Catching Up

あけましておめでとうございます! Happy New Year and welcome to my first blog post of 2011, year of the Rabbit! I'm truly sorry that I haven't been the greatest blogger lately. I could come up with a bunch of situation and reasons to tell you but they would only be excuses. Basically, my life as an exchange student is incredibly busy with everything being just thrown at you with no warning (and I enjoy every one bit of it) and when I do have time to myself, I'm just too lazy to write anything. But since it has been almost two months since my last update, I thought I should write up a little something for everyone. I hope you will enjoy it! :)

Let's go all the way back to December 30th, the day before New Year's Eve. I had made a list of places I wanted to go and things I wanted to see in Fukushima-ken for during my Winter Break. My top wish was to go back to Tokyo and visit the Tokyo Tower and Akihabara, one of the many sub-sections of Tokyo. I was lucky enough to find out that my club's Rotary President, Kaichou-san (kaichou means president in Japanese), was going to Tokyo on the 30th and was willing to take me with him. It was such a blast! I visited Asakusa again, took a tour around the Asakusa area while riding on a traditional Japanese cart, visited a “Maid Cafe” in Akihabara, saw the Imperial Palace, went to the business section of Tokyo, took apart of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's year end closing ceremony, and finally, visited Tokyo Tower! I will never forget that amazing day I was able to spend with Kaichou-san, living my dreams come true.


In front of the Asakusa Pagoda.

During our cart tour. Behind is the new Tokyo Tower that is currently being built. It is called the Sky Tree.

A faraway shot of the Imperial Palace. We didn`t have time to take a closer look unfortunatly.

The next three photos are shots from Akihabara, Tokyo`s biggest technilogical and animation center.



At the Business Sector of Tokyo.

In front of the TSE.

One of my friends had told me there was one Subway in all of Japan located in Tokyo and we randomly found it while walking around! It was delicous but quite the same as Canadian Subway.

TOKYO TOWER!!!!!! It has been my dream to visit Tokyo Tower for a very long time so once I got there it felt so unreal and I almost cried because of how happy I was and that I realized I am so lucky to be on this crazy Rotary "Rollar Coaster" Exchange.


I was glad we went during the evening instead of during the day because the view of lit-up Tokyo was just breath taking!

I was really excited to experience a Japanese New Year celebration because people kept telling me that it was like their version of Christmas, since Christmas is not very big in Japan. I spent most of my New Year's Eve's morning with my host mom's daughter-in-law and her family shopping for that night's “feast”. For the rest of the afternoon everyone, my host mom's son, daughter-in-law, and grand kids, helped pitch in make the dinner. We ate all sorts of foods including soba noodles (buckwheat noodles in a soup broth), oysters, shrimp, a special New Year's soup, mochi (Japanese rice cake made of sticky rice pounded into paste and molded into shape) and a bunch of other things that I can't recall at this time. It was all very delicious and our hard work was worth it in the end.

From after dinner to 11 pm we watched the special New Year's Countdown Music Show, much like the ones we have in North America. I am a fan of Japanese music, it is incredibly catchy, so I enjoyed seeing many of the popular bands of today that my friends are always talking about or hearing them on the radio. I also played some games with the younger kids and made a bunch of origami, my origami crane is getting pretty good, and snacked throughout the evening. At eleven the kids were getting tired and grumpy so their parents took them home. I was exhausted from the previous day's adventures so I was surprised that I was able to stay up until the clock struck midnight.

Two main traditions of that Japanese people take part of at New Year's are visiting a shrine to pray for good fortune for the new year as well as a having a huge house clean-up on New Year's Day. I had to get up early that day to help clean all day and we ate a lot of mochi, which is one of the main dishes during the New Year's celebration. (We have so much that we are still eating today...) Another Japanese New Year's tradition is that adult family members give their children money so my host mom as well as her son's family gave me some money, which was very kind of them. All in all, it was a very interesting experience.

