For those of you who use them, what can I do to improve my forums?  I want some user feedback.  I need a way to re-energize them, and keep them going.  They’re targeted mostly at young adults and high schoolers with an interest in Japan, or studying abroad.  I think I should advertise them more, yes, but other than that…?  This would be a good post to leave a COMMENT on, but ONLY if you really know what you’re talking about.  I do moderate all comments before putting them on the site.

Also, please comment if you’re willing to help me in my idea to create a Japan-centric wiki.  I’m very interested in having someone else help me with that, so please apply if interested!  Comment, or email, it’s all good~

I’m actually writing this from Detroit at the moment.  So, I’m not exactly home safe yet, but when this goes up on my blog…I will be.  So hopefully you will read this.

Anyways it is WEIRD to be around so many white people!  They all look the same…just kidding, but they definitely look different than Japanese people.  I miss Japan already.  Americans are also so FAT.  Why?  I’m serious, we need to work on this as a country.  It is not healthy, it will not help your social standings, etc etc.  All around a bad thing.  So let’s all work on being healthy!!

Um, yeah.  I’m sitting at this gate, but there’s another flight here before mine.  Wouldn’t want to accident go to Indianapolis or something…  Yeah, definitely not getting on this flight.  I still have an hour until my boarding time.

I got Caribou Coffee here.  It wasn’t as good as Starbucks though.  I hope that it’s just because it’s at the airport, because otherwise it means that I’ve gotten too used to Starbucks in Japan.  That would be horrible!  Forsaking the Minnesota’s original coffee chain!  There was also a Taco Bell, BUT my parents are taking me there, so I want to go with them.  I can wait.  I think…

The flight over was really boring.  Maybe I got around 3 hours of sleep.  Right now it’s like 2:45 AM in Japan.  So that’s the time I’m running on right now.  My brain is pretty addled though, because of the daylight and stuff here…so I’m definitely a bit mixed up.  Tired, but actually not that tired.  They put the night-like setting early on the plane, so it kind of got the passengers ready.

I haven’t been real impressed with the customs here.  The two guys I went through were nice, but there were also some other people who were yelling at different people and stuff.  I beeped at the gate because of my belt, so that was almost scary.  Almost, but I figured it was my belt.

Oh, and when I was picking up my baggage to go through customs, there were like no problems.  Last time one of my bags was lost, so right now so far so good.  Some lady started putting her bags on my cart though!  I grabbed my second bag, came back, and there were these two other bags with my stuff!  And I’m like…what the heck…  And no one was really around, so I didn’t know who had put it there!  So I just put them on the floor and kind of waited, then this lady came over and she was like ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ and I was just kind of laughing.

I’ll get pics sometime later.  I’m just writing because I have nothing else to do.  By the way, this blog WILL continue as my personal one, it just will be about America.  Still read it, or don’t, it’s your choice.  It will tackle more political thoughts though, and be at least a PG-13 rating w/ adult topics.  So it’s not really going to be the family friendly Japan blog anymore.  I want some place to seriously discuss current issues in America.  Like obesity. Just a heads up.  I’ll also continue my video blogs though, and they’ll be Japan-themed.  Yay.

Later~

(Now commences standard BonsaiBlog writings, from America)

I can’t believe this is my last blog update from Japan, but it is.  I don’t have much time, because I need to wake up in 6 hours to go to the airport.  It’s 1 AM, and I just finished packing.

Today has been so hard.  I went to the airport and saw Yudai off.  Then I hung out with Jeremy for the last time.  Then I had the final dinner with my host family. It was all really sad.  And I cried a lot I guess.  I’m an emotional person to begin with, so yeah, difficult day for sure.

I got a lot of nice gifts from my friends and family here.  Yesterday classes 7 and 8 threw me a going away party after school!  They decorated the room up really nicely, and had games planned out, and tons of snacks and drinks.  It was supposed to be from 11:30 to 2, but everyone was having fun, so we stayed until 5:15 when the teacher said we had to leave because students aren’t supposed to be at school past 5:30 or something.  So yeah, like 6 hours!  It was really great to see all my friends for so long.

I WILL MISS EVERYONE HERE SO MUCH!  And the food, and the culture, and the language.  This has been such an AMAZING experience for me!!  Unbelievable, seriously.  So many great memories.

My suitcases are really big too, I hope they’re not over the weight limit.  AND I’m sending a big package home.  but I’m doing it by boat, because it’s much cheaper (albeit slower).

Can’t wait to see my family at the airport!

I’d like to thank my host families here a lot, Makis and Tyookas.  I’d also like to thank Rotary for giving me this opportunity and for facilitating my time here.  Also my family back in America for supporting me.  And definitely God for watching over me, keeping me safe, and answering a lot of my prayers.

