20th Century Boys - Fail

I was supposed to write earlier, but I was feeling kind of lazy~.

Soooooo, on Monday we went to play tennis with otou-san. I had put in my YFU-documents that I like to play tennis, which is true, but I'm not really good. And I got a little bit scared when I heard it was going to be a tournament, 'cause the last time I played tennis was about 1,5 years ago... XDD At least we had time to practice, because honestly, I really sucked (I still do) but it helped a lot that we had time to practice and during the games I got a little bit better too. Still we lost all the games! XDDD BUT at least we had lots of fun and everyone were nice. I also got hit into the back of my head by a tennis ball.. It kinda hurt the whole day, and I am not really sure if it was the cause of the worst headache of my life so far, because I woke up the next night to this huuuuuge headache and it hurt so much and I had the painkillers downstairs so I didn't want to go down incase I would wake someone. Still after suffering for a while I went to get the medicines and *tididididididii* it helped and I fell asleep. :D

OH!!! After the tennis tournament we went to another Chinese restaurant with okaa-san, otou-san and ojii-san (grandpa). This was the first time I met ojii-san and he was very talkative, nice, funny and not very elderlike person. :D I like him a lot, and he said I am kawaii (=cute), which was then corrected to kakkoii (=cool). ::::D He too, was a doctor (have I told you that both my okaa-san and otou-san are doctors, my other onee-san (big sister) is studying in a medical school and my onii-san (big brother) is trying to get into a medical school and at least two of the exchange students that have been here before got interested in becoming doctors and *tidididididii* now they are doctors!), but now he's an artist, painting stuff etc. At the Chinese restaurant I had the best prawns EVER!!! Really, they tasted so creamy and *omnonmonomnom* I could have eaten those a lot, but really... I didn't even like prawn meat when I was in Finland, but now I am almost a huge fan of it. ::D

On Tuesday I went to Shibuya, Tokyo, all alone. It was really easy to go there and I only had to change the metro line once. It wasn't the greatest weather but still, it was really nice being there all alone doing what you want. At first I had in my mind to go to HMV (which is like a huge cd/dvd shop in the centre of Shibuya), but then I got kinda lost (and bought two taiyakis, custard and caramel, but eaten in a row is a little bit too much for me... ::D) and wandered on the streets of Shibuya for a while until I found myself again in the heart of Shibuya, by one of the world's most famous crossings.

Finding myself again near the crossing I decided to take another route and yeah, this time I found the store. I was searching for LM.C's "WONDERFUL WONDERHOLIC" and while searching for it I noticed something...... A WONKA CHOCOLATE BAR!!! I was so excited, because I can remember thinking how it would taste like when I saw the movie... XDDD So at first I went to find the cd, well actually cds, 'cause I also bought Miyavi's "AZN PRIDE THIS IZ THE JAPANESE KABUKI ROCK". Then I dashed to the cashier and grabbed the Wonka chocolate bar with me without even looking at the price, it actually turned out to be quite expensive, because I noticed over here at the house that it actually costed over 5 euros, oops..... :D But it was something that you must buy if you ever see a thing like that.

After spending too much money on two cds (cds over here a little bit more expensive) and a Wonka chocolate bar I decided to just walk around and go to any interesting looking shop I encountered (= clothes ;D). I ended up buying two shirts and a necklace.

Yesterday... What did I do yesterday? Can't remember properly... D888 OH!! Yesterday we were supposed to go to a temple, but it was raining so we didn't go. Instead, I slept late and got a new futon (yay!). Nothing special really happened, went to a store with okaa-san. It was a nice, normal daily life.

Today (aaaargh now I have to say that I'm already trying to think the words in Japanese XDD) the raining continued, so I didn't leave the house at all. Instead, I just ate and tried to watch a movie. In the morning I met Aya, my other host-sister. And also her friend, we ate pizza and snacks, drank some really good ginger milk tea, and I fed them salmiakki!! Okaa-san is the only who liked salmiakki and turkinpippuri. ::D And about the topic of this post... Today was the second try I tried to watch 20th Century Boys, but it kind of failed, 'cause I fell asleep on the sofa while the movie was playing... XDDD I'm probably going to buy PS3 tomorrow or on Saturday!! I really want to play Final Fantasy XIII!!!!

