Problematic

Bit of a problem, my laptop doesn't seem to be able to connet to the internet anymore so I have to use Miyuki's laptop for everything which is a little inconvenient since she also uses her laptop of course.

Other than that, tomorrow I have to get up at around 6am and we need to get to school fast for a singing practice at 7am. Then we have homeroom at 8am and after we have Chapel at 8:05 till 8:35. I also have Tea Ceremoney club after school tomorrow so that'll go till about 6pm and having to wait for Miyuki because she has her club too. I'm glad we get a 5 day rest next week! Golden Week is a life saver. I'm so tired. 

We're goinging to a place called Atami during Golden week and there we will stay at a place where we will sleep on the Tatami mats (basically on the ground) in a more traditional Japanese house! Which will be very interesting! We're also goinging to Yokahoma and Tokyo Tower. I think Miyuki said we will also go to Shibuya and Harajuku sometime but I'm not sure if it's also in Golden Week.

Miyuki asked me a strange question today. She asked if I had tried any of the buttons on the toilet. Course I hadn't after hearing that a girl 2 years ago who went to Japan on the class trip got toilet water everywhere after pressing a button. I don't want that to happen, would be embarrassing. Miyuki told me there's a butt washing and drying option which I just cracked up laughing at. No thanks! It sure is very Japanese to have toilet buttons but I'm not too keen on a butt wash from the toilet haha.

I'm finding it easier to remember names of people at school and I know a lot of people now! Zoe and I love it how when we walk past people we all say hi and can just break into conversation.

Every now and then, it's extremely irritating in the early mornings (7-8am) when I'm trying to catch up on sleep and the rubbish and recycling collectors come. Not only does the truck make a lot of noise but they also have loud speakers announcing that it's okay for you to take out your rubbish such as refridgerators, boxes etc etc. And it goes on and on for an hour or over sometimes.

Japanese climate is amazing. I haven't had one blemish on my face since coming to Japan. The air is magic. Though I always fee thirsty. There's not much wind here but sometimes when there is wind, it's incredible! You feel like a tornado's coming but somehow the girls manage in their tiny skirts. The other day, I woke and saw 4 umbrellas being blown around the streets. They're everywhere! Oh and the rain here is lovely. It falls straight and steady and only for one day at the most. So as well as an umbrella actually working, it's also refreshing and washes away some dust in the air. When it's raining, there's usually not much wind.

Another thing is, the school I'm attending now, St. Margaret's or Rikkyo Jogakuin doesn't have a school uniform. They aren's allowed hair dye, make up, cellphones, Ipods, piercings and accessories but apart from that, you can wear whatever you want and your hair doesn't need to be tied back. Though in this weather, I don't see how all the girls survive with their long hair untied. I'm glad a went for a haircut before coming here. Teachers here are also very close to their students. Most teachers and students speak in informal Japanese even though students respect their teachers very much.

My schedule at the moment is:

Monday

1. Japanese (8:45-9:35)

10 minute break

2. Japanese (9:45)

10 minute break

3. Self-study

10 minute break

4. Outdoor P.E

Lunch

5 min break

5. Japanese

10 minute break

6. Maths

4pm - Computer Club till 5:30pm

Tuesday

1. Chemistry

10 minute break

Zoe: Bible

10 minute break

2. Advisory (Talk with Ms Sakurai)

10 minute break

3. Japanese

10 minute break

4. Japanese

Lunch

5 min break

5. Self-Study

10 minute break

6. Music

Zoe: Chemistry

Wednesday

1. Maths

10 minute break

2. Chemistry

10 minute break

3. Shodo (Caligraphy)

10 minute break

4. Shodo (Caligraphy)

Lunch

5 min break

5. Self-Study

10 minute break

6. Indoor P.E

Thursday

1. Self-Study

Zoe: P.E

10 minute break

2. Japanese

10 minute break

3. Handbell or Cooking

10 minute break

4. Handbell or Cooking

Lunch

5 min break

5. Maths

10 minute break

6. Bible

Zoe: Music

Friday

1. Japanese

10 minute break

2. Japanese

10 minute break

3. Self-Study

10 minute break

4. Music

Lunch

5 min break

Zoe: Chemistry

5. Oral Communication

10 minute break

6. Chemistry

Zoe: Self-study

4pm: Tea Ceremoney Club until around 6pm

Everyone Monday and Tuesday I have to go home alone. Which is now okay since I know the area I live in! Whoo!

Oh and eating habits! The Japanese set out at the table is, rice to your left, main dish in the middle, soup to your right, vegetables and extras at the top, drink off to the side and chopsticks horizontally at the bottom, before your main dish.

I forgot if I needed to say anything else but I'll write down anything else I remember.

Laters for now!

