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Rather eccentric blog of Melissa, an exchange student off to Utsunomiya, Japan. Join her as she blogs about her experiences in the land of the rising sun.
navigation to the left, click the V's.

Yesterday I headed into Tokyo to help out with a special orientation camp in Yoyogi, Shinjuku for Japanese exchange students heading into America and Canada. It was seriously the best fun ever, and I can't wait to go to the next one and the BBQ too :D

Well I woke up at like, 6 am, took the 新幹線 (bullet train, i hope the kanjis right, I'm trusting the computer on this one hahah) to Tokyo and met up with Mami-sensei, Saoirse from Canada and Jonathan from America. Oh, and Panda came too. Oh yeah. He walks backwards now. (inside joke. haha) We then took a train into Shinjuku and met up with the others, turns out that it was only me, Georgina and Nicolas from Australia - the others were from New Zealand, Canada and America (ok, only Jonathan was from USA and Saoirse from Canada and the remaining 4 were the New Zealanders, which I find amusing because out of all the 80 japanese exchange students there only like, ten were going to New Zealand and NONE going to Australia.) Yoyogi, or at least the part that we went to anyway, was possibly the quitest part of inner-tokyo. Hahaha. So I am yet to see the real Tokyo, what with its hustle and bustle and people everywhere and the sweat, oh god, the sweat... ahahahha. I HAVE seen Tokyo station, but only the milder part leading to the Shinkansen(bullet train) that heads off to my city, Utsunomiya.

anyway, enough of the boring bit....

and so came the part of actually entering the bustling room full of japanese exchange students, and surprise surprise, my friends from kaisei high Akane and Natsumi were there :D SO COOL! We screamed, my gosh the biggest びくりした ever, hugs all round, oh yeah ;)
After my friends and i had stopped screaming, I headed to the front of the room where I had to sit with my fellow foreigner exchange students and ask and answer questions in japanese. It was so much fun, it seemed to go really quickly... Lunch came, I met some of the coolest people ever, then after that I had to help out Hiro-kun (yeah, hiro kun, taka kun was there too! they were all there) and his group with roleplaying. I met two of the coolest girls from Hiroshima ever, got waayyyy too many new mobile fone emails (like around 25? 30? they just took my fone and passed it around, doing that infrared thing) and I'm getting emails from people I had no idea existed... LOL! and all the japanese girls wanted a foto with new zealander dominic in which I had to assist them with... ... ... no comment ... ... ... ... ... ... heheheh
and so came the time where we actually had to leave... dang, I didnt want to leave at all, it was so much fun... I really enjoyed talking to the future exchange students :D and so we said our goodbyes, took fotos, hugged, and finally left. The shinkansen ride back would have been lonely if not for all the mail i was receiving, hahahah. I think I'm going to be just that little afraid when I finally open my first fone bill of the exchange.. ehehehe #innocent face#

hmm, better finish up now, I think badminton training starts in like... ten minutes... oh yeahhhh ;)

Japan has been a mixture of both challenges and fun.
I' havent really been out much sight seeing, just down to local neccesary shops like post offices and supermarkets and JOYFUL HONDA (the best shop ever, you can buy pets and food and plants and umbrellas and televisions and clothes and cars and petrol and everything you can ever think of here). I have been out a fair bit around my local area on my bike (yes its completely safe mom, children much younger than me go riding by themselves and with friends around my area because its a neighbourhoodish area with a few primary schools and junior high schools around) with my sister (you can breathe easy now mom). The scariest thing would probably have to be almost running into a bunch of junior high school boys from Hongo junior high (my sisters old school) who had really big hair and were all on their keitais (mobiles). They were pretty good about it though, which came as a shock cos at first sight I thought they would be rough gangsters or something, and they just laughed it off with a ああああ、おもしろい、外人 だ！だいじょぶだよね。(ahh, interesting, a foreigner! its alright, yeah?)
I do have quite a lot of sakura fotos considering they were in bloom for longer than normal kotoshi (this year). They are so beautiful, it was sad to see them start to wilt...

