5 weeks!

Konichiwa! :D

I cant believe I leave Japan in a week....it's crazy. 

Well update from last week.

7/9/12

Today I went to my host dad's elementary school. When we got to the school Jade and I introduced ourselves to the staff. Then they gave us a list of the classes we would go to for the next 3 days. Then we went to our classes. My first class was a second grade class. They were so cute! When I walked in the class they sorta looked at me in awe. hahaha during that class period I learned kangi (a type of japanese writing) with them, then we went to the gym and I jumped rope and played this basketball relay thing with them. When class was over there was a small break where all of the students just surrounded me and gave me little origami that they made or they would start speaking to me in Japanese, then the teacher kept telling them that I couldnt speak any but they would ignore the teacher and keep talking to me. It was actually really funny. Then they all started walking up to me with paper and a pen and ask me to sign my name, like an autograph. I actually felt famous then..it was great. :) After that I went to a 4th grade class. In that class they were learning about batteries and space. I didnt really do anything in that class but watch them. After class was lunch. Me and Jade had lunch with my 4th grade class. After lunch all the students had clean up time which is basically everyone cleans up the school. In Japan they don't have janitors at the schools, the students clean up instead. After clean up Me and Jade went to the gate where they all leave to go home and said bye to the students. It was a lot of fun interacting with them :D 

7/10/12

Tuesday I went to school with my host dad again. That day I went to a first grade class and another 2nd grade class. I think that the 1st grade class was by far my favorite! When I walked into the classroom the kids all gasped and had HUGE smiles. The teacher was awesome. She was so nice and even spoke pretty good english! She told me that the kids having been anxiously waiting for me. haha Well at first in that class we played a game called fruit basket then I got to sit in the front of the class while they drew me. After they drew me they would come up to me and hand me their drawings. They were all so cute :D After drawing there was a small break so the all came running up to me wanting me to sign my name for them. They were literally surrounding me. I could barley move and they were all pushing and shoving to get near me hahha. Some of them wanted me to sign their arms..I wasnt sure if it was ok so i asked the teacher, but she said it was ok. So I signed their arms also...and I'm pretty sure some of the kids came up more then once. hahaha After that class I went to the 2nd grade class. In that class I did math with them and drew a crawfish. They had actual crawfishes in big bowls that each table area would get and you had to draw it.The kids would pick it up and play with it then it would pinch them, the kids would put it down and go "cry" to the teacher then they would come back and do the same thing again. It was actually pretty entertaining. After class was lunch, I ate with the second graders. After lunch was clean up time then me and Jade went out to the gate and said bye to them. Some of the kids we said bye to would run up to us and ask us to sign their folders. I felt so famous :D 

7/11/12

Wednesday was our last day at the school. I went to 2 different 5th and 6th grade classes. The first 5th grade class I just sat there and listened to them learn geography I think. The second 5th grade class They were making these white board things..i'm not really sure what they were, but they were really cool! The first 6th grade class I went to I helped clean with them. The second 6th grade class I watched them do gymnastics. After school me and Jade stood bye the gate and said bye for the last time. It was so sad! Those kids were adorable and I will miss them! 

7/12/12

Thursday Jade and my host mom took us to this big shopping mall in Tokyo. I think it was called Odieba? I cant remember, but it was super cool! They let me and Jade go wander off by ourselves which was very nice. We walked around some stores then went to this other mall across the street. While we were there Jade's host mom told her that there was a cat cafe here. A cat cafe is exactly what it sounds like, a cafe with cats. So we went on a hunt for it and it took us about 45 min to give up and actually ask someone where it is. Me and Jade have this thing called challenge mode. It's where we dont know where we are going but we try and get to the next place without asking anyone, so far it has been doing very well except with the cat cafe. Turns out it was outside the mall, so we finally found it and Jade had her momentary freak out, then we went in. We were there for about a half hour or so and then decided to leave. After that it was getting close to the time that we had to meet up with our host moms, so we left. 