P.S Japanese puddings are the best!

NO TIME

Whew! National Green Holiday today. So I get a break and catch up on sleep. Woke at 11pm which isn't too bad compared to the time I woke last Saturday. So lemme fill you in.

Last Saturday was raining pretty heavily so we didn't really go out. I slept till about 12pm and felt well rested after. We basically studied for the entire day and at about 4pm, Miyuki's father and mother took me to a clothing store called Uni Qlo. It's quite a famous store here and there Miyuki's parents bought me a nice top I liked as a present which was really nice of them since they're already feeding me 3 full on meals a day and have taken me to nice places. Anyhow, shopping only took a few minutes because I didn't find anything else paritcularly amazing.

Sunday was great though, we drove to Edo Museum at around noon and inside we saw Cherry Blossom paintings etc. Outside the Museum was Edo Park and we visited all the old buildings belonging to high ranking people and/or farmers during the Edo Period. (Edo Dynasty, the time when Tokyo was calld Edo). It was facinating though there were so many bugs. Their ants here scare the life out of me, they're as big as the 1st half of my thumb. In NZ, they're so small you can barely see the evil fellas. I kept hopping around because I was scared they would climb onto me. I bought a few souviners at the shop in the museum.
We went back home for a big before going out again at around 5pm to the famous Japanese area, Shinjuku. There, Miyuki, Hikaru (Miyuki's sister), their mother and I headed to, what I think they said was the biggest CD store in Tokyo? I may be wrong. But there we watched a live performance of 3 rising chorus bands. The event was called Mitsu or Michu and included the bands, chorus groups, Maria, A.G.E and Butterfly Dance. Rock and Pop music. It was great! Exciting. Many people came and Hikaru got to shake hands and take a photo with her favourite member because she bought 2 of their albums, one of which she gave to me which was very generous. Unfortunately they didn't allow photos but I will take a picture of the CD and mini poster I got there.

Monday and Tuesday were nothing special because of school. Though I did go home alone on Monday as Miyuki had cram school after her after school club. I went to Computer club with Yuka which I am now apart of. It's very interesting to design game maps etc. I even got to play my own game I created. After Miyuki and I said bye and I went with Yuka, Riko (another good friend Zoe and I made) and Zoe and we hopped on the train to Kochijoji station. There we asid bye to Riko and after passing another paygate I had to part ways with Zoe and Yuka. From there, I took the train to Asagaya by myself. It was a little nerveracking and I was basically on the edge of my seat, ready to run out the next time the door opened incase it was my stop. I passed 2 stops and at both I was wondering if I should go out or not but turns out I was right to stay on and later get off at Asagaya station. From there, I had to take the Asagaya bus. I had to listen very intently for which stop I was to get off at as it was a long name. Shimoigusa Yubinkyoku no Mae (Shimoigusa Post Office Front). I got a tad lost when I got off because I headed straight down the road and forgot to turn. I figured I was going the wrong way because why would I get off at the later stop and walk back to the earlier ones? It was rather dark so I stopped at a bike shop and luckily my Japanese was good enough to ask for directions. When I got home, my host mother was on the balcony turning and circles. The poor kind lady was panicing that I might have gotten lost.

I've also noticed that I'm either becoming very old or just somehow very sore in Japan. Not only does my leg ache but so does my left hip and upper right arm. I don't know what I would do without those daily Japanese baths. Without them, I'm sure I would be nearly disabled by now.

Every resting day now, I help my host mother with cleaning, I wipe all the floors in the house and some tables which is good as it makes me feel like I'm not sitting around letting her run after me.

Okay! Technology. If I've already told you some of these things in my last blog, sorry but I am just really amazed! Phones first of all have not only text message options but everyone pays a monthly fee and gets unlimited messaging, email and internet. The newer ones also have T.V and a barcode reader. The school doesn't have any fancy notice boards or computers but all notices are given at the start of the day or during the day if there is a notice, a speaker will turn on in every room and the notice will be read out. Notices are also given at the end of the day during the homeroom time.

Now I will be going out to see more things! Even though it's a public holiday, Miyuki still has club so I will be going with Miyuki's father

Will write again as soon as possible!

2 days into it... Feels like a week already

Currently 11pm in Tokyo. I should probably sleep soon but I'm not too sure when else I'll have time to type this up. So far, life in Japan is incredible! And the flight was also great. Great service, fantastic food and entertainment. I managed to watch the movies, "Marley & Me", "Yes Man" and "Ikigami" (A Japanese movie, fantastic but extremely sad. I believe I began crying, tad embarrassing)

We arrived about 4:30pm in Tokyo and overwhelmed as we were, we forgot our Japanese the instant we stepped out of the plane. Useful. So we shuffled through our bags to find our Japanese expressions sheet which had the words "Mayoimashita" (I am lost), and "Tasukete kudasai" (Please help me).

