my past month or so

here's a bit about my last month. note that it was originally written to some rotarians back in australia, but i thought it would be fairly interesting for everyone!

I've been on holidays for about 2/3 of march. it's spring holidays here at the moment, so everything's getting a bit warmer, and the cherry blossoms are really hitting their strides. Most days, i'll have judo club for about 3 hours in the morning, and i might do some stuff with other exchange students in one of the bigger cities near us once every two weeks or so. at other times, i might just be at home, watching tv, or relaxing.

I've moved host family too. my first host family seemed to be the typical rotarian family; they were in their 60s, had children not living at home, and were still working. for the two months i was living with them, i had a great time, but it was occasionally a little difficult, because there was never anybody close to my age that i could talk to.

but now, i'm on to my second host family. they're a bit younger, and they've still got two of their four kids living at home, in their twenties. I get along with my host brother really well. we have some similar interests, and he doesn't seem to mind including me in things that he's doing. it's amazing how easy it is to bond over some multiplayer Mario Kart!! :)

School drags at times, especially because I can't understand any of it, and all i am able to do is study some not-so-riveting japanese grammar text books. but Judo, which i have about 6 times a week, for three hours, is probably the highlight of my day. i've made some good friends with people from there, and I always look forward to it. I'm quite a bit stronger than most of the guys there, but my technique isn't good yet, so on occasions, i can be quite easily beaten by a 45kg girl 15cm shorter than me! :D

I go to Rotary meetings every week. they seem to be much more formal than the marion rotary club's meetings, and there is only one female member, who seems to be little more than a "rotary-wife" to the rest of the men there. it would be quite unheard of for the next president of the club to be a woman, as is happening in Marion soon! there isn't anything similar to inner-wheel. I think the wives quite enjoy having the night free! :) the food is a different meal each week, but the serving sizes are actually microscopic. as i am often coming straight from judo and a whole day of school without afternoon tea in between, I'll usually eat two to three of these small entree-sized plates. :D it's almost become a running joke with me and the rotarians, that i'll eat about 3x as much as everyone else! that's the standard rotary dinner to the right.

i haven't been getting home sick at all, which is good.  in fact, that's not quite true. i do miss some things. mainly woolworths extra-soft hot cross buns, bakers delight italian style white bread loaves, olives, lamb, pasta and a the large range of cereals that you australians enjoy. here, in comparison, the choice of cereals here is about the same as the choice of tofu at the average australian supermarket. so not much! :)

i'm not really missing my family; i went over with the mind-set that: i will be away, but the year will go so quickly, so i shouldn't spend several months pining over how much i miss my family. once i get back, i'll have far too much time to talk to them then! I talk to them about once a week, often more so, and emails and facebook are a great way to keep in contact, without really having to keep in contact! also, i actually even forgot it was easter, until i received an email from my sister!

I went to tokyo all of last week, where I went shopping and bought some great clothes, two days in disneyland, some great time with my uncle and aunty and their kids, and did some things in tokyo that i'd been wanting to do for a long time, such as having a coffee over the shibuya crossing (left)

this past weekend, i also got to go to my host brother's wedding, which was a great experience. it's not every day you get to see about 25 women dressed meticulously in traditional kimonos scrabbling to be the ones to catch the bouquet of flowers thrown by the bride!! :) also of note is that in most japanese weddings, the actual wedding ceremony is quite christian orientated, even though almost no-one here is actually christian! also, in japan, most brides will change several times over the day. the bride started out in a long, elaborate white western style dress, then into a slightly more simple pink western style dress for half of the reception, and then a different more trendy outfit for the evening! this is of course in conjunction with the 3 different dresses, (two traditional japanese, one western) that she wore in the photo session 2 weeks before hand! she would have spent so much time getting changed that day! thankfully, the groom doesn't usually change. the wedding ceremony itself was fairly simple, as was most of the wedding reception, which was completely devoid of dancing, but did include some karaoke!