I’m writing this as a plane takes me back to the United States.  No use wasting time in getting a blog up.  Plus I have nothing else to do at the moment.  In a word, I would have to describe my vacation as phenomenal.  There were things that could’ve gone better, but that’s life.  Overall it was a look into a culture I had never experienced firsthand and also a time to relax and have fun.

My family and I stayed at the Crown Paradise hotel.  It was an all-inclusive sort meaning the food, drinks/bar, and tips were all included.  Plus there was tons to do with its multiple pools, mini golf, tennis courts, and more.  It was an all around fun time.  In Mexico it’s legal for me to drink, so Sarah was jealous that I got the red bracelet which gave me access to alcoholic drinks.  Luckily I’m already pretty addicted to my drug of choice, Diet Coke.

Mexico was much different than America.  It had the feeling of a poor neighborhood if you got out of the glitz of the strip with all the hotels and tourist spots.  Everything had a pretty grungy look to it and it wouldn’t be a place I could live.  I feel bad that their government can’t come up with a suitable way to turn the country around.  We didn’t go too far into Mexico (it can get dangerous…) but we did go about half an hour away from Cancun by public bus to visit a marketplace.  It was still a tourist marketplace, but it was a bit different than the hotel area.

One thing that really really bothered me in Mexico was the business philosophy.  If you go into the marketplace, the people really pressure you into buying stuff.  It’s also not a fixed price, so you can bargain for whatever you want.  I LIKE fixed prices though, and the comforting structure they offer in any business model.  The fact that they abuse the emotional tie you have with them is disgusting.  I really hate feeling both pressured and like I’m letting people down.  Two for two for Mexican tourist traps.  Obviously I did not have too much fun in the marketplace.  Got some decent pictures though.

Another thing I don’t like about making money in Mexico is the people who work for tips.  They don’t have a real job, they do various things that you probably don’t actually want them to do and then have the audacity to ask you for a dollar or two.  I’m just not into that.  Again, it just gets me that they expect to take advantage of people.  What is wrong with a good hourly wage job?!  I can understand if they can’t get a job, but using that as an excuse for hassling people is just not acceptable in my view. 

I went to the bathroom at the airport and this Mexican guy shook my hand and asked how I was.  I answered and kind of (naively) just thought the guy was being friendly.  Then when I was coming out he got me a towel when I was washing my hands.  I’m sure a lot of you can see that he’s simply setting me up for giving him a buck, but I tend to not be cynical and think people have an overall decency built into their humanity.  As I’m walking out the door though, he did in fact ask for money.  It really through me for a loop, but I’m not sure how I couldn’t have seen it coming.  I told him I didn’t have any money.  I actually had $80, but it was in $20 bills and it’s not like he has change.  The point though is that I felt used and taken advantage of in the end.  Where people would just SIMPLY BE NICE in the US, people here expect money for it.  Even if I had all the dollar bills in the world, I wouldn’t have given him any.  It just made me pretty sad about the already downward trend of the world.

Ahem, anyways.  It was a good vacation.  I’m not happy to miss school so much, but I guess that just happens sometimes.  I think I gained at least 7lbs there because of the buffet that was open for about 14 hours each day.  Free food buffet style never makes for weight loss, true life fact.  While I was in Mexico though I thought up a few more things to write up in my blogs, more than just daily coming and goings, so I want to start tackling those issues that plague our society.  Mmm, mmm, good!

LOTS of pictures and vblog later.  Ciao.

PS- Danny and Gina’s wedding went really well yesterday.  It was pretty fun to see them get married on the beach.  Congratulations to them!!

Oh, and 3 DAYS UNTIL THE ZUNE COMES OUT!

    Just downloaded Flock, and now I’m using it to browse the internet.  Why?  I guess a couple of reasons.  I had already tried it two years ago, but I wasn’t that impressed.  It just didn’t have the integration I was looking for and Firefox was more stable.  Now however, the Flock team has put in some features that really make the browser nice to use.  Not least of which is the Media Toolbar, which is one of the reasons I use this now.  Plus I can update my blog right from my browser, it has a great web clipboard, and YouTube integration.  Flock is cool.  http://flock.com

    I had a great Saturday with Katherine and Mark too.  I bought two pair of jeans at Zumiez, and then went to dinner at Applebees with them.

    Then yesterday I went to the ‘Johnson Family Picnic’.  It was pretty fun, and I really enjoyed having lasagna for the first time since … a long time.  I also got to see family that I hadn’t seen since before I left for Japan, so that was really nice too!

    Good weekend, but I ended up being too tired out to go to school today.  I’m really looking forward to going tomorrow though.  Show off my new jeans ‘n stuff.  Plus I’m getting SAL off the ground this week.

Later~

Tags: mono, sick, jeans, zumiez, mark, flock, tech

Today I saw Spiderman 3 with my friends Fumiya and Tatsuya!  This week has been made up of school days lasting only 2 hours because of tests, so today was the last day and only two hours.  I went home and changed into regular clothes and dropped off my backpack, and then met up with Fumiya on the train.  Tatsuya missed it… so we waited for him at Abeno.