Oh man I just love badminton club so much. After a very stressful day, rocking up to badminton club and smashing a shuttlecock or 300 (yes, we train pretty hard) leaves one feeling satisfied. At first my muscles were aching every single day, but after a while I've gotten used to it. The girls and sensei in badminton are all extremely nice and help me whenever I dont understand Japanese. I'm also in art and rock band club but I'm yet to actually go to a meeting, haha. I've just been going to badminton whenever I feel stressed, and that's happened quite often... haha. But I have gone to art class and I really love it. My art teacher is really talented, she's one of those teachers that you admire and aspire to. She teaches me alot and I love going to art to learn from her. And if my art teacher in australia is reading this, yes, she's got me doing charcoal sketches of grecian busts just like the old school art students did! I've learnt so much from her.

School is pretty difficult but I think I'm slowly starting to settle in. They put me in year 11 here but today I changed to year ten because I found it incredibly hard. I still have some good friends in year eleven though. The exchanging of mobile emails seems to be a token symbol of friendship here, I think, as japanese teenagers mail eachother every night till about 2 am in the morning!! Many times I've woken up at like 3 am with a mail waiting for me. Thats another thing, every day I'm incredibly tired because its NORMAL for japanese teenagers to sleep at 2 am and wake at 6 am (I heard andrew gets up at five? dang!). I, like most Aussie teenagers, go to bed at 10 kara 11 pm every night and wake at 6 am. Considering the time change (10 pm here is 12 am in australia!) I'm left feeling incredibly tired and a little irritable during the day... But I think I'm slowly changing over, getting used to it.

That reminds me, I bought my mobile fone, its AWESOME! The screen turns and you can watch TELEVISION for free (not much use for me right now really considering i don`t know whats going on anyway). I love it. ITs green and Au by KDDI. I think I was influenced by its ad, though, as it was arashi on some mini brightly coloured green planet covered with grass.. you know, people in japan, the shovel ad? shovel family, シャベルかぞく？And matsujun is like, what's with all the shovels, and theres these random people with a skipping rope wielding shovels.. HAHA Its seriously the most effective ad ever..
oh no wait, the most effective ad has GOT to be the SHAVADAVA ad. Shavadava shavadava!!! shavadavashavadava!　シャヴァダヴァしない？(dont you need shavadava?) and theres that guy, whatsisname from arashi (arashi is huge here, they're on like 100000 ads and everyone loves them) whos on a swing holding shavadava... mmm.. I want some shavadava... shavadava by the way is grapefruit soda... so good...
oh and mom, I think I'll be taking Japanese proficiency test level 3... my japanese isnt as crash hot as I thought it was and I'm already finding it incredibly difficult to communicate with people... everyone thinks I'm quiet and meek (people at home know the truth!) when really I cant actually say anything at all. I'm studying hard every day though, but I think I will take level 2 next year.

Last night I experienced my largest earthquake! To date, I've experienced roughly 7 or eight jishin, earthquakes, but last night there was one really big one which woke me up at 4 am in the morning. It was so scary... and my family SLEPT RIGHT THROUGH IT! I was the only one awake. Its such a huge shock coming from a country where the plates are at peace with eachother.. haha. My english is slowly degrading day by day.

I love living in japan, and I definitely want to live here in the future. I remember reading a previous blog from another student living in japan, and she had said 'from the moment I arrived in japan i knew i wanted a future here', and i can fully identify with that. I love the lifestyle, and I know that its not the honeymoon stage of culture shock but my true feelings because right now I'm going through probably the worst stage of home sickness possible. I dont think its japan thats the problem, but the fact that I'm so far away from friends/family and school is so difficult right now thats making me so blue. I miss everyone that I 0nce had supported and was supported by and wish that I could move them all here - but I know thats not possible. I know I will overcome this though, because if I go home to australia now I will never forgive myself. The reason why I came on this trip is to learn another language and succeed in a huge goal. I wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of accomplishing difficult goals. I will never give up, no matter how homesick I get!
The only problem about living in japan thats worrying me is the fact that I have to give up my Australian citizenship in order to become a japanese citizen.. so thats a particularly difficult choice I have to make.