For the last week of Winter Break, I was asked if I would like to stay with another Rotary member's family. They really wanted to host me but were not on the pre-arranged “host family list”. I eagerly said yes especially when I found out that they had two kids ages 9 and 10. As I look back on that week my heart breaks a little because I miss that family so much; we just clicked. I'm not saying that I never really liked my other host families because believe me, I love them all! But that family was a younger family who were extremely interested about me and Canada, as well as it was their first time hosting an exchange student. They went over the top for me, taking me wherever I wanted, treating me to dinner, dressing me up in one of their kimonos to go visit a shrine together, I couldn't be more thankful for having the chance to stay with them. Their son, Yuuki who is 10, reminded me a lot of my brother when he was Yuuki's age and their daughter, Saki who is 9, is the little sister any big sister would want. I still see them as my little siblings and they would call me onee-chan (which means older sister) and I love them so much. Two nights before I left, I was up late talking with my host parents and they told me that I was their family, that they saw me as a part of their family, and how much they loved me. It brought tears to my eyes because I couldn't believe how close we got in such a short time and that none of my host families up to that point had ever told me anything like that. It was so tough leaving them, but I will treasure those memories forever and hope to see them again.


My host siblings and I visiting a Japanese shrine.

After visiting the shrine my host family had some friends over for a small afternoon party. To my left is my host sister Saki and behind me is my host family`s friend`s daughter. They taught me how to play traditional New Year`s card games.

We went to Iwaki and spent the day at the Aquamarine. (My host dad was taking this picture so you can`t see him.)

Inside the Aquamarine. (You can see my host dad in the front wearing a green sweater.)

Lookin out behind us is the Sea of Japan.

I was able to meet up with Karly again and with my host family we were going to go bowling. When we went to pick her up she was with a bunch of her exchange friends from her school so we all teamed up and spent the day together. The guy in the front, Susumu, had won a prize.

Saki and I being complete dorks!

It was strange going back to school after a three week long Winter vacation, my sleeping schedule was completely out of whack for the first week. When I did go back however, I had noticed that my Japanese had improved greatly over the break and my friends were shocked as well. This made me feel very happy and now me and my three close friends are closer than ever because we can talk about a lot of different things. I'm not fluent yet, Japanese is a tough and slightly complex language, and have quite a ways to go but...I`m getting there. :)


After a Rotary meeting in January we ran into my town`s superhero, Daru Raizer! He was getting ready to crash a party being held at the same hotel where my club meets but was kind enough to take a picture with me before he did.

Before school started I was also able to get together with Momoko, my club`s rebound student who went to France last year, and Alex, an exchange student from France.

This is a "Super Jumbo Parfait" that we ordered to share....we only ate alf of it. Hahaha!

The rest of January was fairly uneventful compared to my Winter Break, but I still enjoyed going to school everyday to be with my friends. However, I was looking forward to the last weekend in January, the weekend of our Rotary Winter Camp!

Like any RYE event, the Winter Camp was a blast! We went to Bundai-san (Mt. Bundai) again, we went there for our first Summer Camp at the beginning of the year (wow has it already been that long?), and spent the whole weekend skiing. I was especially excited because we were able to meet our district's next year's outbounds for the first time! As I had mentioned in a previous entry, I have already met the outbound from my town, so I was excited to meet the others. There are four in total, three girls and one boy. The girls are going to America, France, and Canada and the boy from my town is also going to Canada! (Specifically Alberta! I hope he is able to come to my district!) As in addition to us and outbounds, rebounds and a lot of Rotex also attended the Winter camp so it was a full lodge! Everyone thought that because Karly and I are from Canada that we were experts at skiing but truth be told, that was only my second time skiing and the last time I went skiing was almost four years ago! I was very, very rusty but thankfully I only fell once during the whole weekend. But of course by the end of the weekend we were all completely exhausted and could barely move because of how sore we were. (Well, at least I was.)


Left to right: Hayate, Me, and Momoko. Oh and I also got a haircut!

Before getting to the ski resort we stopped at a lake to take pictures at and it was covered with these tents because everyone was ice fishing! I swore I had transported bac to Canada...

Believe it or not but this is the same place we went to during Summer Camp back in August! There was so much snow that we weren`t, or more rather couldn`t, go out through the back patio doors.

The skill hill!



Thr four of us inbounds spent our free time before dinner that night playing in the snow because we had none back in our cities. We felt like little kids again!

At dinner.