7/13/12

Friday I went to the Kikkoman Factory with Jade and our host mom's. There we met up with other YFU students that also had the scholarship. At the factory we got to learn how they make soy sauce. They told us that it takes about 10 months to make. It was really interesting to see each step of making soy sauce. After that they gave us a tour of the Factory, then we got to eat Soy milk Ice cream..which is like the best ice cream. ever. It was amazing. After everyone had their ice cream we got to make our speeches. We basically got called up one by one and said our name, where we are from, and what we think of Japan. Of course we could do it in English, there was a small rumor that we were going to have to make the speech in Japanese. I freaked out since I cant really speak it and so did a lot of other people. The kikkoman people gave us 2 free tickets to Disney! Whoooo!! :D After speeches we were able to leave. I really enjoyed the kikkoman tour, it was very interesting seeing how soy sauce is made. 

7/17/12

Today I went to see an Opera with my school! My very first opera! The opera that we saw was the one that the play/movie Rent was based off of. It was reallllllly long...but I enjoyed it, even though it was all in Italian.

After the opera me and Jade had to ride the train home by ourselves. It actually wasnt as hard as I thought it was going to be, but the trains here are so expensive!! 

Odieba mall

Entrance to the cat cafe

in the cat cafe

Kikkoman Factory

Kikkoman products

Our tour guide

2nd grade class surrounding me

2nd grade class

4th grade class

Line of kids to sign autographs

1st grade class

my first 5th grade class

my second 5th grade class

my first 6th grade class

my second 6th grade class

my 2nd grade class

saying bye to all the students!

Well that's all for now! Until next time

Kenzie

Hello :)
I can't believe I've been here almost 4 weeks! It's crazy how time flies by.
7/4/12
Happy 4th of July! Me and Jade tried to celebrate during school. But no one knew what it was so we had to explain. I didn't really do anything except go to school. But I hope everyone in America had an amazing 4th!!! :D
7/6/12
On Friday I went to DisneySea!!!! :D I went with My host mom, Jade, and her host mom. It was so much fun! We left in the morning about 7am and got there around 8:15am. The park opened at 9am so we had to wait. Surprisingly there were already a lot of people there! While we were waiting we planed where we would go on the map. When the park opened we decided to go straight to Tower of terror before it got too packed. It was about a 10 min wait which wasn't too bad. Finally we went on the ride. I screamed a lot. Jade and our host mom's thought it was hilarious how much I screamed...hahah. The ride was amazingg!!! :) After Tower of Terror we walked around and went an rode Aquatopia, which was kinda bumper boats, but not really. Then we went and got fast past tickets for Raging Coaster and went to ride the Indiana Jones ride! That was also very fun! After Indiana Jones we went to the Raging Coaster. It wasn't that great. After the coaster we got fast pass tickets for Journey to the Center of the Earth, then got some lunch. After lunch we rode this other ride called 20,000 lesions Under the Sea. It was pretty cool. After that ride we went to ride Journey to the Center of the Earth. That ride was so cool and fun! :) After that we rode Storm Chaser, that was a 4D ride. We tracked down tornado's and got in the middle. It was awesome! After that out host moms said that we can go off by ourselves. So we went and got fast past tickets for Journey to the Center of the Earth again and rode Indiana Jones another 2 times. After that we met up with our host mom's and walked around and rode some other rides. At the end of the night we left around 8:30pm and got home around 9pm. I took a shower then crashed. I was so tired, but I would say it was a pretty amazing day! :)
7/7/12
On Saturday I went to school for a half day. After school Me and Jade had to ride the train into Tokyo by ourselves. We were freaking out hoping that we wouldn't get lost. We eventually found our way through the trains! When we got to Tokyo Station (that was the hard part) we had to find Jade's host parents. Tokyo station is HUGE so we were walking around for about 15 min before we found them. After that, we rode another train then met up with my host mom and Ai. After we found them we walked to the Tokyo Theatre to watch the Kabuki play. On the way to the play we walked by the Emperor's house. You couldn't see the house at all; it was covered by this HUGE gate and a lot of trees. There was also a reallly big mote, which was pretty cool. The Kabuki play is an old Japanese play. I got an English converter thing so I could understand. It was actually pretty good. The actors have some serious dedication to do all the stuff they did. In the play it's all guys so even some guys dress up at girls to play that part. After the Kabuki, Ai and my host mom took me to this new tower in Tokyo called Skytree. It was really cloudy this day so you couldnt see the top, but it was still very cool!In the tower there was a small shopping area, where we went through and looked through gift shops and other stores. It was really amazing to see all of that.
7/8/12
Today we didn't do much. When we woke up this morning everyone got ready and we went to visit my host dads parents and little brothers grave site. The graveyard areas in Japan are so much different then in America. Every grave has its own little area. and you can't tell where they buried the body. Also, it's not on the grass. The grave yard area is at this Temple and it's also by a kindergarten school that my host dad went to for 5 years. The temple was really beautiful. After that we went home and relaxed. At dinner time Aya and I cut up cabbage for dinner and helped set the table area. Then my host dad made the rest. I think this was our first dinner at home with everyone there. After dinner we all helped clean up then Aya and I played the Wii. She beat me at Tennis and I beat her at bowling. hahah. After wii we ate melon and talked for awhile, then she had to go to the gym. Even though we didnt do much today, it was very fun :)