(Including this morning.  I was very late, but I prayed very hard, and I made it to the bus with a minute to spare.  IF I had missed that bus, I would’ve gotten about only 10 minutes to talk to Yudai instead of 40)

I’m so tired though.  I’ll do an update in America to say I got home safe.  THANKS EVERYONE!

Sunday- ESS’s Sayonara Party.  It was really fun, we went to the sea, and had a barbeque.  But Japanese BBQs are a bit different in Japan, it’s hard to explain.  But it was really good.  Then we just kind of played around on the beach.  After that, 5 of us went to Tsutomu’s house to watch Scary Movie 4 and also to have a little farewell thing for Yudai.  It was a pretty fun day.

Monday- I went to Kyoto to see the NINTENDO building.  It was just a nerdy thing I wanted to do before I left Japan.  Unfortunately Monday was a holiday of sorts, so the building was closed and no one was really there.  It was still cool to see it though.  It was an hour drive there, saw it and took a few pictures, ate at McDonald’s, then drove back.  So a lot of hassle and kind of expensive for my host dad (paid highways suck).  But it was really cooooool!

Then I got ready and stuff, because there was a Rotary dinner.  It got moved to 4:30, really early, because a relative of a Rotary member died, and there was a meeting or something that they also needed to do that night.  I don’t know all the details.  But the dinner was really good and I appreciated it a lot.  I also got some presents from Rotary members and stuff.  Maki-san and Yoshinori were there and I was so HAPPY!  I really miss Yoshinori because he was such an awesome little host brother and we had really similar interests.  Keisuke does not pay that much attention to me, but Yoshinori liked having me around. 

After that, we stopped at UNIQLO (clothing store).  I was checking out with a pair of jeans and a tshirt and my host mother’s like, “Oh, we’ll buy that for you” and I was like “No, no it’s ok” and then I kind of glance at the clothes and then at my host mother…”Oh, thanks!”.  That wasn’t exactly the situation, but it was really nice of them.  They were buying clothes for Keisuke which is why we went.  And that is the outfit I will wear on Sunday it is soooooooo cool.  The tshirt is a really cool one that is Japan-ish, but not touristy.  Most tshirts have English sayings on them, or say ‘NY’ or something because that’s what’s cool in Japan.  So it’s been a bit difficult to find stuff in Japan that’d be cool to bring back and actually different.

Tuesday- Yesterday I just hung out with Jeremy and Cathy after school.  Then Cathy had to leave, and Jeremy and I went to a camera store place and he bought a used one that he wanted.  He wanted a manual one…  But then he went back home and his host mother said that the host family’s rich friend had a camera they could give him.  So we all got in their van…and then the host mother’s like “This will probably take 3 hours at their house” and it was already 6PM, so I was like “Uh…I gotta go” because it would be too late.  But Jeremy got like two cameras…very lucky.  Personally, I’m learning a lot about cameras because Jeremy knows a lot.  Not like a camera nerd, but maybe close.  (Kidding Jeremy)

Typhoon and Earthquake- Typhoon never really hit Osaka.  I was so sad.  I didn’t feel the earthquake either, but a lot of people did here.  It was during my Rotary dinner apparently.

 And I’m kind of excited to go home.  I’m looking forward to seeing people and being in my own country again.  But I’ll definitely miss Japan.

Tomorrow or Saturday it looks like a Typhoon will hit the Osaka area. Which means I may have no school tomorrow and will have to hunker down inside my house with flashlights and stuff. I hope it’s fun. I’ve never been in any kind of tropical storm before. I’m pretty far inland, but it looks like a big typhoon from the weather map. Could be scary. But I have kind of a nervous anticipation to see it, if it ends up coming.  [But don't worry, I'm in no real danger]

And I got a dismal 46% on JTest. Which is almost half, which is better than I thought I would do. The kanji made it difficult for me to read a LOT, so that’s not half bad I guess. Obviously I’m not happy about it though. But since I took no classes before, I’ve been kind of trained by talking with friends and adults…not as much text book as is usual. So I won’t worry too much. Just burn it before it gets handed in to Rotary.

Oh and tomorrow I’m going shopping for clothes. Because I want Japanese style stuff before I leave. Cool, huh?

So Sunday was my last Rotary meeting.  It was really sad because they did it at the same place that our first meeting was at, so it was…wow.  And the last 5 students (most had gone home)…we were all like talking to each other about meeting, and memories, and all the things we had done and stuff.  It was really really sad.  But it would’ve been more emotional if there hadn’t been a four hour meeting about basically nothing.  It was frusterating that it was kept as such an uptight meeting, there should have been more emotion I think.  Yara did cry during her speech though, just like I told her she would.  Then we had a little party thing after.  So yeah, it was pretty sad.

