Sorry and Day 1 of School Trip

Yikes! I am so bad at keeping this updated my sincere apologies! I thought for sure I would be one of those good bloggers who made updates at least once a week or so, but apparently I am not. This is probably going to be one of those gigantic blog entries; I may even split it up into different posts after I finish typing it all up. Let’s travel back in time to Kyoto and my amazing school trip! 一緒に行きます!!

The first day of the school trip, this was back on October 13th, started out very early. It was the beginning of my new schedule of early mornings, late nights, and crazy packed days, and I was not looking forward to that aspect of the trip. I was up at five in the morning because I had to meet my class at the train station at six to catch our train at seven. The inside of the train station was extremely hectic and noisy. Imagine putting about 240 students (plus teachers) in one area and make them wait an hour before our train came in. Thankfully, Japanese students are slightly more behaved than most high school students back in Canada so the teachers did not have an extremely hard time controlling all of us. Before I knew it, we were on the boarding pad (is that what it’s called?) and our train was pulling up. Now, I have only really rode on a train before once, and this was at like Disney World or something (I can’t exactly remember) so I was very excited and anxious. To add to my butterflies, our train was actually a Shinkansen (Bullet Train), which are the fastest and most luxurious trains in Japan. Riding in one was an experience of a life time. When the train starts moving, it’s really slow at first, like an airplane, but within a few seconds, the train is shooting out of the station at incredible speeds! And you continued to get this rushed feeling throughout the trip, unlike in airplanes where it feels like you aren’t moving. Shinkansens are also defiantly luxurious; the seats are huge and comply and the amount of leg room you get is unbelievable! That must be what first class fliers experience all the time. I was a bit disappointed when it was too cloudy to see Mt. Fuji as we pulled into the Tokyo area, but I did get to see glimpses of the Tokyo Tower!



At Shin Shirakawa Station.

My class waiting to get on the Shinkansen.

I don’t think I have seen so many people in one small area at once in my whole entire life, when we arrived at the Shin Tokyo Train Station. (Shin stands for Shinkansen.) I literally just hung onto one of my friend’s jackets as we were somehow shepherded through the station to catch out next train. Our second Shinkansen was going to take us to Himeji, Hyōgo, Japan which was about a three hour ride. Not a lot of people were used to such a lengthily time to travel, but I was completely used to it from living in Alberta! I spent my time chatting with friends, sleeping, and reading my book and soon enough, we had arrived. Now, at the time, I did not know we were in Himeji because I could not read the student schedule nor did anyone tell me we were going to Himeji. So poor little, foreign me, followed the rest of my class out of the station and onto these giant tour buses having no clue of what was in store. I have to come to accept that this is just how an exchange student’s life is, always living by the seat of your pants, never knowing what excitement to expect. Haha! After the buses started to take off, I finally asked one of my friends where we were going, and low and behold, we were going to THE most famous castle in ALL of Japan, Himeji Jō. (Jō means Castle.)


Some of my friends (on the Shinkansen).

Never in a million years had I ever thought that I would be able to see this famous castle with my own two eyes. It was so spectacular and it was one of the highlights of the trip for me. There was a slight downside however; the castle was currently being “refurbished” so the entire thing was covered in sky high metal bars and wires. Despite this, it was still such an amazing sight and our tour guide told us that they would be finished next spring so I am hoping to visit there again.

Speaking of our tour guide! Our group probably had the best tour guide ever and do you know why? He spoke fluent English! When I had gone to Komine Jō back in Shirakawa, I missed out on understanding all the history and stories about the place because I didn’t always understand our guide. But it was quite the opposite at Himeji Jō! Our guide would explain about part of the castle or an ancient legend about it as we stopped by, and afterwards, he would summarize what he said in English to me. I was so grateful for that and because of him, that’s probably one of the reasons why I enjoyed that part of the trip so much.




Our stay in Himeji wasn’t long, and after we visited the castle, we were back on the road headed towards Kobe, Hyōgo. (This was about an hour’s drive away.) And speaking of driving, driving in Japan is like nothing I have experienced. Seriously. In Canada, we’re used to driving through a town or city then hitting hours of nothing until we get to the next town or city. In Japan, there is practically no “country”. It’s just house after house after house after stores after stores…it never seemed to end! It’s very bizarre.

