Having a two days vacation

Hello people, as the title suggests I'm having a two days vacation, 'cause of the test week ending so we will have this vacation for relaxation. It started quite well, as I slept for about 12 hours and woke up during noon. :D Haven't done anything, just eaten and lagging around Facebook. :P The weather is really nice though, and it's actually a bit hot over here. Thought I could go take some pictures of the fall in Hiyoshidai (the village, where I am living), but the leaves aren't really that yellow yet. 8<

School's fine, though it's a bit difficult for me to make some friends over here. Not sure about the reasons, but I have some possible reasons on my mind. :P Well, anyways I am quite sure I will be able to get some friends after a while. Or, I don't know how other exchange students classify the term "friend", but for me, it's quite personal (did that make any sense?!? XD).

Anyways, at my school we have the school trip on November and guess where I am going to....!! *tidididididididididididii* OKINAWA!!! Yes, I am going to Okinawa. And what kind of images do we get inside our minds when we think about Okinawa? Palm trees, beaches, sky-blue water... YES!! And no, I don't exactly love beaches, but I love to take pictures... XDD I'm so waiting for that trip. @__@ Well, I gotta thank my parents for making that school trip possible for me, especially since my mom has always wanted to go to Okinawa. ::D

Another thing you might be interested in is school fashion. I started studying at a new school, so of course the school uniform is also different. Well, my school uniform is not the 100% the same one as other students', 'cause for certain reasons we have bought similar clothes to replace the school uniform clothes, though my exchange-company would have paid for the original pieces too. >___> Well at least the neck tie and the emblem are the same ones. XD Anyways, here's a picture of me wearing my school uniform:

 

 I think I like my current "school uniform" better than the previous one. I did not like the pants. ::D Oh, and yays for the polar bear plastic bag, it's just too random. XD 

 Hmm, did I have something else than just showing off the newest school fashion? Hmm, oh yes. I have been searching for a coat or something for winter. And yes, I brought a coat with me from Finland, but of course I want to buy a coat from Japan too. ;) I just want a bit different clothes, that's all. And I already have on my mind what kind of a coat I would like to buy: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/midas/360480-br/  NOOOOOO, seems like they have sold out every last piece. D888 Well I wanted the bigger size and it was already sold out, so it doesn't hurt that much... but still... 8< Well, I guess I still got lots of time to find the perfect jacket/coat for myself. <3

Last but not the least, I am going to take part in kanji kentei (a kanji test, what Japanese people usually take) lvl 4, 10 being the easiest and 1 being the hardest (only politicians usually take lvl 1, because you have to know around 6000 kanjis, be able to tell the difference between old and new kanjis etc.). So what does lvl 4 require then? I have to be able to read about 1300 kanjis, and write around 900 kanjis... Well at least, I am going to a have a "bit" of a challenge for myself. ::D Level 4 is usually completed by junior high 2nd or 3rd year students so if I pass that test, I guess I should be happy with myself. 8D

Oh, Anna told me to write to my next post that I miss her. Who's Anna? Anna is a really really good friend of mine. :D I miss you <3 And if you're interested here's a link to her blog: http://hhmas.blogspot.com/


Bye bye!

Prince from Japan <3

The fall has arrived to Miyagi

Hello, it's 01:01am, and I just decided, that I want to tell you it's like really cold over here. At the moment I guess it's around +10 celsius degrees... D8 Really, I am almost freezing. ::D Well, I didn't really have anything else to tell you.XD

Oh, I finally got my hands into Liar Game: The Final Stage -movie, that completes the series of Liar Game -drama. Liar Game is a Japanese TV-series, based on the manga of the same name. It's about group of people who were selected to compete in a game for liars. Anyways, you can read more about Liar Game from da internet, if you're interested. However, the movie was GREAT!! It was worth the while of waiting for a bit over 6 months for me to see it. I still think I should have gone to watch it at a movie theater while they were still playing it. I thought that I could buy the movie after I had rented it. Just in case, because I don't want to waste 60€ on a movie that I don't particularly like... Well, 60€ of a movie is still a bit much. :P Have to think about if I really want the movie or not...


Well, I had nothing else, just wanted to share what happened today and about the weather too. And now, I am going to start sleeping, have to wake up at 8:00am, just because my host-family eats breakfast that early and wants that everyone eats together. Byeeeeeee!!! 

We are liars underneath (= Candy castles Part 2)

Helloes, so last time I told you about my personal hell that lasted for about 3 months in this country, and now, I am going to finish telling you the whole thing. I hope I don't forget anything too important. :P

As I promised you, I will tell you the reasons why I didn't like my first school too much.

So, everything started on the 7th day of April 2010 when I had the first day at a Japanese school. I wasn't too happy, because I was put into a same class with students one year younger than me. They all looked like little children to me (notice my really good attitude... :D), and I did not really want to be in that class. I even started to write a diary to relieve the angriness and disappointment that I had. I wrote it for about a week, I guess. After that I started to change my attitude, school didn't feel that bad anymore. Well, I did feel bad that I ate the lunch everyday alone.

However, a ray of light pierced through the darkness. I started to talk more with some people, had fun during lessons, school was fun. I thought I had gotten some friends. How wrong was I. After a while, the person who I talked probably the most with, started to "hate" me for some reason. I don't know what I did wrong, of course, in my opinion I did nothing wrong, or anything that would make someone angry. But it just happened. Of course I still had people to talk with, make jokes etc. However, I could never be truly myself in that school. Well, the truth is that they were still like junior high students, and it did not even feel like high school, it had the same feeling as junior high. I consider the years spent in junior high one of the worst years in my life, so no wonder I did not like it over there either. Besides not being able to be myself, the school was a really good school, the 30th best high school in Japan, and there are over 5000 high schools in Japan... :P So they studied a lot, not my type of a school. Sure, I study at a good school in Finland, but still, we don't really study that much.

Back then, my 1st host-family's house played the role of a safe place, where I could forget everything about my school. I did not really want to go to school, but of course I wouldn't say that to my host-family. :P

Anyways, I told you before that there was some light in the darkness too. And there was a second time when the light pierced through the darkness. I could take part in the 2nd year students' returnee English classes. The teacher was excellent, and I finally got to take classes with people of the same age as me. I got friends from that class. That class was the light in my daily darkness.

Later, when the summer vacation got closer, I asked from this one teacher, if I could switch to 2nd year as I have more friends among them, and that I really wanted to take classes with people of the same age. I had my chance to prove myself, I failed, partly because I had not cleared my thought beforehand on a paper, and because I was a bit ill (I couldn't go to the school the next day). I wanted to cry, because I was thinking if all that would continue for the rest of my exchange year, it didn't feel worth it. "I could as well return back to Finland" was what I was thinking back then.

Well, anyways, I was in the middle of changing host-families from the 2nd host-family to the 3rd one. Leaving all the sadness and tears behind, that's what I thought. I was wrong. Even more pain was ahead.

I moved to the 3rd host-family where I thought I would be staying for only two days. Supposedly, my 2nd host-family had given a totally wrong image of me to YFU, so my 3rd host-family thought I was a snob, only wanting to stay at rich host-families, wanting expensive food etc. I was really surprised when I heard all that. Because they had an ex-Swedish exchange-student living over there who explained the situation. And they were surprised too when they noticed that I wasn't anything like that nor did I know any of that stuff YFU had told them. My 3rd host-family told me to be at ease, because they would be supporting me and that they would tell YFU the truth. They started to like me and called YFU that I could stay there for a month. I was at ease, or thought I would be.