Hayate (my club's outbound), Momoko (my club's rebound), and I were also fortunate to take an extra trip to Inawashiro Lake and Aizuwakamatsu City before heading home after Winter Camp. Even though we were all exhausted, we still enjoyed the extra trip. Inawashiro Lake is the second biggest lake in Japan and home to so many swans and ducks! Birds don't “fly south” in Japan so all the poor ducks were shivering in the snow banks. They were also extremely tame and would walk right up to you, probably thinking you had food to give them. One even flew right past my face! It had really startled me. At Aizuwakamatsu we drove to the Aizuwakamatsu Castle, the most famous castle in Fukushima-ken. The caste and the grounds around it was covered in pure white, glistening snow and it was just dazzling! No matter how many times I visit Japanese castles, I am always blown away by their beauty and structure.


Swans at Inawashiro Lake.

It was so hilarious watching people try to drive around all these half-tame, carefree ducks roaming around!

Aizuwakamatsu Castle.

January had ended just as quickly as it had began and before I knew it it was already February. I still can't believe how quickly time seems to be speeding by for me. February 1st was a school holiday and for a week I had been planning with some of my school friends to go to Koriyama, a bigger city 40 minutes away by train, to spend the day hanging out. You couldn't begin to imagine how excited I was for this trip; it was going to be my first time really spending time with these girls out of school. Japanese high school is so tough on students and everyone is being pressured by their teachers and families to get good grades so they can get into a good university. They also almost have a test or extra lessons every weekend to attend that I am always opted out from. So whenever I asked my friends if my friends were busy and wanted to hang out, the answer was always no. For the first little while I was really discouraged by this, and it took a lot of time getting used to. But now I just treasure the time we have together at school and continue to ask them when they are able to go out on the weekends with me.

Anyway, getting back to our Koriyama trip, one of my exchange friends, Karly, who is pretty much my best friend here, lives in Koriyama so we were able to meet her at the Koriyama Station as well. We spent our whole entire day at the Eki (Station) because most big stations in Japan are also the town's giant shopping mall and the “to-be” place to hang out. We took a lot of Purikura (Japanese photo booths), ate a delicious Italian lunch, and shopped until we dropped. I am in love with Japanese fashion so I bought a bunch of new, cute outfits which were also unfortunately quite expensive. I think that is only one of the things that I have found more expensive in Japan than Canada are the clothes. My school friends got along with Karly and we are making plans to go out Karaoking next time there is a school holiday!


Purikura. We went to like four different booths and took six photos at each so I have a bunch of photos full of good memories.

That same night I attended a joint Shirakawa Rotary Club New Year's Party which my club hosted. All three Rotary Clubs of Shirakawa attended and I sat at a table of all women from the other two clubs. I enjoyed talking to the ladies and telling them about me and Canada and they made a fuss over me all evening and even asked to take photos together afterwards.


The different Rotary Banners. My club`s banner is on the far right.

The three Rotary Presidents during a flag exchange ceremony.

And this brings us up to this past weekend's events. On the 11th, Friday, it was Emperor's Day so everyone had a holiday and during the whole weekend one of Shirakawa's biggest festivals took place, the Daruma Ichi Festival! My friend Ena, who is one of my exchange friends, and I made plans together for her to travel to Shirakawa and spend the day together at the festival. It was kind of funny though when she arrived because she had told me to meet her at the Shirakawa Station, which was really convient because it was only a five minute walk from the festival from there. However, she did not realize that Shirakawa has two stations, the local, older station, and the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) Station, which is a 40 minute walk from the festival. Can you guess which station she actually arrived at? We had a good laugh about it afterwards and even though it was cold and snowy we saw it as a way to get more exercise and burn calories. I think I walked for a total of eight hours that day, my feet felt numb with pain afterwards and even today they hurt a bit. At the festival we ate way too much delicious food and bought a ton of souvenirs. It's always an adventure when I am with my exchange friends.


This is what the whole entire old downtown area of Shirakawa looked like. Shirakawa is a city of only bout 60,000 people but the news said that night that there was over 100,000 people in attendance that day!

My town`s superhero and his nemisis made an appearance at the festival as well. This is the Daru Raiser`s nemisis and his henchmen. Oh yeah, and Ena too. Hahaha!

I Googled some pictures of some of the food we ate that day. This is Takoyaki, friend batter with octopus bits inside.

This is called Taiyaki, a cake in the shape of a fish which is then stuffed with different types of fillings. We had a chocolate flavored one.

Ichigo Ame, or Strawberry Candy, which is exactly like Candy Apples.

This is Karage, which is basically fried chicken but oh so delicious when topped with mayonaise!

