Bonsai Blog

Korea was amazing!  Really short update just to say I’m safe, and a LOT more tomorrow or something~

Took over 160 pictures too, so you’ll also get to see stuff.  I still haven’t shown any of the 100+ Singapore pictures though either.  Hmmm.

But it was really fun!

Oh- I may be staying with the Toyookasans until I leave in July.  Maybe.  Right now it’s kind of up in the air, but apparently Kitajimasensei asked them and it’s no problem, so that would be sooooo awesome.  Don’t ask me what happened to the third family, I have no idea.

It’s Saturday morning, and I’m just about to leave the house for the airport.  I’m really hoping South Korea will be fun!  Please pray for my safety and stuff, big update when I get back!

So today during first hour of school, there was an earthquake.  That is a new life experience for me.  It was really small, and nothing fell or anything…some kids didn’t even notice it.  I was surprised because all of a sudden my desk was wobbling for no reason, and I couldn’t come up with a logical explanation as to why…  So yeah, at least I could have an earthquake experience without dying.  It was really cool.

Oh, and yes, I will be going to South Korea for three days and meetin JIN, who went to my high school last year!  That is completely AWESOME!  I am so excited to see her, and I will take lots of pictures!

Universal Studios Japan was REALLY REALLY awesome! Of course! Yudai and I got there like 45 minutes early, so we were close to the front of one of the lines to get in. Which turned out to be awesome because a bunch of school groups came, and it ended up being busier than I assumed it would be. So finally when the doors opened and the started letting people in we RAAAAAAN to the new roller coaster and managed to get into the first ride of the day (that actually had people on it). Not the first seats, but, really that didn’t matter. It was so awesome and a great start to the day.

Then we basically did almost everything there was to do that seemed interesting. We skipped out on the Snoopy rides and a lot of the shows, but basically everything else we did. The rides were awesome, and Waterworld was actually a really intriguing show thing. My favorite thing was the rollercoaster though. There are five songs, and you get to listen to one as you ride the roller coaster. Amazingly, you can hear it over the screams and stuff. The USJ coaster is a bit different than the normal ones.

As far as food went, we had these calzone things for lunch. Yudai wanted pizza, but the place wasn’t open yet…and frankly it wasn’t American pizza. I could have chicken pizza or some other really odd flavor, and neither looked appealing. In the afternoon we shared like a huge onion blossom thing. It was really big, but like Yudai had his mind set on getting to eat it at USJ, so yeah. It was good, but not sure why he was so excited for it. Then we waited in line for about an hour and a half (UGH) to ride the rollercoaster a second time before we left and USJ closed. So we did which was fun again.

Then we did one more thing, left, waited a bit for dinner. Neither of us was really so hungry. But we wanted to go to Hard Rock Cafe. We did after awhile, and it was REALLY good, and I hadn’t had a bacon burger since I left America like 7 months ago (wow). BUT it was the most expensive burger I have ever eaten, coming in at about $16USD for just the burger and fries. Extremely expensive, plus they charged a 10% tip which is outrageous. Japan doesn’t HAVE tips. If you want to be like America, fine, have a $8 burger and 10% tip. If you want to be like Japan, fine, charge $15 with no tip. BUT DON’T TAKE THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING FROM BOTH WORLDS! It really made me angry. I had a 10% off coupon so, yay, no tip. But what a waste of 10% off. Hard Rock Cafe has good food, and bad ethics. If I get time I will send them a formal complaint.

Anyways, that day was really fun.

Now to play catch up about the rest of my week… Japanese students have been having Health Exams at school, which is kind of weird. They had to bring in urine samples which is REALLY weird. They were in these little bag things. Sooooooooo disgusting. I am excused because I had a physical before leaving Japan. Tomorrow they have their teeth check, and I’m also excused. Although I’m really worried that maybe I’ll get a cavity and it will eat my tooth for the whole year before coming back to America. Scary. So hopefully I’ll have those two hours to do whatever.

I am really not appreciating a certain teacher’s behavior lately. Like he or she is being very strict, and … ugh. Plus his or her English has multiple mistakes that I can pick up, but I’m too scared to say anything. But it still bugs me every time I hear it. I love English, I like to write, so obviously I want Japanese students to learn the correct way to say things. Usually I do correct teachers. There is one teacher that I especially like because she is very gracious if I point something out and asked me to do so. I don’t try to come across as some cocky native speaker though, so yeah, don’t get that image in your head.

But this week is actually going very well, and I feel my Japanese is improving, so that is very good.

Oh and I will be leaving the country on Saturday. You can use the comment section to guess where I’m going if you want. I love visiting new countries, but I’ve kept this a secret. Because it wasn’t for sure confirmed.

Two new video blogs:

New Haircut and Universal Trip

I’m really really excited for tomorrow! Because we want to get there so early, I’ll actually be leaving the house at 6:30 AM, even earlier than what I do every day for school! (But only by ten minutes, haha)

On a different subject, I’ve really been enjoying art. We’re making these coaster things out of like…leather type material, and are using different tools to cut and pound it to make the picture, and I’m really proud of mine. It’s not particularly good at all, but it was really fun to make and it looks artful. I never took any art classes at CFHS. So that’s cool.