I lived in a perfect location, in the downtown of Chiba's Matsudo city. Matsudo's train station was a 5-minute walking trip away from the house. The host-family felt really nice and they had a sense of humour, quite opposite to my 2nd host-family. I could laugh again. However, after a few days, they started to make (Warning: This stuff is about to become something really personal for me!!) jokes about my weight, the first time my host-parents joked about my body, the ex-exchange-student told them how it is a taboo to make jokes about things like that. I thought they understood, but no. They continued to joke about my weight and how my body was like a sumowrestler's body and how they would take me to the nearest sumowrestler as an apprentice. At first they would say that for about 5 times/a day and everytime laugh after saying it. I laughed too, it was what you would call "Tequila tequila" -laughing, the same thing what that woman at the exchange company's headquarters taught me. I was a bit grateful, that she had taught it to me. So, why did I not ask them to stop it and why did I only continue doing my fake laugh? The reason is because I was afraid. I was afraid that they would get angry, I was afraid I would get in more trouble. Because YFU had a really bad image of me, so I did not want to make things any worse, they might have sent me back to Finland. That's why I stayed silent. It all piled up inside me. Everytime they would call me a sumowrestler, it made me suffer more, even the ex-exchange-student started to think it was funny (or that's what it seemed to me), because even she started to laugh. Well, it didn't end there. Besides just mocking me (my host-father even said that if a joke doesn't have any poison in it, it's not funny), my host-mum used to poke me at the breast/belly area. She would poke me and laugh at the same time. I would do my fake laughing again, once again piling up even more pain inside me. It continued for a month. In the beginning they would mock me everyday, many times per day, but gladly, towards the end it started to become more random and there was days when they didn't say it at all. However, when I went to Tokyo for example to do some shopping, during the return trip back to the house I can remember being scared if they would mock me or poke me again. I can remember how during one night I called my mom and told about everything, I started crying and I was so tired mentally that I was ready to return back to Finland. I almost gave up. Not much was needed, the only thing that stopped me from returning back to Finland was the information was that I would be moving to Sendai, in other words, starting a new life as an exchange-student. That was the only thing that kept me struggling.

Summer vacation started on the 20th day of July, we had a "farewell" party for me at my class. To be honest, to me it all seemed so fake. Suddenly, everyone were writing things like "No Niki, No Life.", while in reality, they didn't even talk to me. I just felt like asking why to act like it's a big thing I am leaving, but I figured I shouldn't ask that. :P I was happy that I would be switching schools, even though of course there were some really cool people at that school (I think the people from my previous school who are reading this text know if they are one of those cool people ;D).

After the farewell party at my class and saying goodbye to people I returned to my 3rd host-family's house, it was time to move to the 4th host-family, and from there I would move to Sendai after a month. I remember being scared if my 4th host-family would also mock me and make jokes about my body. Gladly, they didn't.

My personal Hell of three months had finally came to its end. The only thing I was carrying were the bad memories and the wounds those evil words gave me. I could live my last month in Chiba enjoying and having fun, and after that when moving to Sendai, try to forget all about the bad things that had happened to me. Finally, I could be at ease.

No Topic :P

I was supposed to write the part 2 today, but I am really tired so I have to leave it for tomorrow, or some other day. Sorry. <3

It's not always about roses and candy castles

Hello guys, I noticed something today... That something was, that I haven't been really talking about the exchange as an experience itself or about my feelings too much, I mostly have written about what I have done, showing only the good sides. Sure, I have told you a little bit about the negative things too, but only a tiny part. I just feel like that I should correct this mistake and show you that my exchange-year hasn't always been something to be jealous of, because my exchange-year hasn't been perfect, to be honest, it has been a living hell for me for about 3 months. And how long have I been here? About 6 months.

As I told you, my exchange-year hasn't always been smiling faces, kind people, enjoying my life, but starting from my 2nd host-family till coming to Sendai it was a series of misfortunes for me. How many tears I shred, how I almost gave up and returned back to Finland, how I wanted to yell to people so that they would stop hurting me. How I did not have a safeplace where I could get rid of the negative thoughts. However, I will start telling you where it all started and how I am doing so far.

It all started when I had to leave my 1st host-family. The very first impression that I got of my 2nd host-family (with all respect) was kind of bad. The tone, the way she (my 2nd host-mom) said it to me, starting from that moment I had a feeling that things would start to get worse. Of course, I did try my best not to get into a bad situation. Anyways, I started to live my life in the 2nd host-family, and during the trip while sitting in my 2nd host-family's car I had to hold the tears. I could not let myself cry, it would have given them a bad impression. However, when we arrived to their house, we lifted the luggage to my room, where I started to unpack them. And do you know what I did while I was trying to unpack my luggage. I cried. I cried silently so that my new hosts would not hear it. I tried to hold it all in, but I could not, it was simply too much. I don't know, but I think that my hosts also noticed that I was feeling really sad. I did not know what to do, it felt really bad to be taken away from the host-family where I had spent the last two months, I really liked them a lot, it felt like a perfect host-family for me, but then that was crushed and I was taken away. That is why I cried.

I continued my life in the 2nd host-family, the first and second week were the worst. Everyday, after school I wished I would somehow end up in front of my 1st host-family's house, talk to the people over there, make jokes, laugh like before. However, I knew that was impossible. I would continue to return to my 2nd host-family's house. I never felt I had something common with my 2nd host-family, they did not even make any jokes, I did not laugh much in that house. And the people who know me, know that I laugh a lot. I would wake up feeling bad, of course I had some good days in that house too, but not too many. I did not want to go to school (I'll say it again: I will explain this later), I wanted to stay there and just do nothing for the whole day, even though I did not really want to stay there (my 2nd host-family's house) either, but at that point, it was the smaller bad. However, days passed and I started to feel really bad, I contacted YFU. That was the turnpoint of events and when everything really started to go downhill. My host-family (host-mother to be exact) started to call me a liar, how much I have hurt their family's pride, talking about stuff that was not related to the whole thing and blaming my mom for all of it, how I always have said very rude things to them. Do you know how angry I felt? I thought everything would go peacefully. I was wrong. My host-mom would blame me everyday for the things I just listed, to be honest, I felt like punching her at one point, when she started to talk about my family in Finland (?!?!?!)... I did not feel like I was a family member, I felt more like a pet or a doll that just was there.

Do you know what was the worst thing? The exchange-organization. You may ask why? Well the answer is: the way some people of the organization act. Of course, the organization itself is a good thing that gives an opportunity for teenagers to get to know another culture and learn a new language, however, there are some people that you should watch out for. I ended up meeting one of those people. I think the very first words she said to me in Japanese were something like "You have to lose weight.". Can you believe that? How can someone say something like that as her first words? I usually know by glance if I get along with someone or not, and by glance I could see that she is of the type that I do not get along with. Why is that? It's because I saw behind her "mask". To other persons she was very nice and did her fake smile and fake laughter nicely, but to me she was rude and used her fake smile and fake laughter all the time I would say something. She would turn from nice into a mean person in seconds. First she would be praising me and joking, the next second she would be blaming me for everything that has gone wrong. How I hurt my 2nd host-family's pride, how everything is my fault. She would look at me disgusted and do her fake smile that she called "Tequila tequila". I always talked to her by using the polite style. I did not want any conflicts, but she did. I think she noticed that I knew she was not one of those kind persons. She was a fake. Anyways, she kept tormenting me everytime I met her. Gladly, I guess I don't have to see her anymore, 'cause she's in Tokyo and I am in Sendai (well, near Sendai :D).

