paper-tokyo

OOSAKA FREAKING OWNED

2008-08-18T23:52:00.000-07:00

Im back from Oosaka guys, and yes, it owned. Oooohh yeah :D
but seing as I did some other interesting stuff before that, I'm going to backtrack a bit...

The weekend before Oosaka I volunteered to go on a camp in Shiora, run by the local YMCA english department. It went from Saturday to Sunday and I spent it with kids mainly around the age of eight or nine and with two ALTS, an Aussie from Blue Mountains, Brooke, and a pommy. I forgot his name but he was interesting. He'll forgive me. Anyway it was pretty fun, I enjoyed it, the bathrooms were rank and the toilets were worse but I had fun playing soccer/volleyball/cricket with the kids. We made camp curry :D

After the camp, I helped out at the YMCA's Australia day, run by Brooke. Was pretty fun, cute kids, minties, damper, Aboriginal dot painting and very horrible Aussie country music. I enjoyed myself. I better have, the bike ride was 40 minutes both ways.

After Aussie day, I went to the summer festival in Utsunomiya held on Orion Doori. It was so good. Massive. Heaps of people, heaps of stores, I got to eat karaage, there were people carring those giant thingies to the temples and shouting and there was definitely drunks. I got to wear my Yuukata too. I'll post a pic when I can be bothered. :)

After the festival I went to Ibaraki to see my relatives again, pretty fun, got to ride eight trains to get there and back, and this time i rode my bike and caught the bus too. All by myself ^^ My cousin Aiko and I sat back and watched 'The L Word' seasons one to three, I skyped with Pranamie and my parents, I got fed Tim Tams and Filipino food. I loved it. Can't wait to go back :)

After that, club club club blah blah blah... and then, OOSAKAAAAAA (L)(L)(L)

It owned. I mean, the 12 hour car ride to get there, the heat, the sunburn, the overcrowdedness of it all... It meant nothing. I loved it. Seriously need to get back down there again. And my host grandpa was awesome, he owns a drinking bar - yes, alcohol. The house was pretty old too, japanesey. And on the tuesday I went to Universal Studios, oh hell yes. Also went to Sakai city, got to see all the massive moving things, bought stuff, ate yakiniku (mmmm) and took lots of photos. I loved it :)

So yeah, I got back from Oosaka last friday, went out and watched Dark Knight on Sunday with mie and took purikura, then got back in to club today. Dark Knight was so good by the way, new favourite movie. Anywho, from today, I have... club club club, and a camp on the last two weekends of august. Going to Kanagawa this saturday for camp, going to see andrew :O! Apparently he cut his hair. I dont know. I definitely cut mine :(

bye bye :)

summer holidays!

2008-08-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

SUMMER HOLIDAYS!
夏休み！

yes, that's right, I've finally reached the fifth month of my exchange and entered the summer holidays. Because my school is INSANE, we started on the first of august instead of like, 22nd of july like some of my friends, but we end on the 31st, my birthday :D. The downside is, I actually only have about 3 or 4 free days, what with three camps, Ibaraki, OOSAKA (oh hell yes) and... club. Yes, club. From 9 am to like, 2 pm, or whenever sensei decides he's tired of training us. (jokes. You're an awesome club teacher. just not when you make me do barbs. NO.)

so anyway, today was the first day of the summer holidays for me but I spent it at club. It was pretty fun though, we did doubles shuffle which is this crazy shuffly two person drill that goes really fast and requires you to smash, smash, clear then do those net shots which i cant remember the name of but are really fun to do. We did quite a lot of drills as well, and what the japanese call hard training... (you should see the tennis clubs workout, its MADNESS) but when we played doubles I won both (with mari-chan! wooo!).
I would have joined basketball club but considering in the past two months they have practised a grand total of five times, I decided to give them a pass. I WAS going to join tennis, too, but I decided I'd rather not die before I leave Japan. (They have a hard court too, which gets to 50 degrees on a 40 degree day, and they still have to do their usual 200 pushups, 200 sit ups etc).

