Temple of a Thousand Arches 6/27

Kouki does not know how to smile... but it's a cute picture with the pigeon in the background.

Entrance to the shrine

Shrine is known for it's connection the the fox spirit.

Bigger arches.

Writing going the other way.

Kouki, running off ahead.

Ganbate!

We washed our hands.

1000 cranes praying for health of children.

BAMBOO!

Turtles

An apartment building that I thought looked very intresting.

Lunch was rotating sushi: awesome.

A "shinkansen" (bullet train) delivered our special orders.

Hamburger sushi, actually really good.

My dessert, yum.

My pile of plates on the right, Kouki's on the left.

We went to an electric media store, and they had bizarre workout things...

Including this bizarre horse simulator... and it helps you loose weight.

Days at Saya's nursery

The following were taken 6/25- 6/26

Craft all us "kids" made... It's me, in a rocket ship

Sometimes, all the kids go to play with each other in a big room

Birthdays of the month

Friday lunch, the girl on the left was one of my favorites

This little girl loved me. I taught her how to write "Hello."

Friday Lunch

B-day celebration

Star play they were practicing.

Saya...

The nursery was actually owned by a Buddhist organization. So instead of praying to a shinto god (since these children were growing), they prayed to Buddha, who is like the god of death.

Posing for the camera...

I have no clue what this from.

Thursday lunch.

Learning how to play with string.

I fail...

 So, because this blog died when I got home, I'm just going to upload a bunch of pictures and give little descriptions, then I'll blog the rest of my summer, and then rant. I like to rant.

So, um, here I go!

Movies...

I have yet to see a movie while here, but there are two that really intrest me.
The first is the 6th Harry Potter movie. And though it is in Japanese, it does come out two days before America, and it definelty beats my friends who are going to go see the midnight viewing, two days later... HAHAHAHHA...

And to those friends who have watched Gokusen, there is a movie coming out, this Saturday, and my host sisters and I are freaking out... GOKUSEN IS AWESOME... go watch it online if you haven't.

Now I'm going to go watch a TV show about a Japanese vampire, a premier too... toddles!

I hate Japanese Rain.

Today I woke up in a good mood, and I decided that I wasn't going to get in a bad mood, but, though I am not as happy as this morning, I am still confident in knowing this one thing that messed up my morning. The rain in Japan can truly change everything. Before we leave my host father tells me that the trains are delayed that go between were Ritto station, my station is. No problem, I just take the first train closest to my normal time and wah-la, get on my bike and go to school. So first I get on the bus, my host sister and one of my host brothers are squished into the front of the bus. Already I hate the buses here.When they stop you fall forward, and when they go you fall back. either way, you fall into people who are somehow trying to sleep. The first time the door opened on this bus ride, I got squished behind it. The bus driver did tell me to get out of the way, and I tried, but there was absolutely no room on the bus for me to go... my sister's made a little room, but we had to get out right away to let others get on, every time the bus stopped till we reached our destination, the last stop.
When it rains, everything slows down. My host sisters missed their usual train, but it didn't matter. The trains were also running slow.
This morning, my host sisters and I are about to leave

CIMG0516 src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2439/3693282377_49db86e574.jpg" width=500 height=375>

This was the scene on the other platform, coming towards us, away from the accident. Scary, right? The line goes all the way into the stairwell down.

CIMG0517 src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2657/3693283089_a06600b181.jpg" width=500 height=375>