Oh yes, I gotta end up this update earlier than what was my purpose, because I am sleepy and I have to start sleeping soon, so that I won't feel dead when I wake up tomorrow morning. I will try to make part 2 of this update (watch out for the hardcore stuff that's about to come in the next update!) as soon as possible (possibly tomorrow). But anyways I gotta sleep, see youuuuuuu! OH AND I WILL ALSO EXPLAIN THE SCHOOL THING IN MY NEXT UPDATE!!!

Changing the title of the blog

So, I have been wanting to get rid of the name of my blog as I don't like it anymore, and well, people have proved my expectations wrong. I don't feel like calling this country a land of broken Engrish, even as a joke. It just doesn't feel right. ::D That's why I thought of being more friendly and changed the topic to suit my current taste better. :D

Stuff before moving to Sendai, 仙台 and the beginning of the new school (ft. Bunkasai)

 WARNING!! This update is extremely long so prepare yourself with something to eat to get the maximal enjoyment out of this update! ;)

A lot has happened. But I am only gonna write a short post about the last days of my staying in Chiba prefecture. So, I went to Karuizawa with my previous host-family and their children and grandchildren.  To describe the vacation I would say fake cottages, Finnish like nature, expensive restaurants etc. Yeah, I did not like the trip too much, because it was like it was trying to approach the feeling of living in a cottage, but they just looked copies to me and it was kind of sad. The place was kind of boring too, there wasn't really anything to do except walk or play golf (which I did not do, 'cause I have never played golf :P), or do some shopping at the nearest malls. Well even those were outlets (nothing wrong with outlets, but the brands just sucked). We were there for a week... And I survived it! I don't know how, but I survived. And I am not unthankful, but I just didn't like the whole place, that's all. Except, it was great to see another side of Japan.

Having fun at Tokyo

So after the "vacation" I had only one week left at Chiba. So what did I do? I tried to meet friends (ended up meeting an exchange-student and a friend from my previous school). We did the normal (but extremely funny) stuff with the exchange students. We hanged out at Tokyo (Shibuya, DUH), took purikura etc. AND!!! Went to FINLAND CAFE!!!! It was a really cool place as it had Finnish design stuff, Finnish interia etc. And a video playing on a wall about Kamppi etc. It was expensive but the stuff was quite yummy too. ::D Now that I wrote this all, it's really strange to think that we will not most probably see for another 4 months. O_O Well, time flies fast, 'cause in eleven days I have been in Japan for 6 months, half a year, that is!!!

I also saw my friend, Kumi, who's a student of Shibumaku (the previous school). We went to Lalaport to hang out, eat, take purikura (sadly, we don't know the reason, but we couldn't download the purikura pictures 8<). So basically, nothing special, but like always, it was really fun to hang out with her. I miss her now. 8(( Besided that, I was still having "not-eating-anything-sweet-except-fruits" -diet going on, which was a pain in the *ss, because she bought this really yummy looking ice cream. D888888 Honestly, they put crushed banana, poured chocolate sauce on the ice cream and mixed the whole thing with iron spatulas and then put it on to the ice cream waffle cup. Damn it, it looked good. ::D But really, we were still supposed to see, but we didn't have time in the end. :(( We don't even know when we can see again, it might be in a year, in ten years or in 20 years, who knows... 8(( Okay, earlier than in ten years, that I can promise. ::D DID YOU READ THAT KUMI?!?! ;)

The place where we were looking at the fireworks

I also did some last shopping in Tokyo, but I didn't find anything else than a scarf. :D I was supposed to go to this one Super Lovers store at a shopping mall called Laforet, but of course it was having a renovation going on, ON THE DAY THAT WAS GOING TO BE MY LAST SHOPPING DAY IN TOKYO!! That's just my typical luck... Anyways, it was also the last time that I went to Sexpot Revenge (it's a cloth shop :P), to look if I could find something from there, and of course, talk with the seller, 'cause he's really chill and it's always nice to talk with him. :D Of course, all in Japanese. ;P

I also went to watch the fireworks to my previous family's host-dad's working place. It was in the heart of Shinjuku and we watched the fireworks from the 50th floor with his other workmates. I even saw little bit of a Johhny's group's gig, 'cause they had binoculars over there so they said to look with those to see the gig. And I did. :::D Hmm, it gave me the chills of being a stalker or something. XDD Anyways, the fireworking was done quite far away, so the fireworks weren't that big (because we were far away :D), but it was also funny to look at the fireworks from above. XDD That's something you can't do everyday and it was really cool.

A place near the house I am staying at

So the last day in Chiba was mainly packing. Nothing else. So nothing special to write about that day.

21.8. was the day of moving to Sendai. I was excited, but also had my stomach full of butterflies. ::D Well the day also had its' negative side, because of this one person (but I am not gonna say who, just in case XD), but anyways, that person again made me feel really bad by mocking my Japanese, looking at me disgusted, telling me to take my piercings off (and not even giving me a proper reason as to why take the piercings off...). That's one person I hate besides those other few people in this country.

Anyways, we went to Sendai by a 新幹線 (= a bullet-train). Now I have rode a bullet-train for four times. :D It's kind of cool. :P However, we arrived to Sendai and I met my host-family. I like my host-family, everyone are nice to me and feels like a real family, which is a feeling I haven't had since my first host-family, so I am really glad about this host-family.

Near Sendai station

I really like Sendai, and even the first meal that I ate over here was one of Sendai's specialities, cow's tongue, which is actually REALLY good!! Sadly, people don't eat it in Finland. :P Not to get off-topic I should probably tell you what Sendai is like. Well, I love Sendai. It's not as big as Tokyo, but I really like the streets and the spirit that Sendai has. :D  So I am not really sure which one I like better, Tokyo or Sendai. I can't deny the love I have for Shibuya and Harajuku or Ikebukuro (where I only went once, and I don't know why I didn't go more than that 8<).

I have been enjoying my life over here, and I have been even thinking that I might as well do the university studies over here in Sendai, if I learn Japanese well enough in these coming three years. Yeah, that's how much I like Sendai.

I have also done things over here that I have not done anywhere else, prepare yourselves.... I... went... to... a... SOCCER MATCH!! D888 Well, my host-mom (who's a soccer fan, AND a Korean drama fan), asked me if I wanted to go see a soccer match and I was like "Sure, why not.", so we went. :D I was positively surprised, because of the cheering Japanese people do. ::D My throat hurt after the game. 8<< Because we had to cheer all the time. XDD Oh dear. But it was totally worth it. :D

Classmates + me (making a weird pose)

My school also started, and to be honest, this school is more of my style. :P Sorry shibumakus, but that's just the cold truth. ::D The people are more of my style, they have piercings, we can make joke about things, we just have more in common. :P And the best thing, they don't stress too much studying which is just perfect for me, 'cause I don't want to stress about studying over here, because when I get back to Finland I know IB's gonna make me really busy. And of, I am now studying on the second year high school (my class is called F2-8). The people in my class are really nice. I think I get nicely along with them. :D And to be honest, this school resembles a bit of my high school in Finland (which is actually a good thing ;D). Really looking forward for these 3½ months in Seibun (my current school!