We first stopped at this kind of memorial and information center in Kobe that was all about the largest earthquake that had hit Japan, in that area, back in 1995. Me and earthquakes have not been getting along, I get all nervous when suddenly the ground under my feet that I trust to hold me up starts to move. So when we went into two different theatres to watch two different reenactments of the earthquake, I was pretty freaked out. It was so sad to see all of the destruction; I didn’t even know such a thing had ever happened! (If you didn’t know either, Google “The Great Hanshin Earthquake”.) Going there kind of put a slight damper on my day, but it was still interesting to hear about.

The last stop for our first day was at the famous Kobe Port, one of the most famous ports in Japan. And was it ever beautiful! The plan was to go on a dinner cruise, but before we did, we had some free to time to explore the port’s beautiful park. I had a lot of fun with my friends running around and taking pictures and just taking in every moment. It was so warm too! The sun had set a long time ago, but it was still felt like 20+ degrees! I love being so south and by the sea.







To finish of a great start to an amazing trip, the dinner cruise was simply spectacular. The dinner was buffet style and I ate so much! Haha. Afterwards, we all headed out to tour the boat and spent most of our time outside on the top level of the small ship. We all had to be in our uniforms during the school trip, so all of us girls were all quite frantic on top of the boat with our skirts on. We had a lot of good laughs though. After the dinner cruise, we headed back to our hotel for the night and then began my sleeping schedule of very late nights and extremely early mornings.






For now, this is all I’m going to post because I feel bad for not posting anything for a month now. My goal is to get everything up about the school trip by the end of this weekend. Thank you for being so patient everyone! じゃあまたね! (See you later!)

~Stephanie

More Festivals and Biking Adventures

So it’s been over two weeks (possibly three) since I updated again; my sincere apologies. I am actually quite shocked at how life has been so crazy but yet…not stressful at the same time. It’s kind of nice. To tell you the truth, I can’t exactly remember what all happened these past few weeks. It’s become a bit of blur, but a good kind of blur. Nothing too exciting really occurred, and nothing to horrible happened. Life these past few weeks have been…satisfying. (?) Hm, I’m not sure if that’s the right word to describe my feelings but I think you can get the idea. (Sort of?) There is however some stuff I will be highlighting in this post, like that festival I mentioned in my last entry. So off we go!

The festival I went to, on September 19th, was called the Chochin Matsuri, or Lantern Festival. Shirakawa City has one of the most famous and largest Chochin Matsuri’s in all of Japan, so when I learned about this festival back in Canada, I was so excited. Unfortunately, it only occurs every 3 years and the last one took place last year. I was a bit disappointed at the time, but what I didn’t know was that during the two years they don’t hold the big one, small Chochin Matsuri’s are held! What the “small” version of the Chochin Matsuri consisted of was a not so small parade through town. It was simply amazing. If that was the “small” version, I would love to see the main festival in two years time.

The Chochin Matsuri is a Shinto religion festival and groups of men (and sometimes women) will carry Shinto shrines on their backs throughout the town to honor the spirits of the dead. I lost count at how many different groups carried shrines and they looked so heavy. When one group would get to an intersection (me and my host mom got a good spot) they would start dancing, I guess that’s what you can call it, while still carrying the shrine. Man, it was so cool! Not all of the groups carried shrines though and people of a wide arrange of ages participated in the parade. Different groups carried different sized lanterns as well as these lanterns on GIANT poles. They were huge! It took like at least two people to carry one of these poles with lanterns on top and to make their jobs more challenging; they had power lines to maneuver through. Another part of the parade was all of the local Shinto priests marched through the streets, holding small lanterns, while these two men dressed up as famous Shinto spirits. The “spirits” danced around and put on quite the show. However, as a respect to their religion, my host mom told me not to take any pictures of the portion of the parade when the priests and “spirits” passed by. So far, it’s been in my top five of the coolest things I have ever seen here in Japan.




Photos from the Chochin Matsuri. (Working on uploading some videos.)

The weeks after the festival were filled with mainly school. I am finally starting to enjoy school. There was a point where I didn’t see much of a point in me going because I did nothing. But I know see it as a good opportunity to study Japanese, since the teachers don’t expect me to do the work, and hang out with my school friends. I also got together with my Club Councilor for dinner one evening to just chat about how things were going. He’s a pretty neat guy and promised to take me out to do more sight-seeing together.