as you can see I like club alot. :D

I thought I might mention my host father is in Thai right now on a business trip. He's coming home tonight though. Wonder if he'll bring some omiyagi (souvineers)? Usually, the Japanese love to bring home omiyagi, especially food omiyagi. They also love giving omiyagi to their friends. My host families always had a little something from somewhere in their kitchens. 面白いねえ。

Recently I also went to my first summer festival, and also watched Kabuki at Karasu Yama (crow mountain) at a festival called Yama Age (climb the mountain). Kabuki was pretty awesome, its like japaneseness and culture and history rolled into one show. Ancient japanese, no one understood but the grandparents, but it was damn good. At summer festival I caught four goldfish, then they died one by one in the three days after, leaving the very last goldfish which I have lovingly named Kamenashi Kazuya. (the others were Ryuu, Ryo Nishikido and Yamapi - RIP.) I love summer festivals. I finally bought my Yuukata (uniqlo lol) so I'll be going to the Orion Doori festival in utsunomiya in yuukata (which is actually quite boiling hot around the obi area). Can't wait!

We also recently had choir competition and dance competition at school - we came 3rd in choir and 4th in dance. Pretty good going though. We practised hard. Really hard. I mean, we didnt even go to club. ...I missed club then :(

Also we had Open House, which is like Open Night at penrith high, where potential kids come to see the school and we hold events for them. Me, being the exchange student, had to play an english game with the kids, which turned out to be Whats The Time MR Wolf. Carlotta, the Italian exchange student (who was here for a month but went home .. miss her) helped too, along with the exchange student course kids. We had fun, eating the candy and crankin' it souljah boy style (yup). I LOVE THE EXCHANGE STUDENT COURSE KIDS. they're insanely awesome.

Yesterday I also watched Ponyo of the cliff by the sea, which is the latest studio ghibli- its aimed for young kids but I went with my family anyway. (its studio ghibli. of course.) It was so cute. I loved it. I cant wait to go see Gegege no kitarou no. 2 though, I loved the first one. Going with Mie on one of my free days :D

Oh and I changed host families. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. I have to ride 3o mins to school, so thats an hour every day. I can do it in 20 but with my sister its 30 mins. It's pretty fun though, especially riding home and theres a tochigi soccer club game or training session on in the park on the way home.

That reminds me, I cut my hair. That is all I will say on the topic.

Last weekend I also met a bunch of american students because I volunteered at the local YMCA (which teaches english) so I get to be involved with all these international related events in Tochigi. These american students were here for 2 weeks and they couldnt speak english at all. It was pretty interesting. I had to translate for them from japanese to english, it was a little hard sometimes but I got through it. (よくがんばったよ！）

going to my first camp tomorrow with the YMCA in Shiora for the weekend. After that on monday I'm helping out at YMCA's Australia day, then Utsunomiya summer festival, then the next day I have club and then going to see my relatives in Ibaraki for three days... then on the tenth, OOSAKA! wooo!

I think thats pretty much it...
Going on hiatus from internet activities for a while, need to focus on studying, club and I have quite a few events to go to. Might blog after Oosaka though, so stay tuned guys!