Not only did we take 15 minutes to find our way out of the arrival gate but we also found the toilet soap amazing. We had to ride a train to the area where we had to go to the Quarantine and Health Consultation (Don't ask me why it's called that, it was just a passport check and some stamps). We literally asked everyone where it was that we should be going. Unfortunately we sounded silly while people replied to us in very good English. Soap! WOW!! We all know there's automatic water nozzles in NZ toilets but automatic soap... Now THAT'S cool. However we did look idiotic in the bathroom while we "Oooohed" and "Ahhhed" at the soap technology.

Then it was downstairs to baggage claim and after wasting so much time, baggage claim had already stopped rotating and our bags were sitting in front of the rotating machines (The Japanese removed the bags for us instead of us going around asking where our bags were!) Luckily, we knew how to ask that questions anyways. The baggage trolleys were also incredible. They had locks on the wheels so to push them, you had to push down the handle to unlock the wheels. Soap and trolleys and we were already amazed. Simple aren't we?

We weaved our way through the airport and found the exit and found a large group of people waiting for us (Yuka and Miyuki and their family members). It was great meeting them and Ms Sakurai for the first time! A bit shy but we quickly began fitting it. They're incredibly welcoming and the fathers were extremely excited. My host father has already begun calling me "Jen-Chan" (What a father would call his own daughter. -Chan refers to people who have a close relationship). My host sisters and their friends at school also call me Jen-Chan or Jenni-Chan.

It took 2 hours to drive from the airport into Tokyo City and we went for dinner at a restaurant. It was incredibly delicious! Also very cheap! 100-400 yen [Max] (Note 100 Japanes yen is NZ$2. We had tempura prawns, octopus, Pizza, Okonomiyami (Japanese pancake like pizza), rice, salmon, friend squid. I believe Zoe also went out to dinner with her host family and they ate Sushi. We arrived home about 9-10pm and I gave my host family their gifts then had a nice shower and a soak in the bath.

I was shown around the apartment afterwards. It's quite incredibly how many hidden rooms there are. I expected more cupboards but the doors you'd think would lead to cupboards turned out to be toilets and bedrooms. I have my own room which is very nice. It's not as small as I expected. There are also 3 toilets and wow behold these toilets have buttons on the side and heated seats. I haven't dared touch those buttons though incase something horrible happens and I have to somehow tell my host family I broke their toilet. On the back of the toilet is a sink where you wash your hands after so you don't need to go from one room to the other. Very convenient (and yes, it IS clean water which comes out)

I got to sleep around 10:30pm and woke at 5:50am (by myself!) It was amazingly bright at that time. The sun was already out (Oh and Japan doesn't have daylight saving). I felt rested (due to the time difference I thought I was waking at 8:30am and was panicking that I did not wake in time for school). Turns out, I was up before everyone else (except the mother of course).

School was brilliant, confusing and embarrassing at first since Zoe and I had no inside school shoes so we had to march around the school in the wrong size bright blue slippers for the better half of the morning. Ms Sakurai had also pinned our pictures up on the wall outside the staff room and apparently when the girls walk past they said I look like a panda haha. We talked for a while and met some of Miyuki's and Yuka's friends. They were eager to speak english and become our friends so it was really great! When the bell rang, Zoe and I went with Ms Sakurai who introduced us to the staff and then we went to our respective homerooms where it's similar to our school's Tutor Group system except in one homeroom, there were around 40 girls. Scary, I was prepared to introduced myself in front of 15 at the most.

Everyone is very kind and funny and are eager to converse with Zoe and I in both English and Japanese. The girl who sits in front of me during homeroom and Chemistry is hilarious. I told her I was finding it hard to remember everybody's names so now she repeats her name to me every 5 minutes and everytime she sees me she says "I am Chiha"

On our first day, we went with Ms Sakurai to the bookstore where she gave us both a nice set including a pen and pencil and also gave us St Margaret's school bags, badges, flannels, P.E uniforms and Shodo (Calligraphy) paper. Then we tried on some new shoes (In Japan, when you enter the school, it's required to change from your dirty outside shoes into school shoes, however you can actually go outside with these shoes as long as you are WITHIN the school grounds.) There is no morning tea time but between each class is a 10 minute break where students return to their homeroom to exchange textbooks because their school bags are the size of a handbag (I have to alternate between what I take to school everyday because I don't have enough room for everything). As for out lunch boxes, they're the size of my purse. No jokes, they really are that small but the food here is great, I never feel hungry.

