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!

i'm a bad exchange student.

what to say of exchange atm?
words can't really describe it. sometimes, it's quite uneventful, especially now that the "novelty" of being in japan has worn off. it's not that it's boring here a lot of the time, but i just sometimes don't really have much to do.

recently, school's sort of finished for the school year, so now, i'm on spring holiday (i think! :D). i've been doing quite a bit with the two other exchange students from australia, which are living quite close to me, so that's been awesome. we've been going into Gifu and Nagoya, and going shopping, and just generally having a great time. but buses are expenisve here. it costs me about ¥2 200 to get to Nagoya and back, and about ¥1500 to get to gifu and back, so it's not exactly cheap to go anywhere… :/

for the last two days, and tomorrow, i've got work experience. yes, that's right; the guy who can barely communicate in japanese is working. i'm going to the town hall (like the local government equivalent), where i'm working for the public relations section. i've been doing some stuff in english, like writing emails supplying information to tourists interested in coming to visit Seki, among other things, so it's been really quite interesting. I wish i got paid though! :)

Japanese? it's going ok. i know i'm spending far too much time reading, listening, talking and watching things in English though. it just gets a bit difficult, when you're just like "I need to be able to understand things!!", so you retreat into a language you can understand, and hence, your japanese doesn't improve. once school starts back up again, though, i think it will start improving again. well, that's not quite true. it's always improving, my vocab's getting better, i'm slowly learning how to use a few new sentence structures, and my understanding is going up trhough the roof, but i don't think my outgoing communication skills overall have gotten a HUGE amount better. with time, they'll improve even more. hopefully… :D


also, if you're going to japan, or really, anywhere, on exchange in the next 100 years, read this.


get ready for packing 101.
i just wrote this for a girl leaving for japan next week, and i thought it might help some other people out too. here's the original blog post that this post is related to: http://jennyinjapan49.blogspot.com/2010/03/lists-are-your-friends.html . it would probably make more sense to read that post first, but my take on it is still really useful, i feel.

call the airline that you're flying with, and ask them to give you extra baggage allowance, after mentioning the fact that you are an exchange student. you'll often be given a couple of extra kilos free baggage allowance. you'll thank yourself in the long run!!

DON'T BUY CLOTHES before you leave. you'll hate yourself. seriously; don't. buy them here instead. there are way more interesting clothes here than anything you can find back at home, they'll be souvenirs you'll actually use, and it gives you something to do!! and yes, unless you're 7 feet tall and 200kg, the clothes will fit you. i'm a 75kg 6ft guy, and a large percentage (~40%) of guys around my age are the same height or taller than me.

same for shoes. just bring one pair of trainers (invaluable for days of walking), a pair of more fashionable shoes that you are still able to walk in, and a pair of very formal shoes that you can wear in formal situations. i'm not sure what the prices are for shoes where you are, but they're cheap here, compared to australia. also, unless your feet are like 30cm long (1' long), you should be able to find shoes here. if your feet are a  similar size to your friends of asian heritage, you should be fine!! and then, buy more shoes when you arrive!! they're a pain to pack, they take up lots of room, and it's EASY to find awesome shoes here that i would buy in a moment!!

depending on how good your japanese is, maybe don't bring many learning materials, except for kanji cards with english translations. everything else is easy to find here.

don't go over the top with formal clothes. i brought 4 polos and 4 button shirts; i've worn them all of no times so far, and i've been here for 2 months already. bring lots of t-shirts, because that's what you'll actually be wearing, and also a good water-proof raincoat. currently, it's really quite rainy and windy; it's often freezing and inconvenient on your bike, i can assure you!! also bring some gloves that you can wear while on your bike/walking. it might be starting to warm up a little now, but it's still way too cold to ride without gloves, i feel.

make sure you have a VERY simple way to access money from canada or where-ever you are. every 7-11 here has an international ATM, so you can get money from most cards; but there are usually fees attached, if you're not careful. so talk to your bank, and see what can be done. i didn't bring ANY travelers cheques with me, i just get money from my account out of an ATM at the 7-11 near me, and it works perfectly.