One kind of cool thing that happened to me last week happened when I was looking for the local post office. I had a letter I wanted to send to a friend of mine, so my host mom drew me a map of where to go after school. I got so turned around looking for it. Haha. While I was trying to get my bearings, I found this small, random park type place. It was on side of the road and it kind of looked like they made a park to reserve some ruins. Shirakawa City is very old and has over 30 different temples scattered around the city. (Some are still open and some are blocked off.) They had a bunch of signs explaining different ruin-type looking objects, but I couldn’t make out most of it. Finding this little area made me realize that I should start touring the city by myself more. (I did eventually find the Post Office.)



And that following weekend, that’s exactly what I did. I hopped on my bike and set off for an adventure that was totally worth going on. First of all, I want to say that I don’t think life couldn’t get any better here when I can say “I hopped on my bike to tour the streets of a city located in Japan.” Like really, wow. (RYE you rock!) They area of town I head towards is the “newer” part of town, where most of the shopping centers are. I found an abundant amount of connivance stores on my little adventure, and they have the coolest snacks and drinks ever! I also found a 100 Yen Shop (Kinda like our Dollar Stores), a book and video store, various restaurants, a donut shop, a specialty cake/cafe type place, and the entrance of the main shopping center. I only stopped at a couple of the places so I am planning to go back and check out some more. When I saw the donut store, I wasn’t planning to go inside…however; the smell that was being emitted from the building lured me in. While I was locking my bike up, someone behind me called my name, and when you’re in Japan and probably being the only person with natural blonde hair with that name, so you can imagine how shocked and confused I was to hear my name being called. It turned out to be Maria Tsubata’s mother! Maria is the Japanese Exchange student for District 5370 and is currently living in Edmonton. I have met her mother three times before and she is such a super nice lady. She’s kind of like my second host mom to me. She had come to go shopping, saw my head of blonde hair, and pulled over to chat. We went into the donut shop together and she ended up insisting on buying my snack for me. She also signed me up for a members point card and like ten coupons. Oh boy, extra Rotary pounds here we come. Even though there was still a bit of a language barrier between us, we enjoyed each other’s company and Tsubata-san even promised to take me shopping sometime. It was a very successful adventure. :)

This coming weekend is Thanksgiving, and I am planning to do something special for my host family. I told them about Canadian Thanksgiving and asked if I could make them a pumpkin pie. My host grandma is going to take me shopping for ingredients on Saturday, and then help me bake it. I am also going to make one for my class. I have a Diary I write in during the first twenty minutes of school, and mentioned this. My teacher was shocked to hear that Canada has a different Thanksgiving and asked me if I would mind telling the class about it. So now I have to do a little research on it, and hopefully my pies will turn out okay!

Next week is finally approaching, and I have been looking forward to it for a long time. Next week, all of the 2nd years (Grade 11’s) leave for a 4 day school trip to Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe! Osaka and Kyoto are two cities on my “to-see” list and I cannot wait! We are going to USJ (Universal Studios Japan) and Osaka Castle (the most famous castle in Japan) in Osaka, taking an evening cruise in Kobe, and we are being “let loose” in Kyoto. I EVEN GET TO RIDE THE SHINKANSEN!!! (Bullet Train.) Oh my gosh, I am so excited.

My next entry probably won’t be until after my trip, so sayonara! (For now.)

~Stephanie

PS - I also got a new hair cut!

Apologies! - Three Weeks Worth of Adventures

My apologies everyone! My “day or two” promise about an update entry turned out to be a week. It’s almost like I am living every day to the fullest in Japan or something. Haha! Okay, let’s turn the clock back to the first week of September, that’s where I will begin this entry.

From Wednesday, September 1 to Friday, September 3 all classes had been canceled, therefore giving us students three full days to prepare our classrooms and the entire school for the upcoming Bunkasai, or School Festival. Those three days were some of the best times I have had with my classmates so far and I am so thankful that the Bunkasai occurred so quickly after my arrival. I was given the chance to work with my peers, get to know them, and just let go and have fun.