Of course, the trains were allowed to come through, as they cleared the accident. But, only an eighth of the people got on, and they were squished. We saw a women being pushed into a seat, holding to her bag for dear life, while people in the isles had elbow room... quite sad.
The first train we could take arrived 3 minutes late. And late is REALLY LATE in Japan. There were still to many people on the train car. I gave up first, since I knew I could take the next train. My little host sister tried to push through, but failed. This is the thing about the rain here. It rains, 75% more people end up taking the bus or train in the 'pleasant' seasons because they can't ride their bikes or scooters. EVERYBODY, commutes in Japan by bike at least once in their life.
We get on the next train, squished with two older ladies, people play with their cell phones as they sit in the the seats no longer available, with a sign clearly stating "turn off your cell phones if seating here." (It was in two languages too.)
My younger host sister gets off with half of the train car's passengers. I wait for two more stations to pass, my train is going about the speed of a horse at a trot, a third of it's normal speed.
I am surprisingly not late for school, but am close to it. I have fun with my friends as we continue to prepare for the school festival, it was a hot day, but my day still turned out to be a nice one, not as great as this morning.
Currently though, I really want to see a movie, whether it be Harry Potter or the Gokusen movie. I sort of miss popcorn.

And sorry about the links, I'll fix them later, I'm trying out a new photo thing, but the don't offer URL unlike photobucket.

No pics, sorry

So, I am at my new host family, I have 4 siblings, only one is older then me, no body nearly understands english as well as Michi. My host father can complicate some, my sisters the same amount, and well, my host mom... none. Oh, and my host grandma too. Yeah, YFU didn't tell me that I also would be having a part time host grandma, who I just met today... WOW. That's 8 of us living under one roof, one big roof for a typical japanese home by the way. But we understand each other well here, and we also joke a lot.
Currently at school we are working on our school festival. WHICH IS AWESOME. I am learning this dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYgnvpGEg68
Yes, I can do this dance, and it's more complicated then lucky star will ever be. Actually, it's funny, for one of the uperclassmen's fashion show, they are doing the SOS Haruhi Suzimia dance, but all of my friends knew it, as well did I, so we danced along. (Yes, the past following were about Anime, google it.) And I really can't give you much info on this whole school festival thing, because it's really complicated and I don't intirely understand. It's not at all like J-drama and anime potrays it though... I'll post about the results next week, it ends on Thursday.

But now for a story, about today. So I was at my train station, waiting for the train that would take me home. I have to call my new host parents at the train station, so that when I arrive at Ishiayamada, they can pick me up. So I'm turning on the my borrowed sister's phone, waiting for it to turn on and when it does, it turns off... no big deal, right? I have their contact info written down... which I forgot at home. -insert inner curseword- So, after trying to see if the train personal could understand my choppy, limited and messed up Japanese, I ended up waiting again at the platform, depressing over what I was going to do. That's when this young, nice Japanese man, who's english is as far as highschool education (which is pretty high now a days), and I explain to him, using my poor Japanese and some english I explain what's wrong (I can't walk home, too far, or take bus, don't know fair and number). We get on the train and think, we don't have the same battery, so that won't work, I don't have the number, and well, the only option left is to pray that my host sister shows up after me, sometime. He has an idea though, and thus it works. He takes me to the soft bank store, which is very clost to Ishiyamada station, and they charge my sister's cell phone, and I can call, feel embarresed, but take a deep sigh when my call goes through... THANK GOD, no this man and Karma. We go bck to the station, it's raining, and at the spot where I wait for my host parents we say good bye. I do not know the man's name, but I couldn't stop saying "domo arigato gozaimashita," (thank you very much for everything). My friends, I drew him... so you can see Mr. Saved-my-exchange-life when I get bak . If I ever see him again, which I probably won't, I owe him, lots. And karma, this is ultimaltey why I beleive in Karma, because this happy scenario would never happen in Japan or America, well, almost never. It does make me almost cry for joy though, I am completly toached, and I feel like I should do something too. OPEN YOUR HEARTS PEOPLE.

So... no post till tomorrow possibly

Uploading pictures, editing them and then uploading them takes... forever. So not much in this post except my next 2 or 3 posts will be about what I did this week and espically today (Saturday). Sorry! But I really hate how much I keep cooming on the computer, and I don't think my host parents like it either.