Some of the teachers doing crossdressing

On this last weekend (4.-5.9.) we had 文化祭 (= bunkasai, which means a cultural festival that is held in every school all over Japan, usually at autumn). The first day was kind of boring, because we just looked at performances for like 6 hours, well there were some really good performances, but what made it boring was that there were lots of performances, that were just plainly boring and sometimes we couldn't hear anything, not the sounds of the instruments or the singing). But of course, there are always some diamonds, like a  group called 白-A (Shiro-A), which is a performance group playing trance music. Their performances were really cool and basically everyone liked them. Then there were other gemstones like the dancing performed by school's dancing club. And I am not talking about ballet or something like that but street dancing, breakdancing etc. Really, some of the students honestly have talent in dancing!! We also had a crossdressing contest, that got a bit boring after a while, but on Sunday, some of the teachers (mostly male teachers) also participated and dressed as women, it was really cool and surprising that Japanese school teachers would do something like that!! XD

Who doesn't belong to the group? XDDD

So, the teachers crossdressing was one of the last things on Sunday, but before that was the main event of bunkasai. All the classes doing their own things, for example my class sold からあげ (= kara-age, Japanese fried chicken), there were lots of food tents, a couple classes sold かき氷 (= kakigoori, shaved ice with some flavor syrup poured over it, really yummy during hot summer days!!!), some other classes sold 　焼き鳥 (= yakitori, Japanese skewered chicken) etc. IT WAS REALLY FUN!!! I mostly handed out kara-age flyers, which was actually quite fun. Ate lots of food, enjoyed the whole thing and got sunburnt. D88 I also met some really interesting and cool people, including yankees, gyarus, and of course other students. I have noticed that I am especially popular among yankee people. :::D Anyways, I really loved bunkasai and I was really tired when I got home, so I went to sleep at 10pm and wake up around 12:30pm, so I slept for about 14½ hours, whoops. :::D I still got a holiday tomorrow (because of bunkasai), and I am most probs gonna go to Sendai again, 'cause I have a couple of places that I want to check out.

But I guess this is my update this time, 'cause now I have basically told you everything about the stuff that has happened since my last update. And yeahhhh. I do apologize that it has been almost a month (tomorrow would be a month since the last update ::::D) since my last update. :P But anyways, hope you enjoyed reading this one. ;P Byeeeeee!! <3

Disneyland wonder, Krispy Creme (The beginning of a nightmare) and the Creatures of the world

Helloooooo, so now that I have some freetime (well I always have freetime... XD) I decided to do write a blog update. So what's been happening lately? Well you'll get the basic idea if you read the title of this update. :D So I'll be telling you a bit about the Disneyland trip with friends, a bit about the beginning of our nightmare with Silja (another Finnish exchange student), and *tididididii* the creatures of the world that have been tormenting me during nighttime when I try to relax... :D

So on the 28th (Wednesday) of July I went to Disneyland with two other exchange students Silja (Finnish) and Albert (Austria), plus two Japanese girls named Manami (Silja's host sister) and Naoka (another Finnish person's host sister, however the Finnish exchange student didn't come to Disneyland with us).

We met 8:30am at JR Maihama station which is right next to Disneyland. Yeah 8:30am... You can guess how hard it was for me to wake up... XD And during that night I slept for like less than 3 hours. However, I didn't feel that tired when we were having fun at Disneyland. Well, first we had to take this Disneyland monorail, because Disneyland is just a really big place with different sections. Our destination was Disney Sea, which is a huge theme park and more for adult's taste, when normal Disneyland is not the same kind of a theme park, it actually focuses more on the Disney characters etc. Or that's what I heard. :D So the first thing we saw when we first entered to Disney Sea was a huge Earth as a fountain, that you can see in the picture on the right. :P Hmm, I guess I shouldn't talk about this Disneyland in so much detail, because I was there for like 10 hours so this update would become too long and you would run out of popcorn when readin' this. 8(

I know! It might be better if I just posted a "mountain" of pictures for you to look at and maybe tell you something about them. ;) Yes, that's what I'll do (notice how unplanned my blog updates are. ::D)!!

Yes, be very afraid in front of my skills of using blog... ::D Yeah, well I am not a genius with computers so I just put the pictures like that, but I kinda like the way they are arranged. 8) Buuuuuut anyways, Disney Sea was really cool and sometimes it felt more like Star Wars -world than Disney world... :D Like notice the picture just above with all the blue lights and the night sky. And OMGGGG!!! That McDuck's logo was so cool!!! And of course I had to take a picture of it.

Guilty as charged

Okay, now you have seen what Disney Sea is like (yay!), and now it's time to move to more serious matters, lol. You, who are reading my blog out there, probably read about my spinoff story of not eating anything that is sweet (except fruits, and a bit of fruit juice). So we are still continuing it (of course!), and I am going to try to make a change in my lifestyle with this whole thing. So, the place where we were when we decided this whole thing was in a DOUGHNUT STORE!! XDD Ah, Krispy Kreme, how I miss you. The doughnuts over there were so good and they were handing out free, just baked, warm and sugar coated doughnuts to customers. Yes, they tasted heavenly. ::D Then I bought a banana filled doughnut called "Pure Banana" and umm... YUM!!!! Silja was eating it too, and I guess I ate a smaller part of it than Silja, though I bought the whole thing by myself. 8< Well, after sitting there for a while, people came to sit down with their trays filled with doughnuts. ::D This one young lady had like three or four doughnuts on her tray and we were like "WTFFFFF?!?!?" and she ate them all... And she was thin.. Sometimes I wonder what's going on inside Japanese people's minds, because it seemed like it would be the only thing she ate on that day... Then Silja went and bought a doughnut that we would eat together, 50-50. That's when we started to talk about things, and decided that we have to end this kind of thing and decided to make the promise of not eating anything sweet for a while. Well, I am gonna continue this for a while, because I really want to get rid of this way of thinking about sweet stuff all the time. ::D You know, the first days were really hard, because all I was thinking was some really yummy chocolate, cream puffs and pastries. But it's not that bad anymore. Though, I am glad we eat fruits everyday in my current host-family. That has helped a lot!

Look at that yummy goodness..

So I am on my way to a healthier lifestyle and I wish I had club activities, but I don't have, because I am not a student of Shibumaku anymore. So I am really waiting to go to my school in Sendai, to get to know new people and start club activities! Btw, I here's the website of my next school: http://www.seibun.ed.jp/ . My next school seems really nice, waiting for it. :-)

And now the last subject, bugs. I'm not really complaining, but these bugs have been giving me a hard time, 'cause I have to go get the poison spray everytime I see a mosquito enjoying its' flight in my room. And when I finally get the poison, I can't find it anymore. "Why don't you just squish them?" Well, I would and I do that sometimes, but they are
fast. 8( So it's easier to kill them with a poison spray from far away. Anywayyyyys, I wasn't supposed to start complaining about mosquitoes, but COCKROACHES!! Well, a cockroach. :D　In my 3rd host-family I would see cockroaches everyday. Usually during the nighttime if I went downstairs. And oh boy, it meant death for the poor roach when I saw one. I grabbed the poison spray and killed them. Anyways, cockroaches
are still disgusting... Especially the ones who are big enough that have hairy legs... :S During this week, I saw one. When I went to the toilet I opened the door and there, in the wall, there was a cute little cockroach, right next to my face. As a reaction I made a loudish noise, BUT I DID NOT SCREAM! :D Glad, it wasn't loud enough to wake up my hosts. So, what I did was take the poison spray from the living room and start the roach hunting. I didn't see it in a while when I searched for it in the small toilet. Then I went to do a checking from the hallway if it was there,
and that's when I returned to toilet's door and saw a figure of a cockroach running to a little closet. I spread the poison and when it ran out and climbed on the wall I sprayed some more so that it fall to the floor. Sprayed more and more, 'cause it was a big one (at least in my opinion). And I was really surprised, because it didn't die fast... And don't come complaining to me how I made it suffer... I would have killed it right away, if I knew that the poison I used was meant for smaller bugs and that there was a cockroach poison too... And secondly, I couldn't crush it, I just can't do things like that. I don't want to feel it becoming mashed or hear it... I could even hear it when it moved its' hairy legs... :SS Anyways, I survived as the winner and I might have gotten a little bit tougher mentally (lol) in the eternal war against cockroaches.