Our class’s theme for the festival was a bit like a giant “photo booth” that you would find in a mall. The idea was that the customers would have the choice if they wanted to wear a costume or not, choose the backdrop they wanted (we made two different backdrops), and get their photo taken! We were even getting a printer in the classroom with photo paper so we could print out the picture and give it to the customers.


The theme this year was "Time Waits for No One".

Three girls named Ikumi, Misato, and Riho invited me to join their group and work together. We ended up going to a huge mall together and buying t-shirts to decorate for the festival. Misato drew a large image on the back of my shirt and I decorated the rest of my shirt. It was so much fun and it makes a great souvenir. I also went around to different groups and helped out as much as I could. Some of the following things I did to help were: make and hang paper flowers (we made hundreds, not even kidding), cut out hearts and stars then spray paint them, spray paint letters, hang the backdrops, hang and organize the cosumtes and a whole lot more that I can’t remember. It was a long and exhausting few days, but when everything was put together, our classroom looked so amazing.


My festival shirt. The front symbol means: Cherry Blossom.

On Friday, we had an opening ceremonies for the festival and a few people from each class would dress up, go on stage, and advertise what they what activities they had to offer at the festival. Some of the guys in my class (Yuuta, Toshiki, Tikashi, and one other guy but I can’t recall his name) dressed up in Sailor Moon and Pretty Cure costumes. These two shows are very famous “magical girl” animated series in Japan and it was hilarious seeing the guys in skirts and wearing ribbons and wigs.




Silly Japanese Boys.

Saturday was our costume parade day and my friends lent me a very cute French Maid Outfit. I think the parade was one of my favorite parts of the festival, even though it was extremely hot. We paraded through town for two hours, got our pictures taken multiple times, and I got to talk to some of the students I wouldn’t normally be able to talk to. After the parade, we put the finishing touches to our classroom and left the school extremely exhausted. I slept very well that night.


My class at the cosplay parade. YOU GUYS ROCK!

I woke up really on Sunday so I would be able to get to school early to help with last minute fine tuning. One of my classmates, Mika, had also asked me to come early so she could do my makeup and my hair and she did an amazing job. My shift at working in the classroom wasn’t until later in the morning, so once the festival began Misato, Ikumi, and I toured around the other classrooms. Everything was so colorful and the air was just buzzing with excitement. We played a few “carnival games” and won some small prizes as well as created some neat key chains. But soon we had to head back to help out running our classroom activity. My job was to stand outside the door and herd people inside. I also went with some classmates around the school yelling out “Ninen nikumi, kitte kudasai!” (Please come to Classroom 2-2!) Before I knew it, we were closing things down for a lunch break and I was so glad to be able to sit down.



What our classroom looked like.

Neither Misato nor I were scheduled to work any shifts after lunch, so we spent the rest of the day going to each classroom. Man, there was a lot! We went to so many different café styled rooms and ate and drank way too many sweet things. Haha. We also went to some Haunted Houses; more carnival games, and went back to the Art Club’s set up to make more key chains. I have never had so much fun at a school function or had been that exhausted like I was that day in my life. Our classroom activity turned out to be a huge success but everyone was glad that it was finally over. My heart sunk a little when our homeroom teacher told us that we would still have to come to school on Monday, but then they were giving us Tuesday and Wednesday off from school. The reason why we had to attend school on Monday was to take everything down and watch the Closing Ceremonies for the Bounkasai. It was a little heart breaking when we were taking everything down. It took us almost a full week of preparing but only an hour to take everything down. The Closing Ceremony was also pretty exciting; it was a very appropriate way to end our school’s festivities. We watched a slideshow presentation about the events that had taken place that week as well as awards for the best classrooms were given out. Our class, 2-2, won third prize!! Thankfully, the teachers let us go home and lunch to get an early start to our “holiday” but before my classmates and I took off, we planned a celebratory party to take place the following night at a Doutonbori, a type of Japanese restaurant.


Misato (orange) and Ikumi (yellow) trying to catch fish with rice paper scoops.

