large guard sculptures on either side. The main building was amazing, inside it however was better still, it houses this huge Buddha statue that weighs 360 tones and has fingers the size of my host father. I was seriously overwhelmed by this, it was just so excellent.

This month has been greet and i hope that the other exchange students are having as much fun as i am.

Bring on March!

My welcome party, all my host families were there as well as my counceller and many of the rotary people.

First Week

The trip over here was long and boring and riddled with nerves but once I actually got here and meet my host family I became a lot more relaxed. My host family, my counceller and the club chairman all came out to greet me at the airport and they were all incredibly welcoming, they bought me hot lemonade which really amused me. The trip from the airport was amazing, having my first look at Japan with all its tall buildings and tiny cars. We went over this huge bridge which I thought was absolutely brilliant at the time, looking out to the left you could see the city of Nagouya.

 Since then I have been having an excellent time, my host family took me to the city of Ise and we went to see the shrines of Toyoukedaijingu and Kotaijingu which are these temple like spaces surrounded by incredibly old trees. They rebuild the shrines every twenty years and have been doing so since 690AD. I have also helped my host mother cook dumplings and have been enjoying all the food that she makes. We have been to the supermarket together many times so far and they have all been very interesting experiences.

 On the 29^th I went to the city of Gofu for a orintation, there I meet five other exchange students, three of which have been here since the middle of last year. News has come in that we will be going on a ski trip together, aswell as going to the winter festival.