Mickey mouse ears! :)

Volcano!

Tower of Terror

Goofy

Pinocchio

Pluto

Japanese tradition: write down a wish and hang it up

My wish :)

Skytree

Kabuki

Temple

Aya and me cooking

Our dinner :)

This next week I am off from school. Everyone at my school is taking their final exams, so Jade and I dont have to go. Instead we will go to my host dads school and help out there. :) I'm very excited!!
Well that's all for now!
Kenzie 

Crazy!!

Today during my swimming class my teacher stopped what she was doing and started to look around along with the class. This girl Risa looked at me and said that there is an earthquake! She asked me if I felt it and i asked if that's why I was rocking and she nodded yes. It wasn't a big earthquake..it was actually really small, if she didn't say anything I would've never known. But it was still kind of exciting!!! My first earthquake!!! :D

Oh and something I left out in my last post:
There is a teacher at my school that was in the summer 2008 Olympics for hurdles apart of the Japan team. Well on Friday during Track, one of the girls pointed him out to me and I really wanted to go speak with him, so I did! It was really cool! He said that he runs the 400 meter hurdles in 49.13 seconds! He didn't make it to the Olympics this year, but he's training for the next one in 2016!

Well that's all. Until next time,
Kenzie

Japan is amazing!

Sorry for not posting!!! Here's my update:
6/22/12
On Friday I started Track Club at my school! That day I warmed up with everyone then went and ran some hurdles with 2 guys. The warm-ups are so different here then in America! After awhile, one of the guys asked me to show them some of the hurdle warm-ups we do in America, so I showed them everything I could remember, which wasn't much. After track club, Jade and I waited in the cafeteria for her host sister. While sitting there we met this one kid named Diaki. He is amazing at solving the Rubix cube. He solved it in about 15 seconds. It was crazy.
6/23/12
On Saturday I had school, but it was only a half day. After school i had to ride the train home by myself....I was really nervous and hoping that I wouldn't get myself lost, but I successfully made it home without any problems :D I'm finally getting the train down :) When I arrived home my host mom took me shopping. It was a lot of fun! The Japanese food courts are so much better then in Texas. They have awesome food that isn't just fast food. I also saw Baskin Robins. It's actually very popular in Japan! At the mall they have this store called the 100 yen store. Everything there is 100 yen or less...so it's kinda like the dollar store in America.
6/24/12
On Sunday I woke up and my host dad and I went to this bread store in town and picked up some bread for breakfast. So Japan has the best bread ever. I will miss it very much. We brought it home and ate it. It was amazing! After breakfast my host mom and I did a little more shopping then met up with Jade and her host mom and then we went to our Japanese Dance lesson! There we got to wear Kimono's and learn a really difficult dance. It was really confusing but at the end I got it down and now I don't remember it anymore. After our Japanese Dance we went back to the mall and Jade, her little host sister and I went to this thing they have called Purikura. It's a photo booth, except bigger and a lot more fun :) Later that night my host parents to me to my first sushi restaurant in Japan! It was pretty amazing! I figured out that the only "raw fish" sushi I like is Salmon and shrimp, but I tried many things.
6/25/12
On Monday during 1st period all of the classes were planning their trip for China in October, so they told Jade and I to go sit in the cafeteria until they were done. While we were in the cafeteria we met another exchange student from Mexico. She has been here for the whole year and she leaves the day me and Jade do. It was really nice finding another exchange student at the school. Then she told us that there are also 2 Brazilian guys here also! For my 3rd period class I had Calligraphy. It was a lot of fun! The teacher drew something on a piece of paper and I just copied it for the class period. He drew out "friendship" and my name :) Then  later that night when I got home I had dinner with my host dad and my host sister, Ai. When my host mom got home we all sat in the living room and watched my Japanese video. It was very funny! After watching the video I skyped my mom, which was very nice :)