And that's about it dear readers. Hope you enjoyed it, though it ended up being a rather long. I am going to a resort place called Karuizawa tomorrow, and I might not take my laptop with me, even though I want to listen to music, so don't be expecting any updates at least in a week (I know you won't XDD). But anywayyyyyys, byeeeeeee!!

Spinoff: A graving for sweets....

So the thing is that I made a promise with another Finnish exchange student not to eat any sweets. For how long, I do not know, because that wasn't specified. ::D Or wait, I guess it was until both of us have lost 10 kilograms. Wait... 10 kilograms?!?!? NO WAY AM I GOING TO BE ABLE NOT TO EAT ANYTHING SWEET UNTIL THAT HAPPENS!!! D888888 I'm already in a bad mess and this is only my 2nd or 3rd day... XDDDD

The thing that makes this even harder is that people on Facebook and msn keep talking about sweets and stuff. I'm gonna quote this one American exchange student (codename "Holy Sister") who said the following on Facebook"Oh my, look at this big bag of chocolates that my host family said I could help myself to ^^ Oh, and there's cookies, too! Mmm, maybe I should munch on some cake first, though.". ISN'T THAT HORRIBLE?!?!?! Honestly I am having difficulties with this whole thing, because people who know me, know that I am "addicted" to chocolate. Not even mentioning all the pastries/cakes, that I love. ::::D

I even got this Disneyland can full of milk chocolate and strawberry chocolate thingies, got some sweets on my suitcase, in another bag, there are sweets in the kitchen and inside the refrigator... I hope I don't see a dream of chocolate and... CREAM PUFFS!!! Oh god, I love cream puffs!! They are right next to the best... It's just wonderful when you bite a cream puff and then the savory filling... well you know the rest. :D

I think I have to do something with this whole thing... XDD Well I do not love Japanese chocolate, which is a good thing. But normal Japanese chocolate (like Meiji or something like that) isn't really anything special. It's way below Finnish standards. OR SWEDISH!!! I LOVE MARABOU CHOCOLATE!!! :::::D And well, there's one brand in Japan I really really really love and that's See's Candies, it's an American brand and it's hellishly expensive, honestly. One piece of chocolate costs about 3 euros. :::D Glad they only have two See's Candies shops in Japan. In Tokyo's Ginza and Harajuku. ::D And no, I am not buying chocolate from there all the time... XDD I have bought twice and oh god, I just love their key lime chocolate. @____________@

Well anywayzzzzz, I hope I am not gonna see any nightmares about savory yummies making their way to my mouth... XD Well, that's it folks. This was a bit of a different post this time, I guess. ::D Lol, I still told you something about Japan.

P.S. Going to a teppanyaki restaurant tomorrow in Tokyo's Ginza, which is basically the most expensive part of the city in Tokyo. XDD Waiting for that... *drool*

Time Out!!!

So once again I haven't been updating in a while. Well, a lot of has been happening and plans have changed etc. I will do a proper update later (probably tomorrow, but you know me ;P). However, one thing is for sure. I changed my host-family and am living at the moment in Ichihara, Chiba. However, I will be staying over here for a month and after that I will be moving to the northern part of Honshu, to a prefecture called Miyagi, to the city of Sendai. That should be my final and permanent destination. And yes, I will be changing school as well, as Miyagi is quite far away from Tokyo. Well that's it guys and girls!!

P.S. I don't know what's the problem with this blog, but I can't update pictures, can't do hyperlinks etc. I'll try to fix the matter tomorrow, 'cause I will most probably have lots of free time tomorrow.

Possible 10 last days in Tokyo metropolitan area

I'm gonna write a really short post about this subject. So, at the moment YFU is searching for a permanent family for me and I am possibly moving to another prefecture. And I think that is the most likely option. So I have been thinking about things and thought that maybe I should quit the clubs at my school for now in the case I am moving to a totally different place so I could enjoy these "last" days in Tokyo metropolitan area. Meet other exchange-students, Japanese people, do some shopping, take lots of pictures etc. Have a good time, before I might end up somewhere else. YFU said that they had found a host-family candidate for me from another prefecture, but then something came up and they couldn't take me so I think that strengthens (is that how you write it? XDD) the idea that I'm most probably moving out from this prefecture. Oh, it seems like I should be moving on the 20th day, so 10 that's why it is 10 last days. :D GONNA ENJOY THE POSSIBLE LAST DAYS!!! PICTURES ARE GONNA COME SOMEDAY!!! Byeeeeeeeee!

BTW!!!!

WE ALSO SANG LORDI'S "HARD ROCK HALLELUJAH" WITH KAZU-CHAN (the high school 2nd year student :D)!!!!!!!!

Lies and Roses, Life isn't Brownies...

Whooooooops, been about a month since my last update, and even that wasn't a proper one.. XD So a lot has been happening so I didn't really have time to think about updating my blog, nor did I feel like writing anything. HA! You thought I had forgotten this blog already? Well, you were wroooooooooooooooong! So anyways, I am gonna tell you some basic details of what has happened.

Sooooooo, things started got complicated so I changed families. Well, I was the one who wanted to change the family but I am not going to write any details here, because I want to respect the previous family too. So after struggling I changed families. Well at the moment I am living in a baker family for a temporary time. I guess until my summer vacation starts, and after that I don't know where I am going to. I might be changing areas completely, I don't know. I don't think even YFU knows yet. So my current location at the moment is Matsudo City, Chiba. This is the central place of Matsudo-shi so there are lots of trains passing by (well I live like a 5-minute walk away from Matsudo station), so it's really convenient. There are trains leaving for Ueno quite often (you can get to Ueno station from Matsudo station in 20 minutes!!!), and I have been using that when going to Tokyo. And the price isn't too bad either. Well, to Akihabara it costs 290yen (less than 3€). For comparison, these days it would cost 4€ for me when going to Helsinki... OH AND ONE THING!!! THERE IS A STARBUCKS IN MATSUDO STATION!!!! Haven't been there yet, though... :P

Going back to the 12th (Saturday) of June, I met my friend and her friend (we are friends now!!! :D). They came to my school, because they wanted to see what a Japanese school is all about (well my school is not one of those ordinary Japanese schools :P). So they came to see the lessons, the school grounds etc. We had fun and it was weird to talk in Finnish at the school. :D

After the school went to... *tidididididii* yeah, TOKYO!!!!! :D At first we went to Takeshita-dori to do some shopping and we even came across some Finnish tourists! Scary... D888 Well, anyways, after shopping we went to KARAOKE!! Ahhahahaa, it was hilarious! We were singing about everything: K-pop, J-pop/-rock, Old American songs (for example Village People's Y.M.C.A.) and the main event: Lordi's "Hard Rock Hallelujah"!!!!!!! We just started to shout in full voide and destroy our throats but it was FUN!!!!!!!!!!!! After that we went to an okonomiyaki restaurant on the side streets of Harajuku!! The route felt kind of suspicious (well duh, it was dark and we were somewhere in Harajuku XDD), but we found the restaurant after asking for help a couple of times. :D So, the food. Well, basically, IT WAS SOME REALLY DELICIOUS OKONOMIYAKI!!! We all three liked our okonomiyakis very much~. Ahahahaahaha, Laura said "ROHKEA ROKAN SYÖ!!!" (= "the one who dares, wins." or something like that XDD) all the time to Camilla while we were in the restaurant and I joined her. ::D We had a reason for it... :P After that we said goodbye knowing that the next time we would see would be in Finland after I have returned.

