3 months and a whole lot of slackness

Yep, so I've been neglecting my blog for the past month... or so I don't even know how long it's been, but it's been long. It is my 3 month anniversary today, and to mark the glorious day I learnt the word for anniversary in Japanese, きねんび。 Fantastic, right? Right.

What's changed since I last blog? Simply put, a lot. Too much to recall. My Japanese has gone from non-existent to... poor. Generally I can maintain a conversation, but there is always the times when I stare blankly into somebody's eyes thinking 'Omg, what the hell are they saying...'.

I've developed a deeper understanding for Japanese society, been to Tottori, had a haircut, been visited by my Marist folk, received my first spontaneous kancho, embarrassed myself on the baseball field and had my umbrella stolen.

I've also accepted I have to come home.

Alex

One month over

I can't think of anything to write, other than I am having the most fantastic time and I couldn't have asked for more! I'm sure there is much more to come in the following months. Excited much?!

Things I love about Japan

It's been nearly a month already, and I have fallen in love with Japan. Things I love about Japan!

The food
Tonkatsu, okonomiyaki, yakiniku, Mister Donut - how did I ever live without you? I will be having major withdrawal symptoms when I return to Australia :(

The internet
It's fast!

Bike riding
Bike riding is fun! I am free to go where ever, and it's usually faster than car here.

Japanese TV
So many times I've asked myself: "Why the hell is this on TV?!"

Karaoke
Last week I had a six hour karaoke session with my host family and friends, karaoke rocks!

School
I don't even know how to explain my school life, but a usual day contains girls yelling out my name down the hallway: AREKKUSU,AREKKUSU!! ... hello, do I know you?! Or students practicing their English with me: "Alex, how many times have you played the sex?" -ugghh, turns other direction- It's great, I've got a good group of friends in my class and a borderline-stalker group of girls too!

Daifuku
Possibly the best thing I've ever eaten! mmmmmm

Sorry I haven't been blogging more, my reason is a combination of being busy and also lazy. I should also upload some photos to this blog, but yet again I'm lazy. Perhaps later (but probably not) I will take my camera to school!

How's Australia?

Alex

I actually can't remember what I was going to write. Well yesterday I went to a town that I still don't know the name of. I asked a few people, in both Japanese and English, and didn't fully understand their replies. However, I do know that it's the town in which a movie called Ponyo? was set. I've never seen it, but it's from Studio Gibhli. I probably spelt that wrong, sorry.

Today, after lunch, okaasan and I are going to Kurashiki, which is just a little town (probably city by Tasmanian standards) next to Okayama. I think it's very old and traditional. We have also been planning trips to Hiroshima and Kyoto. I think Kyoto is Sunday, and Hiroshima next Saturday.

Above are photos from the past week. The group photos are all the other exchange students who are coming to Japan through JFIE at the orientation in Tokyo. The last photo is my city! Okayama!

Hope everybody is well in Tasmania,

Alex!

えええええとううううううう

Id like to start this post with an apology, as there will be no photos or punctuation! I am not brave enough to try and upload photos on this computer, hopefully i can sort something out later and connect my own laptop. Secondly, this keyboard is whack. It will take ages to find all the punctuation i need, so i will just skip on that, sorry. It also doesnt have english spellcheck, which i heavily rely upon. ok!

My family rocks. they are seriously so funny i love them! the past days i have been laughing so much lol, ketsu dashimashouka?! we eat out a lot, so ive been going to heaps of restaurants and trying all sorts of food. i ate bamboo, yep. didnt know you could, but there you go! sashimi, ramen, yakisoba! i love okayama its a really cool city. it has so much to do! we all get in the car, and the mum says to me `what do you want to do?`, and i say ugghh i dunno! and we go to a cake buffet! karaoke! otera! went to a temple/shrine and i wrote on this board then you throw some　money in a big bucket!

today, we are going to tappei`s concert. my family, especially marina the older sister, is in LOVE with hardcore screamo rock. they have it playing on their TV all the time. its hilarious umm the band is maximum hormone or something? its written in katakana but i dont know it sorry!