So that pretty much brings you up to date of what I have been up to lately! I hoped you all enjoyed my rather long entry today. On Tuesday I will have been in Japan for officially six months. Even just typing that makes it feel so unreal...has it really been that long? It is hard to comprehend that I have only less than five more months left to go before I head back to Canada. I will defiantly be making the most of the rest of the time I have here and cannot wait to see what else is in store for me.

じゃあまたね! Until next time!

~Stephanie

Merry Christmas!

メリークリスマス!!! Merry Christmas everyone! Well, I am a bit late but it's the thought that counts. I had planned to get this post up on Christmas Day, but I never got to it. First off I want to thank all of my family and friends who sent me Christmas gifts. I truly felt the love and it helped me get through my homesickness I was feeling in the weeks before the 25th. Also, I want to specifically thank my awesome Rotary Sponsor Club who sent me a beautiful Christmas card! I was so shocked when I got it in the mail today and even more shocked when I opened it. Thank you for all that you have done for me so far, and here is to what is to come in 2011 for us!

Now before I dive right into Christmas Day, I want to go back and tell you guys about all of the different Christmas Parties I attended and the other activities I did leading up to the 25th.First up was the regular Rotary meeting I attended. However, it turned out to not be a normal meeting. My host club had chosen their next year's exchange student and asked him and his father to attend that week to be officially introduced. His name is Hayate Sato and he is a year younger than me. He also goes to my school and I had met him before at the University Exchange Student Meet-and-Greet. Hayate is a good kid, very smart, and is hoping to go to Canada, which is really cool because I can teach him a bunch of stuff here and help him out in Canada next year! After the meeting, we both had so many questions for each other so we were able to arrange to go to Denny's (yes they have Denny's in Japan!) to chat. I think we were there for an hour and half, maybe more, and we both had a blast. I really hope he is able to go to Canada next year!


This is Hayate!

The first Christmas Party I attended was on December 9th and it was a joint Shirakawa Rotary Club party. There are three different Rotary Clubs in my city and members and their families from each club attended. It was held at an English Manor that is now used as a hotel and boarding school called British Hills (I think...). I'm not sure what time period, but when the King and Queen of England came to Japan, they stayed in this manor. Before dinner we got a tour of the place and it felt like I had magically transported to England, or into Hogwarts. Everything there was super fancy; from the rooms, to the food, to the British waiters and waitresses. It was kind pretty cool that the waiters and waitresses didn't speak any Japanese because I was able to test out my translation skills for the first time! Yeah, that's right! One of the waitresses really appreciated it and it also shocked me that I was able to help translate. The food was absolutely to die for and I was able to talk to all sorts of different people from the different clubs. I also saw snow fall for the first time since I got to Japan. This manor is located near the top of a mountain so when it snowed, it really came down. I really did miss seeing snow...(We still don't have snow here in Shirakawa.)


The dining hall looked exactly like something out of Hogwarts!

My host club`s president and me.


After dinner all of the `kids` got stockings full of snakcs from `Santa`.

We exchange students in the Fukushima district are so lucky to have such amazing せんぱい`s! (aka the Rotex.) Last week, on the 19th, Ayaka and Motoko, two of the Rotex, arranged a special Christmas party for us girls. (There is unfortunately only four of us now because Brendha, the Mexican exchange student, was sent home due to medical reasons. We miss you Brendha!!) We, Karly (Canada), Ena (America), Oceanne (France), and I, met the two Rotex in Koriyama and headed off to Round One, a entertainment/rec center. We played two rounds of bowling, took crazy pictures in Purikura photo booths, and played arcade games. It was a blast! Afterwards, we were all famished so we headed to a cafe that was nearby. What we didn't know was that Motoko had gone ahead of us and ordered special Christmas cakes for us! They were so delicious! We also pigged out on a bunch of other, very unhealthy, yet delicious food while at the cafe. It was such a great day that ended in an even greater way. We came by a giant shoe sale where I bought myself a new pair of boots as a Christmas present. あやかせんぱい、もとこせんぱい．．．ありがとうねええ～！！


They had bowling pin costumes at the bowling alley. LOL! Left to right: Motoko, Me, Karly.

Left to right: Ayaka, Ena, Oceanne.

Purikura.

Christmas cake~

My new boots!

On the following Wednesday was my third Christmas party and this time it was just my Rotary Club's party and their families. Momoko, she went to France last year, and Hayate were both there so we had fun talking to each other. I wasn't disappointed with the food, it was beyond delicious, and our Christmas BINGO game was crazy and fun. I won a very cute Snoopy towel and Minnie Mouse cosmetics bag.