じゃねえ！

strange

2008-06-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

Home room is in three minutes.
Oh god, why oh why did I suddenly get struck with the urge to blog with homeroom in just three minutes? Such is the schedule of my day. I think I've been on the computer way to much this week so I don't think I'll be back today, however large the desire is to research the courses I will take in year 11 and 12 and which university to go to. I always seem to be doing these kinds of things to myself, six minutes to go, that force me into my uncomfortable zone and make me think and feel awkward and strange and goodness knows what. For example, five minutes left, I have chosen to come to Japan on exchange and spend a year away from my loving family, friends, personal computer and cable tv. On top of that I've elected to join one of the most craziest training clubs ever (poor badminton sensei, i skip it too much in order to research my upcoming subject choices/bebo/myspace alot). Four minutes left. On top of that, I cannot speak very good japanese at all, so usually I have been known to confuse certain words together (like that time I said unko instead of anko, rather hilarious results ensued.) I guess this is just the way I live my life, three minutes left, the way I prefer to exist, always out of my comfort zone. Or maybe I'm just crazy. Oh, don't be silly, Kenjie, you've been crazy for a very long, long time. See? The amount of commas in that previous sentence proves how crazy you really are. Two minutes left. And the fact that you've managed to write this much in eight minutes has probably got something to do with it. Strangely, you've become rather eloquent and skilled at conversing in third person to yourself whilst all the while speaking in Japanese every day. One minute left. I guess you should log off now. The clock has finally turned 1620, time for final homeroom.

lol

2008-06-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, 久し振り!！
「no idea if that's right, who cares.」

Anywho, got some free time so going to blog a little bit...
Over the weekend, Megan, Lilly, Leigha, Erica, Georgina and I (did I forget anyone?) went up to British Hills in Fukushima to help out a junior high school from yokohama kanagawa with their camp. Basically, we had to listen to ALL of their self introductions in english (mind you, there's forty of them) and watch their presentations, but really they were awesome (mickey chan! harumi chan! akane chan!) and I LOVED the basketball club. Their presentations were so cute too, I got to wear a yukata, dance a festival song (cant remember the name but we got to yell out sora, sora, sora, sora for some reason and dance to this funky drum wearing a headband and this jacket with the happy kanji written on it), and play traditional japanese games (WHICH WAS FREAKING AWESOME). The japanese games group and I had so much fun, I stayed there for ages just playing with the daruma doll (SUPER DARUMA CHALLENGE! which involved two daruma dolls instead of one mwhahahahaha) so they gave me my very own daruma doll. HOW SWEET!! I loved them. They kept telling me I was 'berri kyuuto' and the school's camera man took heaps of photos with me and the girls (which I want cos theres an awesome one of me in a yukata). We went to a pub, played this awesome game with chips where we had to pass the chip from one person to another with our mouths (yes, they were incredibly fun) and they kept taking so many photos... I loved those kids. I also got to hang with utsunomiya buddy megan, georgina and lilly, which was pretty awesome as they're just so fun to talk to (hey meg, sorry for keeping you up talking till 3am! :3)

ok, i have to wrap it up here cos they just announced 'students must leave in ten minutes' and i've gotten the keyboard stuck on caps lock again so i have to hold down shift to type which is incredibly uncomfortable (not as uncomfortable as typing on my fone though, argh, so tiring!!)

until next time,
melissa

dear diary

2008-06-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

Fallen in love with FLYLEAF.
Awesome band.
best time to listen is when you're in a park, its raining and you're freezing your butt off, but theres a nice tree or something and you want to get sick anyway so you torture yourself in the rain. 'I can feel you, all around me.'
Oh hell yes.

I should go to badminton, can't be bothered today.

Maybe I should go... ... ... maybe.

alright, I'll go tomorrow. When I feel like it.

My god I want to play basketball, really really really do.

IBARAKI KEN

2008-05-05T01:17:00.000-07:00

Right now in Japan, it's GOLDEN WEEK!
yeah you heard me, four days of golden oyasumi (rest) from saturday to tuesday.
So, how did I spend it?
here goes...

SATURDAY;
On saturday I had a prescheduled badminton match between my host family's friends and I. It was rather fun but after it I was ready to drop dead asleep. Two hours of sweaty badminton-y ness ;)
after Badminton I set out by myself to catch three trains from Utsunomiya to HitachiTanga in Ibaraki ken, a different state altogether! It took me quite a while, there was a 15 min train from suzumenomiya to oyama, and then from oyama there was an hour train to Mito, and then from mito there was a forty minute train to Hitachi tanga where my aunt met me. And yes, I did it alone and at night too. I took the first train at about five, and arrived at about seven or so?? I can't remember, I was really mighty sick from badminton :( nevertheless I met my older cousin Aiko as she came home from work, and we ate macdonalds. yum. first time eating jap mac. Went to bed early, head was spinning like crazy.

