Bonsai Blog

Don’t be scared, I just updated the layout of my blog.  New is always better.  Anyways, you can find the links on the side now, not top, and I added a link to my YouTube videos.  Then you can also look at the new ‘About Me’ page.

So yesterday I went to a new mall by Osaka Bay, which was cool. I also went to the Japanese World Trade Center, which was a bit unnerving after 9/11. But yeah, the mall was pretty fun and there was this store dedicated to American stuff. And it was a bad representation of our country too. It was all these weird things, old things…you’d have to see it. The only downside was that the mall had no Starbucks…so I just got ice cream.

And, I know McDonald’s in America had the Shamrock Shakes for St. Patrick’s day, but Japan has a new Coffee flavor now. Which is awesome. And like the small size (like kids in America) is only 80 cents, so it’s awesomeness. Now I can just go to Fujidera station and get a coffee shake! Hope it’s not limited time only. That said, I still really do miss Shamrock Shakes. And eggnog. Which…wow, I just really miss eggnog. And decent black licorice. And Taco Bell. Guess I like American food now that I can’t have it. But, I would feel worse for a Japanese student going to America, because we have practically no Japanese food. (Ha Yudai!)

Otherwise this week Yudai came over to my house. Which wasn’t actually planned, but we had nothing else to do in the afternoon, so I just called Toyookasan. And I was supposed to get together with Fumiya and Tatsuya…but I don’t know what happened there. It just kind of fell through. I was also planning to meet Brage, but that’s not going to happen either. This week was still pretty fun though.

Next week I have Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday free…but then things get busy. Thursday night I’m going on like a boat ride thing to see the Cherry blossoms (beautiful!), then Friday I have Rotary and an ESS Club meeting at school, and Saturday and Sunday I’ll be in Hiroshima for a Rotary trip. Then Monday starts school again, sad. My spring break has gone so fast! But I get more breaks than I do in American School, so I know that I’ll have time to do stuff later.

Host Family situation I’m not sure if I completely confirmed this or not, but I’m staying with the Toyookasans until the end of May. Yay! I’m super happy about that. I was talking to a Rotary member, and apparently Obiyasan is apprehensive because he and his family speak no English. I actually may get a new host family for the last month and a half then.

And in April I will be going to Universal Studios Japan again, this time all day from like 8 or 9 in the morning until about 10 at night. Plus going to the Hard Rock Cafe, which I’ve wanted to go to. Anyways that will be AWESOME. USJ just put in a new roller coaster. It’s actually a Friday, because Nagano High School has a day off because the school was founded on that day, so other high schools will still be in session. Hopefully that means less crowds!

On my email (not paul.php, my other one) I have so many emails to answer… uh. Someone sent me a list of like 25 questions, and then I just procrastinated and they’ve built up so much. Oh, and two Japanese girls emailed me for English help after watching my YouTube videos. Cool.

1) I’m not dead

2) I didn’t feel it

Anyways, Kobe was really fun. Then I rested Saturday. And today I went to Kyoto with a BUNCH of other Rotary students and that was interesting. I saw Danny, who I haven’t seen since I rode over on the plane with.

Yeah, it’s past midnight and I just felt like telling people I wasn’t dead, in case you don’t know that Ishikawa (earthquake!) is pretty far from Osaka (my house). Although, the death toll of 1 should have clued you in that it wasn’t me. But it WAS a strong quake. Just happened in a rural area (luckily).

Oh, and the person that died was an old lady. A stone lanturn fell over and crushed her. It’s sad really. What an awful way to die.

Ok, sorry, I have updated in a long while.

I went to Wakayama with my host parents for a day, that was fun. I am now a 3rd grader (senior) at Nagano High school. I’ve hung out with friends a lot. I’m going to Kobe for todays, tomorrow and Friday.

Wakayama was really fun! It was super cold, and snowing harder than I had ever seen in Japan. We saw a lot of temples and old Japanese culture. There were also a lot of funny things that happened. Anyways, it was a really enjoyable time for me, even though it was like a two and a half hour drive to get there!!

Right now, I’m on spring break. that lasts until the 9th of April, then I start school in the next grade. Japan works a bit different though, because the teachers move with the students. So I’m expecting a pretty seamless switch, besides being on the second floor, not the third, of Nagano High School. I also really want to improve my Japanese more and stuff.

During break, I’ve hung out a lot with friends and stuff. Karaoke, sight seeing, zoo, etc etc. It’s been really fun. A new foreign exchange student came, and I’m hoping to meet him next week and do something with him. A lot of my friends have already met him and stuff. Seems nice. From what I’ve heard, he’s like…really into Japan. More so than me. Anyways, today I went to the zoo. And that was really fun, then I tried to find a sushi place I had gone with Toyookasans, but couldn’t, so had to go to a different place and got home late. That sucks, because I’m so tired right now… Next week I also hope to get together with Fumiya and Tatsuya, so hopefully that will work out.