We were going to have dinner after, but then they switched it to lunch, so we were like really early.  At about 1:30 we ate Ramen (it was good).  The movie started at 4:15 though, so we just hung out until then.  Tatsuya bought some new drum sticks, we looked at some music, and sports stuff.  And Fumiya wanted some new clothes so we looked at clothes too.

And we also went to Baskin Robbins, which was good.  I like the Burgundy Cherry flavor a lot… it’s really delicious.  There’s a new place that just opened up by my station in Fujidera, so I have quick access now!  I can regain weight.

Finally we watched the movie (2 and a half hours!) and it was REALLY good.  I know some critics have said less than favorable things, but I really enjoyed it.  Venom is definitely the coolest looking villian, even if Eddie Brock is a jerk and stuff.  And Gwen Stacy was a very eye catching woman, but the Wikipedia’s entry on Bryce Howard has a less than flattering picture of her, which is disappointing.

So yeah, I had a really fun day today!

And I will be switching host families for my last month in Japan.  I think it’s less than good, because I’ll already be stressed about leaving Japan and having a complete change of enviroment, but I’m also looking forward to a bit of change.  The Toyooka-sans live very much like Americans and have much less ‘Japanese-ness’ around the house then the Makis did.  So in that regard, I’m kind of excited.  But I really love staying with the Toyooka-sans too…so it’s hard to know how to feel about it.

This Sunday I have my last big Rotary meeting in Wakayama.  This isn’t like the monthly one I go to, but the one I go to every two to three months with the other Rotary students in my area.  I’m good friends with all of them, and I saw them last Sunday when we went to Sakai and made candy with Rotex.  That was fun.  So yes, this Sunday I have a speech to do and a long drive.

Then the Sunday after I will go with Ishikura-sensei and Toyooka-sans to a concert in KawachiNagano.  It will probably be a very adult and Japanese-filled concert, some traditional singing or instrument.  And next week Friday I have a Rotary meeting.  So that is a total of 5 Rotary meetings in about two weeks.  Sometimes I feel that it takes a large chunk of my time, and breaks up my schedule.  I haven’t been able to do anything with friends for the past two weeks because EVERYONE has been studying for the tests that finished today.  They take it very seriously.  So today was a nice change.

But yeah, my Sundays are out and most of my friends have clubs on Saturdays, so guess what the only day is that I have to hang out with people?  Yeah…  So I’m excited for calmer waters soon.  Hopefully my friends will also be relieved now that the tests are done.

I’ll try to keep this better updated, sorry~

Ok, so I’ve been procrastinating a LOT because I knew it would be a lot to write and…I am lazy.

So the first day we flew in and left Japan at about 12:50 in the afternoon and then arrived at Incheon Airport at like…I’m not really sure. Maybe around 2:30. It’s a really nice airport though, and the flight was on a new and nice plane. I watched a Korean film with English subtitles. It was fairly interesting. We took a taxi to Seoul with our luggage and stuff, and that was about a one hour drive. Taxis are cheaper there…but still, long way to go by taxi (SUV taxi to boot). We dropped our stuff off at the hotel finally, then went to the ‘Korea House’. It’s geared towards foreigners and is very traditional styled. So we ate a very traditional Korean dinner, complete with Kimchi. If you want to know what that is, simply read about it.  After that we watched an hour long performance which highlighted some of Korea’s cultural dances and stuff.  It was really interesting, and much better than I thought it would be.

Then we went to sleep in the Hotel and stuff.  Keisuke and I shared a room, and my host parents shared a room.  Same as Tokyo, and it was really nice.  We stayed at the Grand Hyatt and all the channels save a few were in English so I got to watch TV I understood!

It was really weird hearing Korean though.  I am very comfortable listening to Japanese, even if I couldn’t understand it, because it’s what I’m used to hearing.  Korea sounded so…foreign, and I realized how used to Japan I am!  I also used Japanese a lot.  I felt more comfortable knowing that the Koreans couldn’t understand me and think I had bad Japanese.  There were also TONS of foreigners in Korea.  So I justed wanted to show off my skillz.  Most were businessmen who were getting talked to in English.  This American Asian guy asked me something, and it really surprised me.  American English coming from someone Asian is just really…surprising to me now, because I’m very used to hearing Asian people using Japanese English.  So yeah, it’s kind of a jolt when you’re so used to a certain dialect of English.

Anyways, the second day we did more stuff in Korea, and I got to see JIN!  Which was really awesome!  We talked a lot (in English).  My host family took Jin to lunch and we had a Korean-style barbecue thing.  They have mini grills in the center of the tables.   So that was really great.  Then we went to the top of Building 67, named so because of how many stories it has, and looked out at Seoul.  That was really cool.  Then we went our separate ways, and I said goodbye and stuff, but I really enjoyed seeing Jin!

After that Keisuke and I stayed in our hotel room for about two hours while my host parents went to the spa.  He slept while I watched English TV.

For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant and ate the buffet, which was really good.  I have discovered that Nan is the most awesome bread out there.  So that was really good.  Then we went and saw a street festival thing that was going on, with tons and tons of foreigners.

And the last day we were supposed to go to an Amusement park but it was closed.  That was sad, but we saw some other interesting stuff.  Then we flew home, but the plane was a little late, and there was some turbulence.

My host mother speaks some Korean by the way.  And I am so tired right now, so I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

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.

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!