I guess nothing special happened in a while after that, only having things related to YFU, but nothing more about that subject. ;P WELL, I went to karaoke with this one high school 2nd year student (2nd year students are the same age as me) and we sang mostly rock, like X Japan etc. :D It was fun, hope we can go to karaoke once again in the near future~!

And now something a bit fresher (or is it more fresh?!?!?) things. I met with my Finnish friend Risto on the 3rd (Saturday) of July and we hanged around Tokyo. Well, at first we went to his dad's apartment (his dad works in Japan, because of his work, so Risto comes to visit his dad once in a while) in Chiyoda district. The apartment was so cool!!!! Well anyways, we were there for sometime planning a bit, and after that we left. At first we went to Shibuya. We bought maccha frapuccinos (THOSE ARE GODLY!!!!!) from Shibuya's crossing's Starbucks (yup, Starbucks!! :DD). After that we headed for karaoke. We sang for two hours and sang a lot of the same songs as I did with Camilla and Laura. :DD Meaning that we once again destroyed our throats by singing Lordi's "Hard Rock Hallelujah". XDDD BUT THAT SONG IS A MUST!! You just have to sing it, because it is there! And yeah, it is lots of fun to sing it... ;D After that we went to Harajuku, because we were hungry so we headed towards the same okonomiyaki restaurant, where I was with Camilla and Laura. ::D And you know what, Risto too, loved it! Well okonomiyaki is one of the best dishes in Japanese cuisine. *drool* After that we were supposed to go to purikura, but after all, we did not. 8( My curfew was closening so we had to say goodbye and so we left, each to our own homes. We too, will probably meet again in Finland, well he is still in Japan, but I do not think we have time to meet again before he leaves on Thursday. Well anyways, we will meet again in Finland. :D

And one last thing!! I cut my hair!!!!! And I am going to get a new piercing to my ear. Even though, I don't know yet into which ear I want it. :P But Shibuya/Harajuku has just fabulous earrings in its shops!!! Oh btw, we are having a test week at the moment in my school (and other schools too, I guess) so I am only taking three English tests (only two to go anymore~!!) so I went to Akihabara today to search for a digital camera. I was searching for this one shop in Akihabara that is selling Canon's newest digicamera (at least for the "IXYS" or is it "IXUS" -series, well at least over here it is "IXY" -series) for the cheapest price. For comparison I went to another shop to look at its price for it and it was like 10,000 yen higher!!!!! That's almost 100€!!!! :OO Well, I walked a bit in the hellishly hot Akihabara, because I couldn't find the shop and finally when I found it, it said "web sale only"... You can guess my reaction... :D Well at least I ate some Oreos cookies on the side streets of Harajuku. <3

WELL THAT IS ABOUT EVERYTHING I GUESS!!! Phew, this took much more time than I thought it would, but at least I wrote it all!. And, you might be wondering why there are no pictures but it seems like blogspot is having problems or something, because the pictures showed only as codes, not as pictures...... So that's it children, I think I am gonna watch some "新世紀エヴァンゲリオン" (= "Neon Genesis Evangelion") now. I'll try to put some pictures later!

Not a proper update!!

Sorry, I am not gonna post a proper update this time, as I am only asking if you have something you want to know about my life over here. It doesn't matter if we know each or not, just leave me a comment if there's something you want to know, for example about my normal school day, or anything that comes to your mind. JUST LEAVE ME THE COMMENT, THANKS!

Woooooooooooow, he's on a roll now...! Nooooot.

I decided to do another update today, right here and right now. This feels weird though, as I have this feeling it's only Monday, because I went to school today. The reason why I didn't go to school between Tuesday-Thursday was because I had no schoooool!!! Well others were doing tests and I only had my tests on Monday and Friday (today).

So, what did I do on Tuesday? Three choices: A) Went to Tokyo, B) Went to Tokyo and C) Went to Tokyo. YES!!! I went to Tokyooooo!!! So the day started with me waking up around 9a.m. (omg, can you believe that! D88 ME waking up at 9a.m. on HOLIDAY!! D888) So what I did was 1) I ate breakfast; 2) got ready (hair, clothes etc.) and then my host-mum drove me to the station where I continued alone by Tsukuba Express to Akihabaraaaa!

It was around 11a.m. when I arrived Akihabara and guess what was the first thing I did when I came out from the station? It starts with a "S" and ends with the same letter...! YES!! STARBUCKS!! No I am not a Starbucks maniac (maybe), but that was the first thing I saw when I got out from the station. ::D And then I was like "oooooomygoooooood, now I'm gonna try blueberry frapuccino" and as you can see from the picture above, I bought it. 8)) It was really good, as you would expect from Starbucks' frapuccinos! Well, leaving Starbucks' aside, the next thing I did was buying a one-day ticket for Yamanote-line. It cost 730 yen (6,74€), wow, that's actually quite a lot... Well ￥(yen) is quite weak at the moment together with euro and American dollar...

The first place I went was Ikebukuro (yeah, I admit. I was inspired by Durarara!.... :P AND IT WAS HOT AS HELL, like about +30 celsius degrees) So what was it like? It was... SUPERB!!! I am definitely going there again, hopefully with someone to share the fun. But basically, Ikebukuro has department stores, and shops generally, game arcades and SUNSHINE CITY!!! Sunshine 60 is part of Sunshine City and it has 60 floors. Well, as you might guess, the 60th floor is meant for people to go there and have a look at the city from above. The entrance fee was about 630(?) yen (about 5€), but it definitely was worth it!!

After Sunshine 60 I went to *tidididididii* Harajuku!! Yes, once again. I just love the place! So this time I was searching for clothes (again ;D) and I ended up buying two shirts (a shirt and a t-shirt), shoes (Converses, only in Japan -model) and a ring. I bought the t-shirt and the ring from Sex Pot Revenge. Sex Pot Revenge is a Japanese punk brand that has its roots in Harajuku.

Leaving Harajuku I went to Shibuya once again. And guess where...:D STARBUCKS, yeah, it was the second time during that day. I went to the Starbucks that's right next to the big crossing located near Shibuya station. I sat there for a while enjoying my Maccha Cream Frapuccino and reading Kuroshitsuji.

Well, kids, I guess that's everything. See you next time, byeeeeeeeeee!!!

P.S. Jasmine told me I have to say that I "love" her...

Whooops, and so a month went by...

It has been a month since I last made an update... ごめんねぇ。。。

So, what have I been doing during this last month? The thing is, I can't remember too well. Some major things are that I changed host-families. I moved from Takahashi's family to Takagi's family. I live in a whole different city inside Chiba. This city's called Kashiwa, and I think my school trip takes now two times as much of time as it took when I was still living in Ichikawa city. This family doesn't have any children living at home anymore and the parents are like 60- and 64-years old. In all honesty, I liked my previous host-family a lot more. Every day I joked with them and we talked a lot, but over here we don't really have anything to talk about, no joking or anything else. So yeah, I'm not too happy with the situation at the moment, but I'll see if this starts to change somehow. Oh, something kind of important popped up yesterday. I was asked if I would like to go to Kyuushu to live with the host-family I was supposed to go live in the first place. I said no, but I am still thinking about it, and call today or tomorrow and ask if I can have some time to think about it.