The party at the Doutonbori was such a blast. This was the first time I got to meet up with my classmates out of school and almost all 40 of us showed up! We pretty much took over the whole restaurant. Haha. Doutonbori’s are very unique restaurants. They serve what’s called “okonomiyaki”, which is pretty much like a big potato pancake filled with meat, vegetables, and other good stuff. From the menu, you would order what type of okonomiyaki you would like and the waiters would bring you the raw ingredients. What you would do then was you mix the ingredients together and cook the okonomiyaki yourselves! The tables had giant, built-in “frying pans” on them. Misato, Ikumi, and I sat at a table and those two girls went crazy and ordered like six different kinds of okonomiyaki’s to split between the three of us. (Misato and Ikumi are probably what you can call my “best friends” here in Japan.) We ended up calling some of the guys over to help us eat it all, haha! Everything was so delicious, and I think okonomiyaki made my “Top 5” for the best Japanese food. I can’t wait for a chance to go back to the Doutonbori.



The four steps of okonomiyaki:
1.)Raw Ingredients 2.)Mixing 3.)Cooking 4.)Finished Product

I don’t really remember what happened between Wednesday and Friday that week, but I had a very memorable Saturday, a week after the School Festival! I had really been itching to go back to Komine Castle and actually go inside and tour around it and the grounds it stood on. So when my host mom asked me what my plans were for Saturday were I asked her if she could take me. My host mom thought that was a great idea and was totally up for taking me. I am still amazed by the beauty of that castle and how much history exists in that one area.

We were able to get our own private tour guide and although I didn’t understand him completely, he had lots of pictures to explain historical parts along the tour, so that helped a lot. Komine Castle is the 6th most famous castle in Japan, and the one that is erect right now is actually an exact replica of the original. The original castle was built sometime around 1177 (or maybe it was 1117?) and only 10 years ago, the government decided to tear it down because of its instability. Isn’t that crazy?! The castle was originally built to house the royalty/nobles that ruled over what is know Shirakawa and it was passed down for many, many generations.



There are still ruins and old shrines lying around where the original castle stood and it was amazing to see that some of the shrines were still in good condition. Our tour guide told us that the biggest shrine that was still standing there was built, they figure, sometime during the Meiji Period! That thought just blew me away. You can also still see markings of Japanese characters carved into the original protective walls, which are still standing! I really wished I had paid more attention in social class back in Grade 7 when we had a Japanese history unit. Haha.


This is the shrine that was built in the Meiji Period.

Finally, we came to the actual castle itself. The government put money towards building this exact duplicate because of how famous this site had become. A well known Japanese movie was also shot at Komine! The castle itself was actually quite small; it had looked a lot bigger from the outside. I think the coolest part of the castle was that they salvaged all the wood they could from the original castle and incorporated it into the duplicate! Some of the wood in the floor on the first as well as one of the walls, there were different sizes of bullet holes or chipped wood where a bullet grazed against it. I really want to look into what kind of battle was fought at Komine Castle. The castle had three levels, and each level was smaller than the one before it. The stairs were also scarily steep; I thought for sure I was going to fall down head first on my way down. Overall, the trip was just so awe inspiring and I am so glad I asked my host mom if she would take me. I have found a new love for Japanese history and I really wish I could understand my Japanese History teacher in school because I think that would be my favorite class. That just means I have to work that much harder at picking up Japanese. And to top off our day, my host mom took me to an Udon shop for lunch. Udon is a type of thick noodle it was super delicious.


The scary steep stairs. I was standing at the very top and my host mom is a few steps from the bottom.

The following week (which was this past week); I had my first full week of classes. The first day of school was on a Wednesday and because of the festival, our school weeks had been scrambled up a bit. I made it through the week a lot happier than I thought I would. The school festival really helped in me bonding with my classmates so I had a feeling of belonging all week. I had also finally had it figured out in my head that this is a cultural exchange, not an academic exchange, so even though it’s mandatory to attend school, its okay that I don’t understand any of courses quite yet. It’s only my second month you know. Haha.


During that week, my classmate Ryoko had a birthday so I made her a card and gave her a Canadian pencil and pin.