But what I did, and what my next posts are:
Helping my mom teach her english classes at cram school.
My host sister's nursery and my time there.
And my trip to Kyoto with my host family.
Also, on Wednesday I will be going to my permentent host family.

Any other stuff you guys are intrested in and want me to blog about, please leave a comment!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

So, after Rain ruined our plans to visit the famous shrine in Kyoto, the one with a gazillion red arches to the temple, we ended up deciding we would go on Saturday, and today, we would go to yet another mall (I went to one earlier with my host mom, where I bought some stuff for school).

Now, don't think it's nice and cool her with all the rain. It is hot, so hot that I can't seem to get cool by sitting in front of the fan for an hour. Little kids on the way home looked like they jumped out of a pool it was so hot. Let me just say, I am glad I do not school this week.

And this is a picture of Lake Biwa by the way, and yet another Ferris wheel. I have seen more Ferris wheels here then ever in my life.
So at the mall we walked around. I had fried ramen for lunch, yum. We went to a book store, a pet store (some of the cutest dogs I have ever seen are there, but not as cute as my dogs at home) , and the arcade. Now, Japanese arcades are completely different then American arcades. For one thing, they are everywhere. They don't have the prize thing going on, but they do have a million claw games with a variety of prizes. This game is one of my favorites. You pretty much hit the Taiko drum to the beat, just like Rock Band, or more like DK Bangos for the Game Cube (of which I own). This guy is a master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHvfMECCkMs

And of course, the manga... I can't read it, but I love how they come in thick books and there are a million different kinds of them. They are weekly or monthly and some even come with prizes. The one on top came with a page protector (so when you right your indents don't go onto to the next clean page) and a Nyron planner. The bottom two, Ciao, are for younger 'tween' aged girls. They don't have very famous American known titles, unlike the one on top. They also have some pages folded because I was given them as a gift by my Host Family's cousins.

Augh, I am full from my host mother's delicious tomato soup. I have never tasted tomato soup that could ever. Campbell's is nothing. And it made, for some reason happy and energized. (Energized I can understand, but happy?) Japan is really starting to grow on me, and though the heat is somewhat unbearable, and the stares are obnoxious, I still feel at ease her, and more relaxed. But not so much "OMG, I'm in Japan!" But, "Hey, that's cool, augh, I really can't wait to do this more."

Father's Day

So, for those of you who don't know, Father's Day is a western holiday celebrated here in Japan. So of course being in a host family, we celebrated. This involves many things, including Buddhism, dango, DSs, and much more.

My host father's father had past away I'm guess at least in the past few years. So, today we went to the graveyard and cleaned his tomb.


These Buddhas protect something (Michi really didn't know, so neither do I) at the entrance of the graveyard.

Cleaning the tomb. Those are cousins. They gave me two huge books of Shojo, I am so happy. (It's really cheap here, and they were drooling over my drawings.)

Final Product.

After cleaning the tomb, we went to Grandma's place. We sat around, talked, watch TV. The kids played with the two Nintendo DSs, and we ate some snacks (Including dango, sticky rice flour balls on a stick). A Buddhist monk came over (who was also a high school English teacher, so he talked to me in English) and prayed at the in home box, honoring the ancestors. I didn't get any pictures of that because I didn't want to be rude. After that we ate dinner, and the kids took a bath together. Because I was the only non-family member, I was treated like a guest. So of course I got special chop sticks and felt guilty that I didn't give a gift. But it was still pretty laid back. I had fun, and I am really glad what I got to see.

And Dad, yes you Troy Thiel. I did not forget... I present you with my little letter/unfinished drawing for father's day. It reads:

Dear Dad,

Though we are an ocean apart, a few states, and 16 hours apart, your support on my journey has been some of the best support I have received on this trip.

I am glad both you and mom have been so supportive of my progress to these exciting weeks, as well as my first year of high school. Although I can't be with you today, I'd still like to wish you a happy Father's Day.

Love XOXO,

Anna

Your Daughter

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY EVERYONE!