I'm looking forward to JFIE camp on the 27th of this month in TOKYO (yeah baby toky0!! with the whole seeing everyone in kanto region again and face sempais!) and golden week. I get to see my relatives who live in Ibaraki ken for the first time during golden week. I have a cousin the same age as me as well, I want to meet her soon. I'm really looking forward to it, it's so close too, in MAY!

I seriously miss Sydney so much right now, words cannot express my current emotion.
I hope everyone in Sydney knows how much I miss and love them... I really wish i oculd be there right now!

Ok.. I think my free ended.. my school doesnt have bells! haha, they're goal is to teach the students to be punctual.. they play random classical music during class though haha.

Alrighty I gotta go now :) cya!

Hey guys! I've finally gotten to a computer on which I can blog.

If anyone else of the exchange people is reading this right now, email me! send me your keitai mail! lol XD

Right now I'm at school, but today was a special day so I'm just hanging out here emailing people and beboing/myspacing/etc.
So my first few days in Japan were pretty confusing for me.. the flight from Brisbane to Tokyo was THE BEST lol. Me, Lucy and Andrew went so freaking crazy man it was so fun. Lol 'protein drink'... basically my water bottle filled with the most random crap imaginable... apple.. chicken.. plastic.. tissue.. milk.. coffee.. sugar.. salt.. ANYTHING WE COULD FIND. Dayum. So fun.
The landing in Japan was so confusing, I was heaps lost and tired so we basically took our CHANDELIERED bus to the hotel (yeah baby) and went to sleep. I bunked with Megan, my fellow Utsunomiyan buddy going to Bunsei.
The orientation was so boring lol, but the night before we left for our families Megan and I went so CRAZY.. haha.. GUREIPU YO!! grape yo!! Ha-do gei ! FUUUUUUUUUUU!!! haha. If anyone gets those jokes then you must be in Japan. haha. So good.
On the day we went to our families we went to Tokyo station and Megan, Tom and I caught the Shinkansen headed in the Utsunomiya/Kouriyama direction. 45 minutes of random fun. Megan and I got off before Tom as Kouriyama's the next stop over. Lol, tom, if you read this, hope you were entertained by random old japanese ladies.. bahahah.
My family is so nice. I have a little sister in year seven and a sister in year eleven, the same year as me. Yes, mom, they put me in year eleven here, and yes, I'll have a few classes with year ten as it's so different/difficult. We also have a dog called Gu-re chan, so cute, I'll post pics soon!
so during the past few days I've done:
*Shopping with sister.. drinks are so cheap no joke, like a dollar. food is cheap too, but I think it's a little smaller?? Vending machines are everywhere, I have like three inside of school and like five outside.. my schools in the middle of a forest too by the way
*Ohanami with sister and friends.. went to a theme park, ate KFC, took SO MANY fotos of sakura. so beautiful. I love :)
*gaikokujin touroku.. roughly translates to Alien registration.. yes. I'm an alien here and I have paper to prove it. LMAO. so lame. Ok, I'll stop. XD
So today was my first day at school... started with opening ceremony where I had to make a speech.. which i screwed, lol, of course. If anyones from my science class this year they know how wierd and.. humourous to watch my speeches get.. haahah.. except it was in really bad bad bad japanese hahah... XD I also made a speech to my class, and my teachers speech is tomorrow... So nervewracking I swear... Obento was good though, my mom made it for us this morning. Tomorrow I'm going to get up early and help her.
I have double art! So good. but only once a week. I also have calligraphy class with year tens (my actual year in australia.) I wanted to do music too but that would be pushing it.. lol XD
I'm so hungry right now, I want to buy some coffee from the vending machine... 70 to 100 yen... 70 cents to 1.00 ! GOSH ME LIKE!!! haha.
Japanese TV is so good. So funny. I have no idea whats going on or what they're selling but I want it. yup ;)
Miss you so much guys !!
I love you mom :)... send money
hahah :)

Ken