This coming Monday (September 20th) is a holiday in Japan, so I get an extra day of rest, which I am really looking forward to. I also decided it may be a good time to get together with my exchange student friend, Karly. Karly is from Grand Prairie and we met at the Rotary Spring Orientation in Edmonton last March and quickly became very close friends. So we were both excited to hear that our towns are only a half hour drives away! We hadn’t seen each other since the Summer Orientation here, so I was really hoping to be able to get together with her this weekend. When I emailed her, she was also all for getting together, but unfortunately didn’t think we would be able to get together until the next weekend. I was a bit disappointed, but at least I had something to look forward to. But this morning I woke up to an urgent email from her saying that her host parents had decided to take her to this “Animal Kingdom” and would be driving through Shirakawa and wanted to know if I wanted to tag along! Each weekend seems to be topping the previous weekend, I could get used to this. Haha. Karly and I had such a blast at the Animal Kingdom and saw all sorts of creatures. My favorites were the penguins and kangaroos. We saw a dog, bird, and sheep show, as well as checking every single exhibit on the site (the place was so huge!), to even riding camels! We also chatted a lot, telling each other about our schools and the good things that happened as well as our struggles. We were able to give each other advice and encouraging words, and I think both of us were just so happy to “get away” and speak English for a bit. We make a great support team for each other. Somehow, we managed to be at the park for almost five hours and our feet were so sore by the time we got back to the van, but it was totally worth it. I can’t wait for another chance to get together with her.







Camel Riding!




Tomorrow, there is another festival and I cannot wait to go. For the past week I have been hearing the musicians practice near my house and each day that it gets closer, I get more excited. Hopefully my batteries won’t die on me this time!

Again, my apologies for such a late (and long) post. Three weeks worth of adventures is hard to fit into an entry. Maybe I will make a goal of updating at least every two weeks. I hope all is well in everyone’s lives and I miss you all!

~Stephanie

New Pictures - Longer Post to Come

Hey guys! Sorry for the inactivity, life in Japan has been super crazy for me since this new month started! I have been able to put up some new pictures so please click on the image on the left to view them. I'm quite exhausted from the School Festival, so I will have a better , longer, description about the festival in a day or two.

~Stephanie

Forgetfulness and School Updates

I have been very forgetful lately, and I don’t know why. I’m usually not the kind of person to forget something; I always over pack and double/triple check things over. So why have I been forgetting so much? They aren’t major things, but it still bugs me. It started off with me forgetting my cloth I wipe my face with at home instead of taking it to school. I was extremely gross and sweaty all day. Not cool. The next time I forgot something, I left my English to Japanese dictionary at home when my host mom took me out to apply for Japanese health insurance. Can you say stupid? Then when I went sightseeing with my counselor I brought my camera but forgot my extra batteries. Thankfully, the ones in my camera didn’t die. I was lucky. Now for the big one, I am still extremely mad at myself for this. I forgot my English to Japanese dictionary at school. I have been without it all weekend and it has been so frustrating. And the ironic part is that my teacher offered to lend me her giant English to Japanese dictionary for the weekend but I turned it down because “I would survive with mine.” ARGH!!! What is with me? –Sigh- Okay, sorry about that. I just needed to vent. But don’t worry, I won’t ever forget about my blog! :)

School has been an experience like no other. I have gone for three days and I’m starting to really enjoy it. I get a lot of attention at school though; it can be really embarrassing sometimes. I made a speech to the entire school so everyone knows my name. This is such an abnormally for me. Haha. I’ve gone to just being another human being wandering the school halls to a celebrity where everyone knows me and wants to be my friend. It partly has to do with my blonde-ish hair. There are 39 other students in my class and they all have been extremely welcoming and helpful. Unfortunately, I can only remember a few of their names and that makes me feel a bit guilty at times. I will eventually remember them all though.

Because I am a brand new exchange student, the teachers don’t expect much of me. But I have been surprising a lot of them. Even though I don’t understand what they are saying or writing, I still attempt to write down all of the notes. It’s better than just sitting there and fanning myself. (There is absolutely no air conditioning.) In Math class, they were doing stuff I learned in grade 9 so I was actually able to understand it and my Math teacher was shocked that I was doing the work. I am still learning new things though! During any English classes, I go down to the library or staff room to do my own studies. My teacher, Namae-sensei, is the best teacher in the whole entire world. She went out and bought me a bunch of Japanese textbooks to study from and she said she ordered more as well because they were sold out. She is also buying me an electronic translator this weekend! How cool is that? Oh, and she is the English teacher so she helps me with a lot of things from telling me what’s going on, to making sure I know where I am going, and explaining what some students are trying to say to me. School is looking so much more enjoyable because of the extra mile Namae-sensei is going to make sure I’m comfortable and understand. I am so blessed.