And I’ll be going to Kobe tomorrow to see Naval ships. Or something. With the head of my Rotary district. He’s part of KawachiNagano Rotary, which hosts me. I’m not sure exactly why he wanted to go with me, but, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing … maybe sight seeing. I’ll post how it went when I come back, and what I did and stuff.

Sorry for not updating so long!

~ Paul

My stay with the Toyookasans has been lengthened by a month at least, and up to two months!! Yay! I’m super happy, because I really love it here, and I didn’t want to leave April 1st, so this is very good news for me!

Apparently Rotary wants me to have 4 host families, but they can only find 3…so the Toyookasans are hosting me longer. They’re really nice, and it’s great staying here! Even without wireless internet for my laptop!

And tomorrow I must go to ESS and finish what we need to finish on the movie.

So yeah. Not much happening lately. Been on a week break, that ends Thursday. Then starts our 3 week Spring Break. After that, I move up to be a ‘Senior’ at school. It’s nice to be in Japan. Lots of time off at the moment! Of course, no snow days.

I spent most of this week hanging out with Yudai, which was fun. Today and yesterday though I just stayed home and did like nothing, which wasn’t really fun.

Yes, I am.

Now… yesterday I got to go to a movie and went to the mall with my friend. But it’s like really far away, so we hardly ever go… but we saw Ghost Rider. Which was ok, but not like the best movie. Not really any good movies in theatres right now, but the mall has like a brand new place, so we wanted to see how it compared to Osaka. Plus we got Starbucks and stuff, so it was pretty fun.

Today I went over to Yudai’s house and helped him with English homework. Yeah, that was fun. We also played PS2 for awhile, but he’s selling it soon, because he doesn’t really like videogames and wants money for America. He’s crazy.

Tomorrow I’m going karaoke with some friends. It’ll be fun.

And yeah, even though none of you noticed, this is actually on a new server, because I changed hosts. So thats all finished and I’m really glad. In closing, I’d like to mention that Bill O’Reilly should be taken off air. I’m getting so sick of his unbalanced conservative agenda that’s backed with misinformation. Just like when he claimed that Americans massacred a town in WW2, when the Nazis actually massacred American POWs. He completely disgraced our dead war heros. And folks, that’s just *one* example out of many. That’s my political thought for the day.

Yes, I had an awesome time in Tokyo. I got to go to Akihabara, which has a bunch of computer stuff to see and we also met one of my host father’s friends there, who showed us around. So it was really awesome. It’s like the biggest geek ‘city’ in the world. So yes, a little bit embarrassing, but a lot of fun. Pretty cheap used stuff too, so I brought like $100 with me, but then I decided that I didn’t actually need anything…so I didn’t buy anything. So yeah.

Then we went back to the hotel and it was really nice! It was Four Seasons and really fancy. The rooms were really nice, Keisuke and I shared one, and my host parents shared one. So that was fun. We ate dinner at the restaraunt, because the place we were GOING to eat at was closed. But, it was way ok because they had a really good burger that I ate at the Hotel and it reminded me of my favorite place to eat in America, Ruby Tuesdays. Of course, that cheese burger was $26. That’s just how the Toyookasans roll though. Tokyo is an expensive place. I slept a little, and was tired in the morning, but the bed was really comforable. Then we had breakfast, which was even more expensive, and not as good as the burger. During Breakfast my host mother complained about how expensive it was, and my host father just remarked along the lines of ‘I like eating expensive food though’…it was kind of funny. But kind of sad because the breakfast was more expensive than the really good burger. I just wanted the burger. (Believe me, if you lived in Japan, you’d know that there aren’t many good burger restaruants out there…)

Then that day we went to Disney Sea!! Which is like the half of Disney Land with rollercoasters and stuff. But we actually went on more gentler rides because Keisuke chickened out of the rollercoaster there, and the Tower of Terror had a 2 wait line, and we had to leave to go to the airport before we’d get to the ride… But it was really fun to go with my host family!

So yes, I had a wonderful weekend in Tokyo!!

Then I got back and had a week of tests and stress. Oh joy. So it put me in a bad mood and I didn’t feel like updating. But I *did* however get a new video blog up because I was procrastinating that much about writing a speech for Rotary last night. So you can watch that <a href=”http://youtube.com/watch?v=CehV-QUmcsE”>here</a>!! It’s cool, ’cause I fixed my webcam so no more annoying buzzy-sounds and the audio is better. So that’s good news for you and me.

G’night!