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