And another class I really enjoy now is Gym. We got to pick what sport we wanted to do, and I picked badminton with my friends. It is really fun, and even learning all the technicalities is interesting. I thought it was kind of a lazy sport, but really it’s pretty decent. We’ve learned the high clear, drive, serve, and hairpin so far. I think next week we’ll be learning other hits too. I like it more than Tennis because the shuttlecock (technical name for the birdie) is more fun to play with than a tennis ball and has different dynamics.

Oh, and I’m reworking paulhq.com from the ground up right now. New layout, new pages, new content, etc etc. It won’t have much to do with this site, as this only serves as my Japanese blog (and my blog forever on) but I’m finally not being lazy. Ignore what’s on the site at the moment.

EDIT: Please feel free to ‘Comment’ on my blogs.  It’s always cool to see what people think, so you can post your thoughts on any of my blog updates.  Each one will appear once I ‘verify’ it, making sure it’s not SPAM or inappropriate in order to keep BonsaiBlog in working order.  So please comment if you have something to add, ask, or say related to the update!

After a slew of bad events, I really didn’t feel like writing.  This includes Maki-san Grandfather dying, the Virginia Tech shooting, Nagasaki Mayor assassination,  and other generally bad things that have occurred this week in the world, and to me.  I don’t feel like recounting what I’ve done lately, as it is nothing out of the ordinary.

Tomorrow will be a good day though.  And Friday I have the day off and I’m going with Yudai to Universal Studios Japan.  That will be the awesome-est thing ever.   Last time I went it was with my friens and the visiting Australians, but it was just too many people, and not enough time and stuff.  Too many people to worry about, make happy, etc.  This time it will be easier and there is a NEW roller coaster.  Nagano High School has a day off because it was the day it was founded BUT others schools are still in session in Osaka!  So hopefully traffic will be majorly cut down!  So we’ll get there around 8:30 (with pre-bought tickets), get in at 9 when it opens, and leave when it closes at 7.  Kind of a short day because it is a weekday and not a holiday.  BUT then we will have dinner at the Hard Rock cafe by USJ.  I’ve always wanted to go to a HR Cafe, because it seems like *everyone* has been to one somewhere cool.

And then my class picked Universal as our school trip, so I will be going a third time in the beginning of May.  So then I’ll get to go with my other friends from my class!  So, yeah, it’s cool.

So hopefully the rest of this week will be good.  I’m really excited for Friday!

It’s really Japanese, you can’t see that from the picture that well.  But it’s really cool.  And it was cheaper than my uber-bad haircut to boot!

I hope everyone enjoyed Easter…it was completely skipped over in Japan.  No one mentioned it, no decorations, sad.  In fact if a bunch of family members wouldn’t have emailed me about it, I wouldn’t have known it was Sunday.  Oops.  Well, hope it was fun!

Hiroshima was a lot of fun.  Our Rotary group has become really close, so it was even more fun than Tokyo.  Everyone likes to hang out together and stuff, and it was a good trip all around.  The first day, we took the bullet train to Hiroshima.  I had never been on that, but it wasn’t that exciting, it just felt like a regular train.  Besides the fact the scenery is rushing past at 300MPH.  We could turn the seats around so they were facing each other and talk the whole hour and a half, so it wasn’t boring at least.

Once we got to Hiroshima we had okonomiyaki in this multi-level restaurant.  Usually I love okonomiyaki, and it is one of my two favorite foods here.  However, they prepare it differently there and I HATED it.  I only ate like half.  So yeah, I don’t want to have okonomiyaki down there anymore.  Then we just went to the hotel to drop our bags off and stuff, although we had to walk so it kinda sucked.

Then we went to the Memorial Museum for the atom bomb.  That was really really sad.  I was really amazed at the before/after pictures and scaled model.  Like, there was just NOTHING left.  That kind of power is completely terrifying, I’ll be honest.  Most of the city was just absolutely *gone*, with just a few walls left standing.  Then they had on display a lot of clothing, unfortunately from Elementary students, that showed all the burn marks.  Hell on earth kind of thing.  So much stuff that was just really sad and gross.  At first I thought it was bad, and I didn’t want the guilt trip, but I think it was a very good experience.  After seeing that, I don’t think I could ever justify any country using an atomic/hydrogen bomb.  What I learned in history class didn’t even scratch the surface of the devastation that just one bomb brought, and then later of course, the other city was bombed.  And I didn’t know the US was planning to drop a ton more if Japan didn’t surrender, which was really sad.

I didn’t end up feeling that guilty though, because I felt more like it was a different time, different generation.  It was also during a war, and so it wasn’t like both sides weren’t guilty of killing.  I was worried that since I was an American going there, it’d be…bad.  But the Holocaust museum was almost more sad in some ways, because that was a completely innocent group of humans that also had unimaginable stuff happen to them.  Either way, both situations were extremely sad, and so were both museums.