We have a school festival coming up next weekend as well as a field trip on Thursday. The field trip is to watch some sort of traditional Japanese theatre I think. (I’m not quite entirely sure though.) But I am still looking forward to both! This week I am also hoping to get around watching different club actitivies and choosing what club I would like to join. I may also have a chance to see each one at the school festival as well. (This is a span of three days, meaning I get the following Tuesday and Wednesday off!) So despite me and my forgetfulness, things are really looking good for the next week! I am so excited!

~Stephanie

Festivals, and Orientations, and School - Oh My!

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven’t gotten around to updating this since I got back from the Rotary Orientation. I was busy and when I had free time I really didn’t feel like writing. Haha. My apologies. I’m going to backtrack a little and talk about Friday. I am hoping to squeeze in everything that has happened between Friday and today, but with my detailed writing, this may become very long. Well, let’s try it! Hobey ho! Let’s go!

On Friday, I was asked to help work at my host parents’ business. I was happy to accept the offer and I went with my host grandparents to make deliveries all around Shirakawa-shi and area. We delivered all sorts of things like bulk business cards to stacks of colored paper. It was a great time to talk to my host grandparents and teach them a few English words and they would teach me Japanese words in return. It was a long day and by the time we got home I was exhausted. But I had no time to rest. My friend Yuki and her mother were at my house waiting for me. They were going to take me to the Bon Festival! The Bon Festival (or sometimes called Obon) takes place all across Japan for three days but on different days depending on the area. It usually takes place during the month of August.

We drove to Yuki’s house where I met her grandparents and her sister. Her mom took me to a room where she had everything set up to get us ready for the festival. Yuki’s mother did my hair and I was shocked at how beautiful it looked once she was finished. When I saw the yukata, it is a summer kimono made out of cloth, I would be wearing, I was shocked. It was so beautiful, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to keep it. Yuki’s grandmother helped me put the yukata on…it was a lot more complicated than I thought. Everyone kept saying: “Kawaii!” (cute) or “Kirei ne!” (pretty) when I walked out of the room. It was slightly overwhelming, but Yuki’s mom and grandmother did a great job of getting me ready.



One of Yuki’s friends also came to her house to get helped in her yukata. Her name is Akane and she will be going to my school as well. I can’t remember if she will be in the same class as me, but she is in the same grade for sure. And of course, she was super nice. When we arrived at the festival grounds, I was blown away. Just the other day I had passed this lot and it was completely empty. Now, as I stood before it, there were booths everywhere selling food or trinkets, a huge stage in the middle, and lit lanterns everywhere. I whipped out my camera to take a picture and…it told me to change my batteries. Then I realized I had left my extra set back at Yuki’s house. I was quite devastated, but my moods quickly picked up as the festival began.

I met two more of Yuki’s friends, Kirin and Mihon, and they hung out with me during the whole festival. Mihon is in the same grade at my school as well but Kirin goes to a different high school in town. Yuki and Akane were a part of the performance going onstage. On stage, some older ladies sang traditional songs while traditional Japanese instruments were played. Yuki and Akane were a part of the group playing the wooden flutes. It was pretty cool.

Kirin and Mihon bought me dinner, yakisoba, and a frozen dessert that was sort of like a snow cone. After we ate we continued to wander around the stalls and chat with each other. With Yuki’s encouragement, she got us to start dancing around the stage with other people. It was a traditional styled dance and we picked it up quickly and probably danced for an hour. When we finished, we got free coupons to spend at any booth in the festival so we all bought Cotton Candy. The festival came to a close and Yuki’s mom drove us all home. It was the most fun I have had with new Japanese friends I had ever had.

I had another bright and early morning the next day, Kobi came to pick me up to go to the Japanese Rotary Summer Orientation at 9am sharp. Momoko, the rebound from France, also came with us. On the way to the Summer Orientation, we stopped at a glass and art museum. Both were very fascinating. I had really wanted to get something from the glass museum, but everything was so extremely expensive! Oh well. When we arrived at the hotel/resort we would be staying at for the weekend, I was blown away by its beauty. Everything in Japan is so green and spectacular! We dropped off our stuff and headed up to the restaurant to meet with the other rebounds, Rotex, and inbounds for lunch. The view from the bay windows was breathtaking. There was a crystal clear lake right outside the hotel, with every sort of green tree surrounding it, and as a perfect backdrop, you could see Mt. Bundaisan. It was like living in a photo you see in National Geographic!