BUT NOW SOMETHING POSITIVE!! We had Golden week like 3 weeks ago!! We went to karaoke with classmates and I really sucked, so that's why I've been going to karaoke alone to do some practice so that I definitely can sing properly the next time. ;) But yeah, I have become a really big karaoke fan, and probs gonna go to karaoke tomorrow again. :D I went to karaoke two times last week. Or three times? Can't remember... :D I am already thinking about what I'm gonna do in Finland, 'cause Singstar can't even be compared to Japan's karaoke. However, my previous host-family's mum said that they actually sell those karaoke machines. So I thought, that maybe I should buy one in the end of my exchange year if it's not too expensive. ;D And atm you might be thinking something like how I can afford to karaoke like almost everyday, but it's REALLY CHEAP!! One hour costs about 180yen (which is about 1,5€) for a high school student and the price includes limitless amount of drinks (different kind of juices, tea and water).

I also went to Kichijouji and had lots of fun with Joonas, Julia and Silja. We went to this all-you-can-eat place and ate too much. XDD I came out as 3rd while Julia won the whole damn thing. ::D Well, it was kind of an unofficial battle. :P And of course we had to go to purikura, take boats and row around a pond, and the last thing we did was that we went to karaoke. However, Jonas had already left as he lives so far away. 8// OH, AND I ALSO ATE A GRASSHOPPER!! Well, I had two, but I dropped the first one when I was putting it into my mouth and it just felt wrong so I just accidentally dropped it.... :::D But then I just gathered the courage and put the second one in my mouth. And it actually tasted good!! Well, sugar, and soy. XDD It was really crunchy and I was afraid it would have some liquid inside, but gladly it didn't. :D


Well, what else? I don't really have anything else to tell, if I remember something I'll make another update! ;D EXCEPT!!! I have fallen in love with Starbucks' Maccha cream frapuccino, 'cause it just is pure HEAVEN!!! Honestly, if you ever end up in Japan, you really have to taste it!! But now I'm gonna start reading Kuroshitsuji (in Japanese ;D), and probably gonna go to Tokyo tomorrow to do some shopping, 'cause we have test week now and my next tests are on Friday, so I have free until then. <3 See yaaaa!!

Nikkō, school and Yokohama! + I turned 17-years old. D888

Sooooooo, I've been enjoying life over here AND THAT'S WHY I HAVEN'T BEEN UPDATING MY BLOG!!! (<--- That's a lie) But now, I made myself a promise just a minute ago that if I don't update my blog now then I won't get to play Final Fantasy XIII (YES, I finally bought PS3 and I even found the Final Fantasy XIII special edition of it!!!), so I'll write something about Nikkō, maybe about the trip to Yokohama and school starting. Let's start with talking about Nikkō. We left to there 03.04. and returned 04.04. Nikkō is a city up in the mountain area about 2000m above the sea level. We rented a car and went there with okaa-san, otou-san, onee-san, onii-san, obaa-san and ojii-san. (onee-san = big sister, onii-san = big brother, obaa-san = grandmother and ojii-san = grandfather). It takes about 2h 30min from here to Nikkō, if I remember correctly. And to be honest, the driving trip to Nikkō was hell for me, because I had been a little ill and felt like puking after a couple of minutes being in the car. Glad I could sleep. :P We arrived to the ryokan a little bit late.. And oh god... IT SMELT REALLY BAD OVER THERE!!! Well, that was because there were some onsens, and there's some methane coming out from the onsens, so that's the reason it smelt really bad.After that we had dinner. We had too much food as it just kept coming. :D I guess it was a traditional one, because at first we had some sashimi and after that toofu (=tofu), chawanmushi (which I didn't really like as I don't like eggs too much), we also had shabu-shabu etc. But as I was still feeling a little bit weird I didn't have much appetite... 8((

The next day we had to give up the room at 10 am. Before that we had a traditional Japanese breakfast. We gave up our rooms and went to explore Nikkō. During the night we came to Nikkō not much could be seen, because back then it was already really dark and it reminded me of Twin Peaks or something like that. D8 But during the daytime you could see lots of mountains and big lake. We saw some waterfalls and stuff. I heard they have some monkeys there, which I really wanted to see, but sadly didn't see any... :( We went to temples and to some huge waterfall, but it was quite gray, because back then spring hadn't really started over there. Oh, seems like I have already raged you about modernizing Japanese temples, so I think I'll leave that out now. :D But still, I wonder why the hell do we have to pay about 2000 yen to visit a temple area that has some construction going on. And even more, world heritage places have souvenir shops in them... Sometimes I can't understand Japanese people. D8 Well, actually what the monks are thinking.

I was thinking about giving up, but if I write now then I don't have to be writing right away about the trip to Yokohama with my host-sister and her boyfriend. :D + Maybe I should tell you something about my school too. :P

I'll start with talking about school. So as posted earlier my school's name is Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen Makuhari Koukou (koukou = high school). I don't know how many student it has but I guess at least a thousand + the junior high side which is connected to the high school side. My class is 1-I. Yes, I'm with the 1st year students even though I'm actually a 2nd year student in Japan. Anyways, my classmates are really nice and I like them. In my class there are 39 students (I'm included) and home-room teacher of course. In Japanese schools, most of the classes are held in the home-room class, but as I am a Finnish exchange student who sadly doesn't understand traditional Japanese literature, world history, social studies etc. I don't spend every lesson in my home-room class. I should go to library to study Japanese, but if it's a nice weather outside I'll just go to the terrace right next to my home-room class. :D Maybe I should start going to the library more often, because the librarian over there is really nice. Lol, we talked about Moomins and stuff. ::D And yes, I do have a school uniform and I actually like it a lot, except on hot days when it feels like a punishment to wear it...

On the 10th of April we went Yokohama with my host-sister and her boyfriend. At first, we drove a little bit out of the city to this glassmaking place (don't know the right word for it, so for now I'll call it the glassmaking place ::D). Over there we made fuurins (Japanese wind chimes). It was fun and we got to decide the colours and do about half of the work (as it might be a little bit too hard to do them alone for those who are doing something like that for the first time. :P). My fuurin ended up looking a little bit like fugu. ::D

We completed the fuurins and after that went to the central Yokohama, near the ocean to a place called Akarenga. Akarenga is kind of a shopping mall and it seems like it has a long history of enduring world war or something like that. So we went there, walked through shops, ate and walked some more. :D But it was a really cool place, especially the yard between the two buildings of Akarenga. I liked the whole place, but didn't actually buy anything else than a package of Fisherman's Friend that I found from one cloth shop selling sailor themed clothes. I don't really like them but I wanted to see the reactions of my family, and once again okaa-san liked them. She even said she had eaten a different flavor before. And let me tell you, she really is not a typical Japanese person in these kinds of things. Almost everybody over here can't stand salmiakki or Turkinpippuris, but okaa-san likes them. (well otou-san too likes them a little bit, but only a little bit :P) To describe a reaction of feeding a turkinpippuri to a typical Japanese person is to say that they start to shout "まずい！！" (= disgusting) and start squirm or just collapse to the floor and sit there for a while. And some even started to run to the nearest toilet (like a couple girls I gave turkinpippuris). XDD

But hey, I think I have written already enough. I don't have so much special things to tell you anymore, except about my trip to Harajuku, but I'll make a post about that someday (notice the word someday ;D). And next Thursday I'll be going to Purikura and Sweets Paradise with my host-sister and her boyfriend (the same ones I went with to Yokohama), so you'll probably see some more purikura pictures in the near future!! I also turned 17 on the 21st of April, yay. :D OH YEAH, I have to tell about that day too. ::D But now I'm gonna start playing Final Fantasy XIII as a prize for writing this update, byeeeee!! <3

P.S. Comments and questions are always welcomed. ;)

よしゃあああ！！

The title "Yoshaaaa!!" says everything. Just a minute ago I came to check my blog and decided "okay, now I'll write an update" and here I am, writing this update. Took long enough, though... D8