bring the crappy kitchy canadian/american/australian stuff that you wouldn't think that your host family would like. they'll bloody lap it up!! like, my host family is still using fridge magnets from exchange students that came more than 10 years ago. olympic themed things would probably go down well too. but make sure it's presented nicely. the presentation almost matters more than the gift itself!!

buy some skype credit before you leave, and set up a skype address with phone numbers of loved ones already put in, (physical home numbers etc) so that you contact people easily once you arrive, for cheap. I had a half hour phone convo from skype to a landline in australia for half an hour, and it cost less than a dollar. bargain.

let me know if you need more info via a comment.

cheers,
have an awesome time in japan everyone!!


btw, some one asked about how i'm going in school. i can't understand almost anything any teacher says the class. so, most of the time, i goof off a little, stare aimlessly around the classroom/out the window, read harry potter (in english! :D), or study grammar. it's riveting stuff… :) school itself is probably the most boring part of my week (especially during english grammar lessons, japanese lessons, and maths), but club, where i've joined judo is awesome. i love just being able to beat the majority of the people at something, and i've made some friends, which is great. boring school lessons might be the lowlight of my day, but judo for 2.5 hours afterwards is probably the highlight! :) it doesn't hurt that it helps burn ridiculous amounts of energy; there's barely a practice that goes by without me being SERIOUSLY exhausted from a exercise.

btw, don't plan to be homesick. you're just setting yourself up for failure. you're only going on exchange like this once; you can't get this time back again. if you spend it whining and pining, trying to stay in contact with the people you actively decided to leave for a year, then why did you go on exchange? you'll see them way too soon again anyway. just enjoy the experience while you're here, because before you know it, you WILL be home again, and wishing you had spent more time actually doing things.

that's my take on it. :)

i might not be homesick, but i do definitely miss my caity… :)
cheers
xx

school and not

the last few weeks have been really good. school's been a definite change though. previously, before coming to japan, i thought i had a pretty good idea of how japanese school worked. i was wrong. yet, at the same time, i was pretty much on the ball in regards to some things. some things though are really strange. for example, in japan, they don't have recess. they only have 10 minutes between lessons, and a 40 minute lunch. so by the end of the third lesson, you're both starving and drained, because you haven't had an opportunity to relax for long enough. i definitely prefer the australian method atm, but it is nice to not have to go from one class STRAIGHT to the next, and to instead have a bit of a break.

at school, i was a bit of a super star, but now it's starting to wear off, which is nice. for a week, i was riding some serious novelty factor, but now, as i become more of an everyday thing, it's not so prevalent, which is nice. but the japanese teenager doesn't seem to gawk or react to a novelty person in the same way that an australian would. i think australians in general would at least attempt to talk/communicate with them, and maybe mention to their friends as an aside a difference between them and the novelty person. here, though, it's more like: 1) a japanese girl sees me. 2) she quickly mentions to her friends that i'm there, and they start screaming/giggling. 3) they wave/laugh towards me, if they're brave enough. 4) i wave back, sending them into more hysterics. on occasion, they'll actually approach me, and attempt to say "herro! my name is *insert VERY forgettable name here*" (btw, japanese names are SO hard to remember! i can remember all of about 4 people's names in the whole school atm, because they all sound so similar. many girl's names end in "ko" and are 6 letters long, as are many of the boy's names, minus the "ko".) it's pretty funny watching the girl's reactions, but sometimes, it get's a little repetitive, but still fun. the boys often want to shake my hand, and will usually go "OOHH! BAEN!!" no body's able to pronounce my name here… it's kind of funny, especially as it's not like it's very difficult for them, not something like liam or laela etc…

because the year 12s had exams this week, i had three days off from tuesday till thursday, which was great. on tuesday, i went on a very scenic route to Mago, the main/only shopping mall in Seki, on my mama chari. i also went to the only gym in my city with my host brother. it's strange; in adelaide, there are heaps of gyms, all of which you must pay for. but here, there's only ONE gym in the whole of the city (yes, i know i'm in a much smaller city here; but there's more then 11 gyms in Adelaide!!) and it's free. as in, if you're a citizen of the city, you can go to this gym as often as you'd like, for nothing, ever. all you must do first is go to a safety demonstration where they show you how to use the equipment properly. so, that's what i went to on tuesday evening.