I am shocked at how this picture turned out! I might just have to sumbit it to National Geographic eh? LOL

After lunch, we headed off to another part of the resort to begin the Orientation. There I was able to meet the other four inbounds. And they were: Karly – Canada (we already knew each other), Ena – USA, Brenda – Mexico, and Oceanne – France. After introductions were made, we got to listen to both Momoko’s and the other rebound’s, Mashbat (he went to Canada and I have previously met him), presentations about their host countries. Everyone broke off after that and the inbounds sat with our counselors. We pretty much just got the basic round down on how things work there, Rotary wise and they answered any questions we had. After that, we were “released” to explore around until we had to go back to the hotel.


2010-2011 Inbounds! Left to right: Karly, Me, Oceanne, Brenda, Ena.

Once back at the hotel, we had about an hour of free time until dinner so we inbounds continued to explore around the hotel and its grounds. We had a great time and got to get to know each other more. Dinner was jaw dropping. It was like a full 5star course kind of meal. It was soo good and filling. After dinner, we went outside and played with handheld fireworks for an hour. They easily got us to file back inside when they told us they were able to get the Karaoke room for us. I don’t know how many hours we spent in there singing away. It was such a blast. I didn’t have any doubts that a Rotary function could be this much fun. It was late when they finally dragged us out of the Karaoke room, but we still all stayed up until 2am eating snacks and chatting. In the morning, we really regretted staying up that late because we had to be at breakfast by 8am.










Fireworks and Karaoke Night.








Right after breakfast, we took a trek down a 6km trail through the mountainside. It was really long, and really hot, but we still enjoyed ourselves. A lot of our group were stunned by the scenery but Karly and I jokingly said: “Tree, tree, another tree…oh look…it’s a tree! It’s like Canada!” We all had a hoot at that. We both still had so much fun and whenever we would pass a lake or stream, we would stop and just watch the water and take pictures of it. It was so clear and blue, it was shocking. You could see right to the very bottom of the lake, not even kidding. Once our hike was complete, we were rewarded with nice cold water and Gelato. Mmmmm. We then headed back to the hotel to have a closing BBQ, Japanese style! It was such a fun packed weekend and I can’t wait to do it all over again in November.


A picture I took during our hike. See what I mean by the water?

GO ROTARY GET TOGETHERS!!!



Yesterday, I had my school registration day. I was really nervous and I don’t know why because my host dad went with me and two other Rotarians joined us. I was able to put my uniform for the first time and I love it so much. The material is a bit thick so it makes it a bit hot, but the style is extremely cute. I met the principal and some of my teachers at the registration. They also ordered me school shoes and gym clothes after trying some on. I am really lucky to have the homeroom teacher I have. She is the English teacher! And her English is really good. Phew! Her name is Namae-sensei which is really funny because namae in Japanese means name. Haha! She told me she would take good care of me and if I was having any problems or difficulties to just come and see her. I also got my schedule and chose to take Japanese Calligraphy as an option course. Namae-sensei also told me that whenever I have English on my schedule I can have a sort of “free period” and do my own individual studies. She suggested to take this time to study my Japanese. She is also ordering me Japanese study books and textbooks for elementary school-goers for me to study from! I am so lucky to have her looking after me. My teacher also will be arranging me to meet/hang out with the English intern teacher from the USA at their schools on Thursdays. So that’s pretty awesome too.



I start school tomorrow and I have to give a speech at the opening ceremonies in front of the whole student body. Can you say nervous? I am really looking forward to going…and at the same time I’m not. I am kind of hoping one of my host parents will drive me to school on my first day which would lessen my nerves quite a lot.

And while I am on a roll with catching up on my blog here, nothing super interesting happened today. Just one of those relaxing days. I helped my host grandma shuck corn and figured out how to use their washing machine for laundry. My host mom also took me out to apply for my Japanese Health/Accident Insurance. (We went to apply for my Foreigner City Card yesterday as well.)

Hooray I think I am finished! Haha! It was a lot shorter than I thought it may be, but it still is one of my longer posts. Sorry about that, blame my love for writing! Please keep me in your prays as I embark a new world of high school here in Japan.

~Stephanie