Monday I went to UNIQLO to find a hoodie, but there were NONE.  So I was so mad.  And we also went to a few other stores, that Cathy and Jeremy wanted to see.  And we kind of got lost in Kongo, because we tried to take a short cut.  I can’t believe how many shortcuts end up getting you lost.  Today after school I’m going to a waterfall to swim with Jeremy and Cathy.  It’s apparently a park, but there’s a long bus ride and a 20 minute hike so I’m hoping it will be REALLY COOL.  I went with Maki-san hiking, so I saw this beautiful waterfall and I hope it’s similar.

And I wanted to talk about my political views for a second.  Because I’ve gotten several emails and blog comments on it.  I am (1) Christian and (2) liberal.  I changed from being ultra-conservative because I got smarter and because of the ultimate failings of the Republican party.   However, a large section of my extended family is still Republican.

I’d been planning this for awhile, but I bet none of you thought I’d do this:

I actually have brown hair now.  Amazingly enough.  It doesn’t look too shabby, and it’s darker than the picture makes it look.  Because like I’m in my bright room.  Could’ve turned out better, but it’s not SO bad for just buying a box of dye.  I wanted professional, but it’s like $50.  This wasn’t really for Japan, but I didn’t want to come home being blonde.  I wanted to do something more drastic.  And yes, it does look way different on me.

Jeremy and I did it at my house.  He ended up getting dye too BUT it totally made very little difference to his hair, so we were both like ‘awwww’.  We’re thinking about doing his over sometime next week.

Yes, it’s like a 3 month dye.  So have fun seeing me in America with dark brown hair.  I like it for the most part.  Yay.

And it’s totally cool that I did a surprise.  I bet none of you thought I was thinking of doing this…

Please, all Americans, watch this video.  It is absolutely amazing political commentary, and rings very true.  And actually it gave me hope that America can fix the major governmental problems we are having now, and get much better.  So yeah.  No matter what political party or views you have, I suggest watching it with an open mind.

So I’m at school right now.  Because of course I don’t actually take the tests, but I still have to go.  I don’t know why.  They sit us foreign students in the computer room, and we’re not really allowed out except for bathroom and stuff, because it would disturb the other students.  Hm.  From here on out, it’ll be a lot of tests, going all the way until the end of next week.

So I forgot it was the 4th of July, until the teacher from Trinidad mentioned it to me.  I felt kind of stupid forgetting, but actually the other two Americans did too (Jeremy and Cathy).

In second hour Jeremy and I decided we’d have a three person 4th of July party, so that’s what we did.  We went to the pool after school first though, like we planned.  It was raining and cold, and there was no one actually there.  So we decided not to go.  BUT then two kids ran in, so we’re like, what the heck, why not. In the end, it stopped raining, but was definitely cold.  Not the best swimming experience, but still fun.

Then for the party, we waited until like 6:30 and bought burgers at McDonald’s.  We felt this was the most American thing we could do, since we couldn’t grill burgers ourselves.  And we bought some bread cake things to celebrate.  And FIREWORKS.  So we ate, then we did fireworks, and it was really just awesome.  Three Americans celebrating our independence.  We did it by the river, and no one was really around to appreciate our little celebration.

And I wrote a whole long thing about Japan and WWII, but I deleted it.  Because I don’t want to get involved in politics on this blog, both Americans and Japanese people read this.  But it was considering this news article.  It’s horrible that he was essentially forced into resigning, and I’m not happy about the whole situation.

So Jeremy got a new haircut last week, and Cathy and I were jealous.  So today us three went out, and two of us got new haircuts.  I picked one out of a magazine, but it ended up not looking that way.  But oh well.  Getting hair cuts in Japan is like playing the lottery.  You never now if you’ll get a good haircut for foreigner hair, and the odds are about the same. (I jest, I jest.)  So it looks really punk/emo, and not so much Japanese.  Oh well:

That’s probably the most radical haircut I’ve ever had.  It has the total one-eye hair bangs and everything.  Overall, I’m still fairly happy with it.  It has a lot of novelty, and that’s what I was looking for.

Anyways, been hanging out a lot with Jeremy and Cathy.  Ok, so just about every day.  All the Japanese students are too busy for me though with studying for tests, so it works out nicely.  Tomorrow we’re going to the POOL!  It’ll be fun.  I’m debating between trunks or speedo.  Hmmm.

On Sunday I went to Nara with my host family, but I went with the Makis already.  So it was fun, but like the same place.  The multitude of tame wild deer seemed cleaner this time, and had horns.  So that was a bit cooler.

Later~