on wednesday, it was my birthday, so i relaxed for most of the morning, had some nice lunch (i think it was a japanese version of chinese fried rice, some miso soup and salad). then, i went to the gym, and when i came home again later, i relaxed, and then called my australian counsellor, my grandparents and my own parents, before having dinner.

omg it was so good!! there was sashimi (tuna and squid sashimi is like heaven from the sea!!!), purple-y rice with soy beans, a cooked vegetable dish with sauce, ebi-furai (literally: prawn fry, or deep fried battered prawns, which are so good!!) and ham-furai (fried centimetre thick pieces of ham battered and fried, delicious!!). there was also salad, which, like everything else made by my host-mother, was delicious!!! :D

i was given a REALLY nice wallet by my host parents, which was ridiculously unnecessary, and a nice beanie from my host brother, which i plan to use next month when i go skiing again!! :D

btw, i went skiing on sunday by myself. i got up at sparrow (like 5:15am) and caught a bus from seki to hirugano and was skiing by 9:00! :D the actual ski resort was fairly small, (ie two 1km long lifts equivalent) but the weather was INCREDIBLE, and the powder snow was to die for. i even made myself a powder snow angel! haha it definitely beat 35˚C in Adelaide!

the weather here atm is really cold. i literally breathe out steam in my room in the mornings and evenings, it's so cold, mainly because no-body in all of japan has ever heard of central heating. instead, they all use these piss-weak gas space heaters, and so everyone's freezing, all the time, unless they're next to the "stove" (as they call them, except that japanese people can't pronounce "v" sounds, so it comes out "stobe"! haha), when they're too hot. i think i'm getting used to it, and it was snowing for a couple of days last week, which was awesome, and most definietly made up for it! if you're my friend on facebook, check out my photos, i believe they're worth your time! :D

anyway… i think i'll go to bed now. the olympic ceremony is from 11am japan time, so i'm getting up for that. can't wait!!
let me know what you want to hear more of, and i might put it in next time, if i can be bothered.

btw, to leave you with a smile: i was in a drug store the other day looking for gum, but i had some real trouble choosing which type i should get. i mean, do i go for "Black and Black"? or maybe "SPASH"?? or how about "XYLISH"??? some of the names of products, t-shirts and shops here are absolutely ridiculous, including a shop called "crack step" and a tshirt that simply said: "parent's are sure hard to raise". ok then… :D

the long fabled "hello from japan!!" post

yes, it's that time of my life, where I'm able to write the previously mentioned, very important, "HELLO FROM JAPAN!!" post, so here goes.

in a couple of words: I'm having an awesome time.

my host family is really kind and down to earth. i had read some things about japanese families in general about rules that every single person seems to follow, but they seem to be a bit lenient, which is great. i'm talking about japanese specific bathing rules etc, not major "oh, you can break every rotary D if you want…" hehehe

my host mother and father are in their early 60s, and my host father is still working. We live in Seki, a small city of around 100 000 people, and it's a nice town, but SUPER cold. like, as in, it has never been; and never will be this cold in Adelaide ever. in my family, when it's cold in the morning, you breathe out mist, it's called "dragon breath". well, i have that in my room!! there's a heater, but i don't want to be using heaps of energy, wracking up their energy bill this early.

japanese language wise, i'm improving. currently, i feel as though i'm only getting better at the things i already know; ie i'm SO much better at plain form, after speaking almost entirely in plain form for the last few days. but i'm not actually currently learning any new sentence structures or the like. but soon, i hope that will change. to give you an example of how my japanese is currently, when i watch ANY kind of tv, be it those strange panel shows that you never see anywhere else but japan, or a drama, or the news (which is the hardest) i might understand the occasional word, but nowhere NEAR the level i need to be to understand it. i can have broken conversations with my host mother quite easily, but they're almost constantly punctuated with *new word i don't know* はどういみですか？ (what is the meaning of *new word i don't know*)

i'm currently sitting next to my host nephew, who's 9 years old, and he's SOO good at reading. the book he might take an hour to read; i still might not be able to read at the end of the year!!