Then we went to sushi for dinner, the one with the moving plates.  It was good, but I only had shrimp sushi and french fries, I wasn’t that hungry.

Back in the hotel we all like hung out in one room and drank pop and had a lot of snacks, with the supervision of the Rotex girl, Noriko.  She’s really cool though, so it was fun.  Went to bed at about 1, although we all went to our separate rooms at like 12.

Second day we basically just went to this island.  We took a ferry which was interesting.  On the island there was a really famous Japanese shrine and gate thing in the water, and we looked at that and stuff.  There are also tame deer EVERYWHERE that you can feed.  And they follow you and sometimes nip you, just like in Nara.  That’s really cool.

Then we took the bullet train back and some other trains and a bus to get back to Toyookasan’s house.  About 4 hours of public transportion…uh!  Then when I got home, I left again right away because Toyookasan’s wanted to go Okonomiyaki.  Osaka goodness, luckily.  But I was so worn out, I wasn’t very happy that I couldn’t just sleep.  Turned out as a very good dinner though!

And school was really great to be back in today.  It was fun, and nice to see my friends again, I forgot how much I missed them.  Today was a half day, with just a ceremony and cleaning.  Tomorrow’s a half day, but we actually have some classes an I have to do something with ESS after.  So yeah, been having fun lately.

Tomorrow and Sunday I will be in Hiroshima.  Kind of nervous about being an American and going.

Today I gave my speech at Rotary, which I thought was a decent one.  It may have been my longest.  But the bus was late because of road construction, so I missed the train, and had to wait for the next one.  Which made me LATE.  So one of the Rotary members calls me, asking where I am and stuff, and tells me to take a taxi.  Easier said than done.  It was a stressful situation.  I ended up having to give my cellphone to the driver so that the Rotarian could talk to him and tell him where I was supposed to go, because I didn’t know the address.  So I got to Rotary like 15 minutes late, had a small lunch (no breakfast…) and gave my speech.  Then I got to go after they finished and stuff.

At ESS Club today (meeting!) I met a new girl who just came back from Canada!  Her English is really good, and she seems very nice, so it’s cool to have a new friend.  I also spoke almost solely Japanese  at ESS, and she was really impressed by it, and even the other members commented that I had improved over Spring Break a lot!  I was really happy.

My new class is very similar to the one I had when I was ninensei, but two boys have been added and Tatsuya won’t be in my class, which is sad.  But Tsutomu (good friend from ESS) is now in my class!  Which is really cool!  He went with some other students to Boston, because there’s like an exchange program every-other year between Nagano and a school there.  That was fun for him, and he brought back some American candy for us to eat.

So I hope Hiroshima is fun!  I probably won’t update until Sunday night or Monday afternoon and stuff.   Hiroshima is a Rotary trip by the way.

Oh, and for going up a grade, I really want to work harder at stuff.  But in some ways, I’m not sure how.  Nagano High School doesn’t give out grades, and subsequently doesn’t make sure that exchange students are really participating.  Like, we don’t take tests except those Japanese tests I always complain about.  And I don’t actually have any workbooks for classes.  So while Japanese students who go to America have to pass classes or return to Japan, we aren’t even given the tools to properly do school.  Not that it’s easy with Japanese and stuff.  But still…  Maybe they should set a little bit higher expectations.  Maybe.  Some stuff is impossible, such as notes, because there is so many kanji mixed in, and I can’t even read it.  Right now I’m stuck between the opinions that ‘its good that they don’t expect much’ and ‘maybe they should expect more’.  I’m not sure what to think.  But I’ll do my best.  I really want to learn Japanese well!

Ok, today I’m going to talk about after school activities, or clubs.  I am in the English Speaking Society, like I mentioned before, mainly because that was the group that gave me a tour around the school and it looked like a good place to start making friends.  And I am extremely good friends with most of the members, and I like to hang out with them.

There are many clubs in Nagano High School, here are a few: Tennis (Soft and Hard), Soccer, Drums, Band, Basketball, Kendo, ESS, Baseball (I think), and some others.  Some students are in multiple, some don’t join one at all, but most just pick one and stick with it throughout high school.  Clubs are require a LOT of commitment.  You must go on weekends usually, they are after school everyday, and you still have them over breaks.  That’s part of the reason I’m part of ESS club, because it isn’t as commitment-heavy as some of the other Sports clubs.  Joining a sport would lessen the time I have to do things with my friends and host family, and also be interrupted when I have mandatory Rotary events.

I thought about switching from ESS club to something different now that I’m moving up a grade, but in the end I’ve discovered that clubs in Japan are a lot more work than what we have in America.  And if I had less friends and a less busy schedule, I might be up to that, but I can enjoy a taste of some activities through gym and other school lessons, and still keep a social life up and have Rotary happy.  Just an interesting part of Japanese student life.

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Off of that subject, I’m beginning the preliminary web design for my new Student Activist League website.  I hope to have it fully operational by May.  Hopefully do some in-school promotion for the URL before summer break, with Dean/Kent/Kayla’s help.  That’d be really cool.

I’m really excited to really start up my group once I get back.  It’ll be awesome.