But now I think I'll head soon to the shower and ofuro. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Shark fin and jellyfish!

Here I am again, writing this post. And yes, it is night over here.

So today I woke up at 9 a.m. (actually I got out of the bed at around 9.30) and with a little bit of nervousness went to the downstairs and said good morning to my otou-san and okaa-san (I'll be using the terms otou-san = host-father, okaa-san = host-mother). Drank some water and found out that we will be eating lunch in a restaurant in central Tokyo (yay!).

Some time later we went to Tokyo by a train to this Chinese restaurant that was right next to Chiyoda ward (or I dunno if it is a ward, but whateveeeer...). So there we were and I was like "yay, food!!". At first we got these appetizers like pork, chicken, something clamlike and *tittitititittititiididididiii* JELLYFISH!!! The jellyfish looked a little bit like noodles and was crunchy and yellowish, I liked it a lot. Then I found out that we were going to eat shark fin as a part of the lunch. I think it was the second dish, well whatever, there it was. Being on that deep plate, just a little bit suspicious looking in that sauce. I was a little bit afraid and slowly but surely I took a piece of it and tasted it... AND it was actually good!!!! I actually became a little bit more of a friend of seafood after those ten plates we ate, because in a lot of them, seafood was included.

After the delicious lunch we decided to walk around in Tokyo a little bit. We walked in Chiyoda and sometimes it was terribly silent, until... UNTIL this car was driving in the streets and shouting something about the democracy of Japan, mocking it and that kind of stuff. It was quite interesting and I have a recording of that in my phone (hopefully I'll put it on Facebook someday).

From Chiyoda we walked to Tokyo Railway Station through all the skyscrapers and shops. The weather was really nice and warm, I think it was about +20 celsius degrees or something like that. So from Tokyo Railway Station we got into an express train to Narita Airport and got out in Ichikawa Station and then went to another train and got out at the next stop. At last, even though it was fun and really nice we arrived home, my legs were killing me.

In the evening we went by a car to a couple of shops to buy... *tidididididii* DOG FOOD!! Yes, we have a dog here, but it's not allowed inside the house. 8( The name of the dog is Chibli, if I remember correctly... And after that we went to eat dinner to a soba restaurant! I ate warm soba and tempura (yummyyyyy!!) and again, I didn't have to pay... I WOULD HAVE PAID IF THEY HAD ALLOWED ME TO!! But no is a no. So after eating we came back to the house and ate some fruits, ice cream (well I was the only one who ate ice cream, because otou-san handed me one XDDD) and something custard/jelly like thingy. After that I found out that on Tuesday I could go to for example Shibuya and Akihabara all by myself when they are working (WOOHOO!!!!!! This is just like a dream to go to Shibuya all by myself and do anything I want to!!!). It was a little bit of a surprise, but definitely a positive one. Oh, one last thing: tomorrow I am going to go play tennis with my otou-san. :D And now I am going to go to bed, and as my okaa-san said, this day was definitely 食べるの日 (eating day). Byeeeee!!!

P.S. We have this clock here that makes sound every 15 or 30 minutes and sometimes I get really scared, because of it... XDDD