lol last thing, the engrish here is sooo funny. we went shopping, and they had heaps of shirts with english on them. they said the most random things, like bananas are delicious whether you boil or cook them. and there is this store called LOVE DRUG STORE in big caps and a massive billboard.

so much to say, im having a great time! school starts next week, i think? i saw some　of my school mates at mister donut. these girls, they just like stared at me the whole time. i was like ehhh, -waves- ?

ive sent out 4 postcards, olivia ellie hanna and maddy. will start writing letters i think. anyway, thats all i can think of for now!

へええ！

とうきょう

OK, it's been a very crazy day! I arrived at Narita airport in Tokyo at 6am with all the other exchange students from around Australia. We have a three day orientation in one of the airport hotels, a nice one too! Just had a lovely, big Japanese banquet type thing for dinner!

We left the airport around 6:30am and it was freezing! The weather here is so bad, it might as well be snowing. Got to the hotel, had a short group work thing before heading into Tokyo. The traffic was pretty bad. It took us about 2.5 hours to travel the 60km into Tokyo.

Tokyo is simply amazing, even on a cloudy, rainy day where you couldn't see much, It is so big! We went straight to a school that is in the city, and really got thrown right into the deep end. We were ushered into this hall with a heap of Japanese students sitting there watching us, before being handed a microphone and being told to introduce ourselves in Japanese! Pretty sure I failed compared to the others, oh well.

At the school we also did other activities with them in the kendo hall (I now have a great activity for Ms Ball to teach us prepositions!), and also some calligraphy in a classroom where I failed epically yet again. I heard numerous gasps as I drew my kanji, I'm not even kidding lol! We all had to wear school 'visitors' slippers, which unfortunately came in only one size - a size that was way too small for my western feet. Ouchies...

We all then went for a week to a nearby garden (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3026.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikugi-en), which was simply beautiful. I didn't get many photos as it was raining. Everybody had an umbrella, and in the narrow paths of the garden it sometimes turned into a war of umbrellas.

We returned back to the hotel, much quicker this time as the traffic was easier. And here I am, sitting alone in my hotel room being anti-social! I will get around to photos another time, I'm nearly dead.

Missing everybody,

Alex

PS: there are vending machines everywhere! the one downstairs sells cigarettes haha

オバイ！

I had my farewell dinner last night at Number 25... farewelled all my fifteen friends!

I'd love to upload a ton of brilliant photos from my new camera, except there really are not any nice photos. Everybody seemed content on pulling dumb faces all night!

This was followed by the french trip party, which I really don't think I can put into words. Whenever I drink I get myself into the most random situations possible.

10 DAYS, can't wait!

photos!

かぞ く

三月二十四日

So, I've got 26 days left in Australia. Righto, blog time!

I've got a host family! I have a dad and mum, Masaki and Kumiko. There is a sister, Marina, who is 19 and studying at university, and a brother, Teppei, who is 17 and studying at high school. Also a dog, named Kuro, who I would say is black. Unfortunately I don't have any decent photos of my family I can upload for you, but hopefully they will be sending me some by email soon. I wrote them a pretty poor email in Japanese, so it'll be wonderful if they even reply at all. Here are some photos of their house that I stalkerly tracked down on Google Maps...







Notice the bikes out the front of their house? I will be riding one of them to school! 4.5km, and takes 30 mins according to the information I've received. It actually sounds pretty cool, not sure if it'll be cool in Japanese summer heat, but I guess we'll see.

They all like fishing! Perhaps they'll take me fishing?

Alex

五十日間 [:

This is the last week of holidays for me, and my last week of working four days a week. I probably won't miss all the hours spent working, but I will definitely miss the money. I've been saving every cent, and hopefully this weekend in Melbourne I won't spend too much... >.<

In more exciting news, I've finally found a cool countdown timer!