Today we made more friends and exchanged email addresses. It was also raining today which was nice. Unlike NZ, the rain falls straight and isn't blown from side to side. There is minimal wind and even though it was thought to be "cold" today, it felt like NZ Summer. It's very interesting riding the train to school every morning. First we drive to the Asagaya station which takes around 7 minutes then we march in with our train cards and scan them on the gates to pass and climb up several stairs to reach the train. Somehow the timing is always perfect and we're on the train for another 7-9 minutes until we get off at another station and switch trains. The second train is always more cramped as there are hundreds of students and we stay on until Kichijoji Station then it's a 2 minute walk to school. I can sure get sick of NZ buses but trains? Never.

After school, 3:30pm, we all put on our aprons and grab a broom or cloth and either sweep the homeroom floor or wipe down tables. That takes us till about 4pm then the club activities begin. Today (Tuesday 21st April) I watched Music club and some of the students asked me to play the drums for a bit then took me to the auditorium where I played a piano piece of them. It was very fun! It's only been 2 days but I can feel it's easier to remember all my Japanes vocabulary. Club ended at 6pm and then we headed for the station again. Usually we take the bus from the station home as at night, no one comes to pick us up from the station. The city is spectacular at night. Billboards, flashing lights, lights on the building corners, electronic signs etc you name it. I was also surprised to see kids who looked around 7-10 taking the trains all by themselves with no supervision. Japan is incredibly safe. We arrived home around 7-7:30pm and had dinner. Another thing is, breakfast is huge. Compared to me usually having just a simple Up & Go, it seems like a lunch to me!

Well 12:40am, I'm off to bed or I'll be falling asleep tomorrow. It's a long school day tomorrow as opposed to NZ Wednesdays being a short day. I'll write again when I have time and upload all the pictures I've taken!

Flying out tomorrow!

^{Whew. All packed and ready to go for tomorrow. I'm posting this now since I won't get time to post it tomorrow (with the whole getting up at 2am thing). Though right now, I'm well tired. I couldn't sleep very well last night for some reason and had to wake at 9 today to photocopy some sheets of music so I can practice piano in Japan. My eyeballs are going to fall out soon. Pretty tough packing. My luggage already weights 13.4kg and hand luggage about 3.4kgs -___-}

^{I figured I won't need to bring a lot of clothes since I'll be in my uniform for the most part of the week so all I've packed is... My uniform (dress, 2 shirts, blazer), socks, 2 pairs of casual shorts, 3 t-shirts, pajamas, toiletries, running shoes, school shoes and then the rest are gifts =S}

^{I currently have about 5-6kgs worth of gifts. They're taking up a lot of room! I have to sit on my luggage just to close it.}

^{Since packing, I think I've discovered a new found headache and hate for packing. Estimating what you need when you're away from home for 10 weeks is irritating. Especially when you have to remember to account the things you will end up with on your way back.}

^{I've also found it tetdious to type up and scan my work. I've scanned and typed up what I can onto my laptop to save me carrying it all but I still have things which I can't scan like text books. I went against scanning all my work as I thought typing it up would mean I would have a chance to look over all my work while transferring it into my computer but I got a bit low on time in the end as I also have to keep up my piano practice and had to go souvenir hunting for my host family and extras for others I will meet.}

^{Albeit it's all worth it in the end! I suppose I'll end up not sleeping tonight since I can't possibly get to sleep at a time any earlier than 10 with this level of excitement and I'll just wake up really tired if I sleep at 10pm only to wake at 2am. I'll just sleep on the plane if I need to, hope the ride won't be too rough.}

^{I shall write again as soon as I can when I arrive!}

^{Jia mata! じゃまたね(Japanese for, see you later)}

2 weeks!

14 days left! And then Zoe and I will embark on this exciting journey.... Dun, dun, dun.

Yeah I'm just testing this blog thing out. Since I'm at it. Wanna know our flight details? Course you do!

DEPART SUN 19 APRIL

Christchurch --> Auckland 5:40am (FLIGHT NZ 0500)

Arrive Auckland 7:00am

DEPART AUCKLAND 8:30AM (FLIGHT NZ 0099)

Arrive SUN 19 APRIL Tokyo, Narita 4:50pm

DEPART SUN 28 JUNE

Tokyo, Narita --> Aukland 6:15pm (FLIGHT NZ 0090)

Arrive Auckland MON 29 JUNE 8:15am

DEPART AUCKLAND 10:05am (FLIGHT NZ 0515)

Arrive Christchurch 11:25am

Yup so that's the start of our adventure. I'll post another blog up before I leave for the airport in the morning! 5:40am flight. Sheeesh. Gonna need to get up 2am. Might as well not sleep eh.

OH yeah! Remember to... Bookmark: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennikins/

I'll upload my photos there. But for now (as you might have read in my mass email) check out my photos of China, New Calidonia and Auckland.