Daily Life

The I have fully settled in and am trying to learn as much as possible. Some very fun and exciting things have happened while I have been living in Japan, such as going on a school trip around the southern part of Japan, going to OSU (crazy shopping district of Nagoya) and bonding with my family. I've been keeping a daily journal of events that happen everyday, but I'll use this blog as just an overview of things I've done. As I recall, my last post was me just beggining school and giving my  welcome speech, I've come a long way since then and feel like I am fully emerged with Yokosuka Highschool! I was (and still am) very popular in school so I never felt lonely, someone was always trying to talk to me or looking at me from a distance. Although japanese people see many かあいじん (foreigners)because  Yokosuka is near Nagoya city, the capital of Aichi (the prefecture I live in) they never sit down and attempt to talk with them or interact because they are too shy, they just gaze from a distance. So when an American (their favorite kind of foreigner) unexpectedly  joins their class, they were beside themselves. I began  my next task by joining a club, but there were so many that I decided to join a couple. Currently I am switching on and off between tennis, ping pong, and badminton. Everybody in club is very eager to teach me and it has been a great way to meet many people. Before I leave Japan I'll try and bring my camera to school for a day to show just how different it is compared american highschool. Some of the main differences include: students wearing a uniform to school everyday, cleaning the classroom after school, (my japanese friends found it very strange that I was paid to clean my school back in America everyday) and attending clubs for about 2 hours everyday. I've made some very genuinely kind friends that I hope to see again next time I'm living in Japan. On the weekends, I usually spend time with my family because on week days I usually am at school for nearly 10 hours, but I usually talk with Ryoji until pretty late in the night while he studies for school and I study Kumon or Rosetta Stone. My brother Ryoji has really made this trip of mine something I'll never forget, he is an inspiration to me and what he does to try and keep everyone happy is amazing. Everyday he leaves the house at 7:00 (while I'm still sleeping) and takes the train for an hour to his school near Honda ( a private school that specializes in engineering) BUT his train doesn't take him all the way there so then he walks for half an hour and then gets to school. Then at about 5:00 he does the same thing back home, also everyother day he goes to his part time job ( working at a grocery store) until 10:00 and after all that he still finds time to talk to me, study for school, (which is a lot harder than american school) and study English because he will go to the Netherlands for a year after I leave in August. He says he averages about 5 hours of sleep per night. Family time on the weekends usually includes shopping somewhere,  eating out, or talking with family friends. Next I'll post all the pictures I've taken since last post with captions underneath groups of images so watch out for that. Thanks for reading and さよなら (sayonara) 

Everyday it's my job to clean the bath and help Yumi cook, Ryoji sometimes helps, but sometimes, he needs to save his strength for studying.

Here are some of the fun things my family does for me on the weekends, such as going to nagoya castle, shrines, eating out, (two pictures include Ryoji mixing a raw egg into his pasta) and making cookies! The first batch was terrible because in Japan, they use the metric system which is very difficult to convert from tablespoons and cups, but u I said they were good anyway and ate burned disgusting ones insisting that they were delicious, the next batch was much better.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the school trip I went on, more on facebook, truly a great trips with great friends!

The day after I got back from the Yokosuka school trip, my family took a trip to Kyoto. Very beautiful place that I could see myself living in the near future.

Fun night in nagoya in the crazy shopping district of OSU with YFU friends as well as some japanese girls, this is purikura, or photo booth on steroids, it's the definition of cute. This was definetly a turning point in my relationship with my host family because they finally trusted me to take the train to downtown nagoya and return all by myself! I never thought they would let me do anything like that but I'm glad they did. 

This past weekend we went to a soccer game and my host dad took me to the sea where we took many pictures and visited a shrine that overlooked the sea.

Lastly here are some of my favorite pictures that I spent time editing and putting a black border around!