And in even more exciting news, it's only 50 days until I leave!(At the time of publishing this post anyway.) I really cannot wait. I'm very happy with my school and city - the more I read/see online the more eager I get. No news on my family yet, I hope they're nice... Also waiting on information about my visa to come through. SEA will be forwarding that onto me, and I will in turn be forwarding it onto the consulate in Melbourne (I think).

I feel so unprepared! I haven't planned what clothes/luggage I'm taking, how much money I will be spending, my school uniform/books, gifts for family... D: I don't want to leave it all to the last minute (though I probably will), so I've been mentally making lists of things I must organise. I should be writing things down before I undoubtedly forget it all.

Hm, can't wait for school to start again to tell my teachers "Oh btw, I'm missing out on 5 months of your class." They're going to love it. Especially Mr Holwill with Maths Applied 3. He'll get over it... hopefully

I served Bernard Tomic today, and it wasn't with a tennis ball! oh dear, -sigh-

Alex

おかやまはどこで すか?

Today my school placement came through from Japan. My heart skipped a beat while on the phone with Sue from SEA - I thought she had said Okinawa! After seeking clarification, I was pleased to discover that it wasn't Okinawa, but instead Okayama. 'Where the hell is that?' I thought to myself. For anybody familiar with Japanese geography, it's located in the Chugoku region, on the coast sort of between Osaka and Hiroshima. For anybody with no idea of Japanese geography, see map below :P I'm extremely happy with the placement, and it looks like a nice place from what I've seen online. Okayama has a population of 700,000, so it's a fairly developed city which should keep things interesting. I'd much prefer a metropolitan city than a 'Burnie equivalent town', and being stuck in a small, boring village with nothing to do for five months.


Links you can follow:
My School's Website
Okayama - Wikipedia
Okayama - Japan Guide

I have no idea who I'm living with, or where. I could be living right next to the school, or an hour bus ride away. Either way I don't really mind, I'm just hoping for a nice family. I've been told that in Japan they select the school first, then find a family in that area to host the student. Hopefully that information will come through soon.

After some very tedious, online detective work, I managed to find my school on google maps, and using street view I can see what it looks like from the street. I finally have something I can upload photos of!


(Click on the pictures for a larger image)








Looking at little dull and grey in these pictures but I'm sure it'll be more lively with hundreds of Japanese teenagers buzzing around. Hopefully, anyway :P I've also received my departure date, and at this stage it's March 24. Flying out of Launceston, and then Sydney (most likely, not confirmed yet.) I will try to make a countdown timer for my blog, exciting!

Alex

何で?!

Even though it might be the holidays, I haven't really had much free time. I've been working four to five days a week to save money for my exchange... it's kinda expensive. I'm not really sure how much spending money I'll need once I'm over there, as I will be spending most days at school. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

On my days off I have been trying to improve my Japanese. I've realised how incredibly little I know, and how much more I have to learn! I want to try and get all the basics down, so then in Japan I have something to build upon. At the moment I'm stressing out about formal/informal language, and when it should and should not be used. I'm also worried about the Japanese honorific system, and unintentionally not showing respect to 'superior' people. Perhaps they'd just accept me as a dumb gaijin and move on... hopefully. For anybody who doesn't know what a gaijin is, it literally means 'outside person' and is the name given to a foreigner in Japan. That's me!

I've made myself a Japanese folder, and have been printing pages from the internet that explain a range of Japanese grammar. I've kind of taught myself the te and plain forms of verbs, but I'm not really comfortable with them yet. I've also been trying to increase my vocab, with lists of new adjectives and nouns. I hope to create one gigantic Japanese learning book folder thing which I can use to help me in Japan. I'm still waiting for my Japanese etiquette book I bought online to turn up from the UK, which should help me with the cultural side of things. I'm not sure how I will adjust to the Japanese culture, in particular the food... whale much?

I still have no information from SEA about my visa or placement, so I will just have to keep waiting for those. Time is going really quickly now, and it won't be long before I leave... can't wait!

Alex