i've done some stuff already with my host family. with my host mum, i went to uniqlo, where i bought a super nice polar fleece hoodie for only ¥980, which is about AUD$12, so an absolute bargain. just before, i went to a paper museum, where i got to make some traditional japanese style paper using traditional techniques, and to the library, where i borrowed some super basic picture books, and some bilingual manga. doraemon ftw! :D

the food is awesome!! a note to the potential future exchange student heading to japan. your host family WILL be worried that you won't eat japanese food, and THEY WILL feel frustration towards you if you don't like the majority of the food they eat. and yes, they WILL tell their friends and other exchange students once you have left about how you didn't like the majority of their food. so maybe, if you despise fish, tofu and rice, you should maybe choose somewhere else to go. but if you like japanese food, welcome to heaven. it's incredible. the stuff my hostmum can pull together in a couple of minutes is better than almost every japanese food you can buy anywhere in australia. but toast? the japanese have never, and will never do bread properly. their toast is strangely fat/tall, super white and soft, and has way too much sugar. so, i'm not sure what american bread is like, but for an australian who's used to good quality italian infused bakery bread, it doesn't compare.

i'm about to go do some kanji practice with my 7 year old host nephew, so i'll post more tomorrow, or in the next few days. but i don't start school until monday, so don't hold out for that just yet!
cheers

I'M GOING TODAY!!!

hi everyone,

in 5 and a bit hours, my plane will depart from adelaide international airport, heading to Kuala Lumpur, and then on to Japan for me! :)

i can't believe how quickly the last 2 months have gone. but at the same time, it's felt like an eternity waiting for this day to finally arrive!

i got a phonecall from my hostmum yesterday morning, my japanese is getting worse by the day. since i haven't been doing it almost every day for school, it's deteriorating at a serious speed. :/

yesterday was fairly hectic. I got up early (for me, ie 10am :D), and then started preparing to pack. i don't think i've ever spent that much time with my mum as i did yesterday, packing my suitcase. A word of advice to future exchangers, do several practice packs, and write a list of what you think you want to take before you start actually packing. that way, you'll remember what you think you needed when it comes time to do the real pack, and it's easy to have a list to look at to see what can be taken out.

but i doubt i've ever been as happy as i was last night! i called up malaysia airlines to request a lactose-free meal (thank god… haha) and i sort of jokingly asked the woman on the phone if she would be able to give me some extra baggage allowance. and she's like "oh, if you're a full time student, then you get 10kg extra, when you show your student ID card". when i was told that, i don't think i've ever been happier/more relieved in my entire life!! but, it would've been nice to know a couple of days earlier. so another word of advice to future exchangers: call up your airlines (unless you're an american, who probably gets about 40kg/88lbs anyway, compared to us civilised people, who are only given 20kg/44lbs) and ask for extra baggage allowance. if you mention that you're a rotary exchange student, you'll often be given extra allowance for free!!! that news seriously made my year!

in other news, i had my first drive ever last night, after getting my learner's permit on wednesday! it was pretty good, only very short, driving around one of the almost empty super markets, but i really enjoyed it! :D

anyway, the next post you read from me will be the long fabled "hello from japan!!!" post! hahahaそれはとても楽しみ！！：D

cya!!

happy new year!