Last time I told you mostly about the 30th of March, but now I'll tell you something about the 31th of March when we went to Kamakura with my host-mum. It takes about 1h 20min from here to Kamakura by a train, and as I didn't get to sleep late I slept in the train. As you might know, it's really common over here to sleep in a train. Honestly, everyone does it. But it's a good way to spend the time in the train and you don't really have to be afraid of any thieves as Japanese people are really kind and helpful (at least most of them). But yeah, we arrived to Kamakura. The weather wasn't too warm and sadly the sun wasn't shining. 8( Anyways, we went from a temple to another one. It was really nice and feet-hurting but what the hell, I got to see lots of Japanese temples! Well as I like the temples, there are two downsides to them. 1. They are most oftenly (is that even a word? ::D) reconstructed and have some concrete around them. And the ground can be made of asphalt, which kinda takes the joy away... 2. WHY IN THE HELL DO THE TEMPLES HAVE A LITTLE SOUVENIR SHOP IN THEM!! I mean in the bigger temples, there's no way they wouldn't have a souvenir shop in them... Really, I thought the temples were important religious pieces... + The worst thing is that the shopkeepers are monks themselves... I mean really, COME ON!! Is that really necessary? And yeah, it usually does cost to get in to a temple. Now before I'm gonna put a lot of pictures instead of writing, I want to say that I ate a violet coloured sweet potato コロッケ (korokke = croquette) AND edamame ice cream, which was actually quite good. However, edamames are usually eaten in a bar when drinking alcohol. ::D But they are really good and worth tasting. But now, pictures.

And that's it for the pictures. I'm gonna make a bigger update (hopefully during this week) about the trip to Nikkō, about school starting, trip to Yokohama etc. But now, byeeeee!!

Food, food, food, PURIKURA!!

Sorry, it's been a while since I last wrote an update... But I didn't really feel like writing + I was ill at one point... So, let's rewind back a little bit to the week before last week.

I really can't remember what I did on the 26th or 27th day of March, probably nothing special if I can't remember anything... :D BUT I do remember what I did on the 28th day of March!

So on the 28th day of March we went to Akihabara with otou-san and okaa-san to buy a new TV (and searching for the limited edition of PS3 which is probably impossible to find from a store [at least a new one, that is.]). So we went around stores searching for the perfect TV and took a taxi to some other place near Akihabara (can't remember the name of that place). There we finally found the right TV and after that FOOOOD! Well we didn't actually know what we wanted to eat so we walked around and ended up waiting to get into some famous ramen restaurant, but the line continued inside the restaurant so it could have taken even an hour or more so we gave up and went to eat 天ぷらそば (Tempura soba). Tempura is deep-fried food (usually vegetables, fish and shrimps), its roots are in Portugal. Soba is a type of thin noodle that is made from buckwheat flour. I think that's the food I've eaten here the most. Well it is really good, but still. :D After eating we went back to Akihabara by a train this time and then okaa-san parted ways with me and otou-san. We went around shops with otou-san searching for the precious limited edition of PS3, but found out that it's next to impossible. After hanging a couple of hours in Akihabara we went back to home and after that I can't remember anything from Sunday. But I think that actually was the whole Sunday, and a nice Sunday it definitely was. Totally different than what I am used to in Finland.

Can't remember what happened on Monday except that we were arranging a meeting between me and Julia, but she had some trouble with her host-parents. Well everything turned out well and we would meet on the next day. OH YEAH, on Monday Aya's (my host-sister) friend was here and I fed her some salmiakki and the reaction was the usual one. Wincing and finally spitting it out. Then she tasted one turkinpippuri and same kind of reaction, except that we told her to bite it open and after she did that she literally screamed. :D

On Tuesday I went to Kichijōji with Aya's friend (because she too was going to meet her friend over there, coincidence...?) by a train from Motoyawata station (a JR line (Japan railway) station near my host family's house). From Motoyawata station it took about one hour to Kichijōji (had to change the train in the middle of the trip) and over there I met Julia and her host-mother. After that her host-mother left and it was just the two of us. I think the first thing we did was going to Book Off to search for cds... I bought four cds, three from ORANGE RANGE and one single from ナイトメア （Nightmare). Btw, I saw too cool Neon Genesis Evangelion earphones, gonna buy 'em someday. D888

We bought the cds and then we decided to head towards a game arcade where all the purikura machines were (Can't find an article about purikura in English on Wikipedia, sorry. Well basically it's about posing when the pictures are taken and then decorating the pictures with random stuff). Or so we were supposed to, but first we ended up wandering on this one shopping street and going to the temple/graveyard area, which you can see in the picture above (Julia's harassing the graveyard D88). Then we went back to the shopping street and THE grandpa came to ask us if we saw the cherry blossom trees and took pictures etc. He was a little bit creepy... D8 I was feeling hungry so we went to eat at Moss Burger, which is honestly way better than McDonald's. :D The food looked really fresh, totally different from McDonald's and it tasted better.

Off from Moss Burger, this time we were honestly headed towards the game arcade. After walking around a little bit we finally found the entrance to the arcade and went in. The first thing you see is a room full of arcade games, and basically... that's everything. :D Well the room was huge and had lots of game machines. But our destination were the purikura photo booths. We fighted our way through all the machines and yattaa, finally we were there. First impression: Feminine. It was somehow a little shock seeing so many people at those purikura booths and well at first it seemed I was the only male there.. I wasn't, gladly. We took a lot of pictures, but for now I'll only put this one here. Maybe I'll put some more later, maybe. :D

After purikura a thought flashed through the mind, we had forgotten that we were also supposed to go to this one park where they had boats you could row in a pond. We didn't have so much time left so we started searching for the place. Meaning that we headed to the station and from there we first went to McDonald's (WC, large fries for 150 yen = 1,25€ and MacPork). So, we didn't have much time left and we were in a hurry. We headed towards the park and in the midway grabbed crepes, which were so good omg. (Julia has a lot of the pictures, so I'll try to get them to myself and post some of 'em later). But yeah, we continued our walking and the street turned to remind of one of those places in Southern Europe where's some restaurant with a grill and this wooooonderful smell comes from it. It really felt like you've changed countries suddenly. We walked down little stairs and there we were. The park opened before our eyes and we could see lots of people having a picnic next to the cherry blossom trees, which about half of them had bloomed. So I did tell you about the boats earlier. Well, we took the swam boat which costed about 700 yen which is about 5,85€... It was so much fun and I really want to go there again. We listened to Dir en Grey's Macchiavellism aka Mökkiävellism and the song really got a new dimension to it. ::D Well after going around with our swam boat we had to go back to the station where Julia's host-father was waiting for us. There we parted ways, and I headed back to Motoyawata station.

Back at Motoyawata station I met okaa-san. We went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and ate *tididididiii* okonomiyaki. We also ate yakisoba and monjayaki (I'm pretty sure it was this one). Everything was really good. After that we went to Shapo (kind of a shopping mall inside the train station and under the railway) to buy some fruits (I've eaten so much strawberries while being here, but it's the season over here at the moment :D). And that was the end of Tuesday the 30th of March.

Well... This update took a lot more time than I thought it would... Mostly, because I was avoiding writing this and did something else all the time like went to eat fugu with okaa-san and otou-san, but more about that later. So, I didn't get to write about too much after all even I wrote this much text. I'll try to write more possibly tomorrow, but you know me... ;D But now I think I'll head to bed as it is already 1:10 am and I'm supposed to wake up at 7 am... D888 Sleepy sleeps!

P.S. I still don't have PS3... XDD