In the middle of Ichikawa, Chiba

Sorry, but this is not gonna be such a long post as I am tired as hell. D88

So I left on the 15th of March and arrived to Tokyo with the other exchange students from Finland on the 16th day. After our lovely 17 hour long trip we went by the bus to Tokyo to some Olympic Center in Shibuya (I guess). There we spent five days with the other exchange students, made the bonds stronger between the Finnish people and got new friends from all over the world. The time went actually really quick there and the food was good (during the lunch and dinner we had like 5-7 different choices) AND everytime we had something with RICE (unless you ate noodles D8). I did a little bit of calculating and noticed that I ate 690g of rice every single day over there in the orientation. :: D Back to business = the orientation. So I kinda just noticed that we were probably the craziest ones there... (Bulbasaur vs. Charizard, pics coming possibly later ;D) AND one of the noisiest ones, during the daytime... But yeah, I had a really hard time during the last two nights when I was trying to sleep and the Asian dudes next door we're making too much noise so I really wanted to kick the wall, but I didn't... 8(

Today was the day when we we're introduced to our host families and started to live our normal life over here. It was the time to say goodbye to all the new friends and nervously introduce yourself in front of the room full of host-families. So I went to the front and said everything that was supposed to say and then my area representative came forward and picked me up. After waiting for a while we walked to the nearest train station and went to Shinjuku! At there we were supposed to eat food, but as we didn't have much time to spend we went to this cake/coffee/sandwich cafe. Oh god I love Japanese cafes like that, they are so cool and elegant!! Even the bathroom was gorgeous, playing classical music and stuff... I really love these kinds of things in Japan! ;)

After that we went by a train/metro to this one place (can't remember the name of the place) and the trip took probably like 30-40 minutes and I was SO tired I almost fell asleep there. :P After arriving there I meet my temporary host-mum, who's a doctor and that's why she wasn't able to come over there. Then we went by a car to my school and this one teacher talked about things in Japanese and English (!!!!). After that I had to try my school uniform, which took quite a bit of time in the end.. Seems like I can take it back to Finland as they're getting me my own school uniform, because my exchange organization is paying for it.

After school we went by a car with my host-mum to a super market to buy some food (Oh god, I love Japanese super markets... They are WONDERFUL I don't know why, but they are!!) and there we had these huge peaces of samples, which turned out to be quite good after looking a little bit... dubious. So, after buying the ingredients we head to my host-family's house, which is located in Chiba, Ichikawa City. After driving around Ichikawa we arrive here and then I notice that the house looks like... (wait for the surprise) JUST LIKE A CASTLE!! It really looks like that and from inside this is just like a mansion. I was honestly surprised. So, about the family: Mom (a doctor), dad (a doctor), sister (studying to become a doctor), brother (trying to get into a med. school) and a sister (a fitness instructor). The family seems really really nice and they can speak English, especially my host-dad who was on exchange in U.S about 36 years ago. :D

Umm... I'm getting really tired here (I don't want to fall asleep on my laptop) even though it's not even 11 p.m. yet. But at least this turned out to be a little bit longer than I was thinking of writing. I'll add some pics later, ENJOY!!! <3

P.S. They already have proper strawberries here and yummmmm, those strawberries were really good. And it was about +19 celsius degrees around here today. ;)

*Tididididididididii* Finally it's here and only 1 day left until leaving Finland!!

I'll be writing this blog in English even though my native language is Finnish. The reason for this is purely because I can't let my English get worse during my exchange year in Japan, as I am studying in the IB (Well maybe I'll sometimes write something in Finnish, so that I won't forget it which would be just sad).

So, I finally made a blog after many "tries". In this blog I'm going to write about my coming exchange year in Japan (2010-2011), which seems to take place in Chiba and possibly in the city of Hita (a city in the island of Kyushu). You may ask what do you mean by "which seems to take place...", well the only thing I can say is that the situation is somehow complicated over there in Japan so I don't really know much, yet... But yeah, at this point it seems that I'll be studying in Shibuya Kyouiku Gakuen Makuhari high school, which is located in Chiba city (I'll be living in Ichikawa City, but I don't know if I'll be moving away from there or not...). So as you can see everything's kinda confusing at this moment, but I'm sure it will all work out during the next week (It better! D88).

P.S. I do apologize for any grammatical mistakes, but I figured I had to write something even though I'm tired so that I would get this blogging thing started. And I'll try to write as often as I can!!