SUNDAY;
On sunday I went to Mito city with my cousin Eri (whos 15 too) and my aunt, and we went shopping... mad crazy Louis Vuitton store (yeah, 100% real too!) someday shall buy... something... LOL SPLURGE! After that we ate at an italian restaurant, tasty, spaghetti :) my aunt went to church so Eri and I roamed and went purikura. We came home, tita made me sinigang (FILO FOOOOD) and gyudon (beef and rice). SO TASTY. I also had a huge convo or five with my rellies in Aus thru skype. Fun stuff :)

MONDAY;
Today I woke up at seven to talk to my dad on Skype. Was mega tired, but I did it anyway. (grumble). After that I took the express from hitachi tanga to oyama with my aunt, and then the train from oyama to suzumenomiya by myself for fifteen mins. My mom picked me up and then I went to a bbq with my host family friends. BBQ was fun, ate too much, way too much, so tasty.... I love my keitai. Thats all I will say on the matter HAHAH

TUESDAY;
dno whats planned, but I think we're going strawberry picking or maybe even a temple or five billion. Yay. Could even be study day! (H). haha.

SUMMERSONIC
And now we come to my hearts desire. This august, on the ninth and tenth, tehre is a MASSIVE concert on with the COOLEREST bands ever, we're talking LOSTPROPHETS, were talking PANIC, we're talking COLDPLAY for gods sakes, even the SEX PISTOLS aer coming.... cant wait to go. I'm going with tom, thats all I know right now, but more people are joining on. LETS GET THIS ON! hahaha. ;)

Alrighty gonna go. get my purikuras ;)
bye bye :D

JFIE ORIENTATION

2008-04-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

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 ;)

badminton club OWNS

2008-04-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

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!

arrival

2008-04-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

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

two days.

2008-03-24T00:35:00.000-07:00

Wow, just two days to go.
Needless to say, I'm packed and ready.
To be honest, I'm more scared of spending the last day with my family and friends rather than actually going... it's strange. Maybe I'm scared of the idea of knowing that this is going to be the last time I'll see any of them this year.
Ten months... everyone tells me that that is a long time, but to be honest it's not really, at all. We see numerous months in our lives, just ten of them is but a mere fraction of our full life. Isn't it strange, so many months and these particular ten are going to be some of the most important months of my life. By the tenth month, I know I'll feel as if it's only the 3rd month or something.
I'm obsessed with the song "Flashing Lights" by Kanye West. Usually, I'm not into that kind of music (rock girl to the core!) but for some reason I really like this song. The video is pretty peculiar too; for some reason whenever I watch it I get this sense that one day I'm going to make movies and videos just like that. It's like looking into a mirror of my future works. An awkward but interesting feeling.
Well, tomorrow is my last day in Australia. Well, technically, my last day in Sydney... but still.
I'm going to miss you all.

and note to self : don't forget your pin number!

one

2008-01-01T01:15:00.000-08:00

Hey there, welcome to my new blog :)
I'm ken.
This blog was set up for my upcoming exchange to Japan for ten months... But I decided to get it running now, because knowing me if I left it for later it would never get made and I would never ever type any entries, therefore I would not have a blog in Japan.
This was originally going to be on my kenbot site, but kenbot uses cutenews and a) blogger is easier to use and b) blogger is easier to post images to. also I wanted something seperate, just one place for all my memories. so yeah, paper-tokyo was born :)
so anyway... yeah, info.

departure date (subject to change): 27th March 2008
return date (subject to change): January 2009

yeah. so basically that's all I can type right now, mainly because I have little to no information at the present time. I guess this blog is going to be a little boring until I have orientation sometime in February :)

So I'm off now. Have a look around the site (there's nothing much right now lol) and leave me a comment on my tag board. navigations are at the top; the orange links.

I'm out!

ken