Momoko and I at the Christmas Party.

My host mom went to Tokyo on the 23rd and couldn't bring me along so after the Rotary party I went home with the club president, who is my host mom's son, and his family. I stayed with them for two nights and I had a lot of fun. They have three children ages 6, 7, and 10 and if you didn't know already, I love little kids! I learned so much in those two nights from those kids, and they learned a lot of English too! We spent most of our time together shopping or playing Mario Kart on Wii. I see them as my host siblings because they are my host mom's grandchildren so I often get to see them. They also call me `おねえちゃん` which means older sister. Their mom even bought me a new pair of Converse shoes as a Christmas present!


Shutoro (Shu-chan), age 10.

Yuzuha (Yu-chan), age 6.

Both Karly and I were a bit homesick around the holidays so we decided to do something about it. On Christmas Eve Day, we took over the streets of Shirakawa in the name of Canada! Well...not really, but Karly did come and visit and we walked around town for like two hours, went to a restaurant, and rented a movie. We both agreed we wouldn't know what to do if we weren't on this exchange together and our friendship gets stronger everyday. Love ya girlie!

Christmas Eve eve was really weird for me. I am so used to going to a Christmas Eve Church service and then spend the rest of the night with my family opening our stockings. I have to admit, after my host mom went to bed that night, I felt pretty alone. But thanks to today's amazing technology, I was able to Skype my parents and grandparents and being able to talk to them made me feel so much better and I wasn't dreading Christmas Day as much as I was before. On a side note, I think my homesickness is very backwards! Or at least in how I deal with it. If I am really missing someone, I tend to send them an email or set up a Skype date with them and after talking with them for awhile, my sadness is pretty much gone...you would think it would be the other way around.... I'm so strange! Haha.

Christmas in Japan was very...different. It almost felt like Christmas just skipped over me this year or that it got canceled or something. Japanese people don't really celebrate Christmas. It's mostly a holiday for kids under 10, who get candy and one or two gifts, and couples. And because Japan is a Buddhist country, the center focus of Christmas for them is Santa, not Jesus. Which was very, very strange for me because I was raised in a Christian home. Despite Christmas not feeling like Christmas, I am glad to report that it did not turn out to be Dooms Day like I had thought it may be.

I spent my morning opening the presents I had gotten in the mail from my parents as well as finishing up wrapping the presents I would be giving to my extended host family later that evening. I then shared a nice breakfast with my host mom and I gave her what she told me was her first Christmas present. In the afternoon I walked to a local grocery store to pick up some ingredients for my `famous` chicken noodle soup I was making for our family Christmas party. I was a bit surprised to find out that the party was being held at my host mom's house because she has a such a small place, but it turned out to be a great time. My, what I like to call, `extended` host family includes: my host mom's son, his wife, and three kids, and my host mom's daughter and her daughter. It was a full house! Haha. For some reason, a traditional Japanese Christmas dinner consists of fried chicken. Why fried chicken, I don't know...But it was delicious all the same! My chicken soup and mashed potatoes were a huge hit as well! I was also glad that everyone loved their Christmas gifts. I love gift giving and it really helped me feel better as well. My goal for that day was to go to bed with a smile on my face and I am happy to say that I was able to accomplish that goal.


This is a picture of me and my entire extended host family. (Minus one person who was taing the picture.)

Everyone opening the gifts I gave them!

More Christmas cake!

Hana (Ha-chan), age 7.

December has been my toughest month so far because I love Christmas and all of my family and friends' traditions and missing out on them was a struggle for me. But thankfully, I was able to stay busy and share some of my Christmas traditions to my host family and friends here in Japan, therefore staying relatively happy. One of my exchange friends said that if she could get through Christmas without her family, she could get through anything and I couldn't agree more. As I wrote this entry tonight I was able to look back a bit and realize that everything I went through this month has made me a stronger person. I don't really know how to explain it but, I just feel different, like I struggled to climb Mt. Everest and did indeed get to the very top. Hmm, yeah, I like that. December was my Mt. Everest and my perseverance paid through in the end.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and best wishes for 2011! I am so looking forward to New Year`s in Japan; their New Year`s is like our Christmas. It should be a blast!

じゃまたね! Until next time!

~Stephanie