ok, so what's been happening?
well, i've been working, xmas and nye are now finished, and i'm starting to get my head around the fact that i'll be going to japan in 21 days and 23 hours! :D

xmas was good, but fairly quiet. usually, my mum's brothers are in adelaide so we'd have afternoon tea/dinner with them, as well as mum's parents, but this year, they're both overseas, so we had my mum's parents for lunch and afternoon tea instead. i got some good stuff, including some money, a 4GB memory card for my camera, a laptop case, some hugo boss shirts and some PS3 games, among other things. so all in all, a great haul, if i don't say so myself! :P

i'm not sure if iv'e written about work before, but i'll do it again anyway. for three weeks, a group of 10 japanese highschool students are living in host families in adelaide, intensively learning english. during the day, they have classes and excursions to various touristy things around adelaide. so when they go on these excursions, i and one other person join them. really, all i'm doing is facilitating english conversation with them, while being a tourist in my own town! haha the kids are really nice and polite, and the pay is much better than at previous jobs i've had, so i really enjoy it! it's exhausting though, especially when we went to Glenelg (the most popular and accessible beach in adelaide) and it was 40˚C. the sand was almost burning my feet!

actually, i sort of have two jobs. once a week, i also tutor a family friend's kid in japanese. he's in the year below me, and isn't going too well in japanese, so i'm sort of helping him to try and bump up his knowledge before he gets back to school in about a month.

NYE was great. i was planning to be going only to a family friend's place, where another family would also be. we're all scotch families, and the ages of the kids all roughly match up. so after dinner, us three eldest kids went to another party in unley. i had a great time welcoming in 2010! :D although, i did sort of hit my finger on a fan though, and there's a blood blister on it now, which isn't that great, but otherwise, i think everyone had a good time.

rotary wise, i finished the first draft of my presentation, and showed it to my rotary club, with honorary members being the mayor of marion (a local council mayor) and a parliament representative, among many other rotarians and their spouses. otherwise, i saw caity and trephina at the house that caity's currently looking after, which was great fun; and we went to a rotex bbq thing as well. while dutch liquorice may not be my ideal lolly of choice, it was fun to hear about other people's exchanges.

i've also been emailing my host brother a bit; and i'm able to understand almost all of what he writes, which is great! :D

btw, how on earth are you supposed to work out what should and what shouldn't be packed?!?! it's so difficult trying to pack up your entire life for a year! :P

time to do a blog post then…

so… what's been happening?
well i love holidays. a lot. i'm really not sure how i ever lived doing school work everyday. also, we get our results back in about a week. that's kind of scary… up until a couple of days ago, i wasn't worried at all; but now i'm quite nervous, worrying about what i'll get. but i did some estimations of marks, and that sort of calmed me down quite a bit. so all is fairly good. :)

rotary wise? well, on sunday, there was the final briefing, where we, with our parentals, were given lectures on various things, such as travelling/packing, quarantine, insurance, mental and physical health, host families, etc. it was actually fairly interesting, and we also got our blazer and rotary rugby top. the rugby top's a good size, but the blazer seems quite big! apparently i'm gonna become a porker while i'm overseas and put on several kilos, but i still don't think that will cover how much bigger the blazer seems compared to any other jacket / blazer i have! :D

This week, i've also got a huge amount of info from rotary about my exchange. Apparently, i've changed high school, and I am now going to Sekiuchi high school, not the technical college like i previously thought. The photo to the right is my new highschool! i'm really excited about it. it's a coed highschool, started in 2004. Apparently, the translation google gave me of the school's motto was: Creative self-worship… so i'm a little unsure about that… :) but otherwise, i've got pretty much no info about the school, like how many people etc. but it should be good! i'm really excited to go, i can't wait!

Currently, it's only 44 days (i accidentally typed in 33 days just then, and it looked like such a small amount of days!!! but that'll be really soon! aahh!) until i go, and 16 days until xmas. the year's almost over! i can't believe it really… it should only be about july, not mid december already!

Also, i sent an email off to my first host family! it was predominantly in japanese, with two lines in english of things i couldn't say in japanese. :) but they haven't responded yet, so i'm stuck here, waiting for a reply. Rotary has only told me their address, but it hasn't been said whether i have any host brothers/sisters. I've also been told of my counsellor's name, so i guess i should make some contact with him too! :P

wow… this is a dis-jointed post if i ever saw one… hope you enjoyed it! :P

PS: how am i supposed to make a 20 minute keynote about my life by the 21st of december?!? not likely, me thinks! :P