6/28/12
On Thursday we only had to go to 4 classes instead of 6 because there was an orchestra performance that everyone had to go to. There were 2 kids that went to my school that were in it. There was this one girl that is a grade above me sing...she was realllly good and this other girl that is in my grade play the piano, she is actually in my geography class! Everyone else in the orchestra was a professional. It was really cool to see it!  In the auditorium the seats were really close together...they were not meant for tall people. I had to sit there awkwardly trying not to hit the person in front of me or beside me. I was very uncomfortable...haha. After the concert I went home with Jade that day. At her house her host mom teaches 2 abacus classes, so me and Jade got to help out with that. The first age group was about 7-10 years old. In the class they would have some worksheets that they would have to finish in an amount of time that was given. Some worksheets they had to multiply/divide things in there head, like 1034/2, and some went on this program on the computer and numbers would flash up fast and they would have to add up the numbers and type in the answer. They were crazy good at it. It was kinda scary. Then the next age group was from 10-13 years old. They did the same stuff as the first group except harder. They were also really good at it. At the end of each class the kids would ask me and Jade questions about ourselves.  At the end of the second group this group of girls decided to attack me and jade an tickle us. At the end I was in a ball on the ground trying to defend my self from a group of 12 year olds and Jade was in a corner. It was really funny, I couldn't stop laughing.
6/30/12
On Saturday I got to go to the Zoo! I went with my host dad and host sister, Aya. It was so much fun!! At the zoo we saw the pandas first....well the boy panda. The girl panda area was closed off because she is pregnant. I asked Aya when it would open and she said probably November! Then we walked around some and looked at the other animals. I saw a sloth! <3 I sorta freaked out when I saw it and I had to explain to Aya that it is my favorite animal. hahha she just laughed at me. My host dad ended up finding this area where you can take a picture with these panda statues and this background. It was awesome and I really liked the picture. After looking through all the animals we had lunch and left. The train ride was about 45 min, so I slept a little. When we got home I showered and then played Wii with Ai. It was a lot of fun! We played tennis, bowling, baseball, then Super Mario. That night everyone just sorta went in there rooms and napped and then went to bed. 
7/1/12
On Sunday my host mom and Ai took me to Shibuya. It's a city that has a lot of shopping..basically like New York City. There we met up with Jade and her host mom, then me Jade and Ai went off shopping. We went in H&M which was 4 stories high. It was amazing. After looking through there we walked around the city more and I saw a 5 story Forever 21. I thought the one at Baybrook was big. I didn't get to go in but it looked awesome from the outside! Then Ai took us to another Purikura. It was awesome! Texas really needs to get some of them. After that we met back up with me and Jade's host mom and went to McDonald's. The McDonald's here is soooo much cleaner then America...and the food is better. It's less greasy and the meat on the burgers actually taste like real meat :D After McDonald's we went walking around more and I finally got to buy an I <3 Tokyo T-shirt!!! I was so happy! After shopping we went to this Tea ceremony thing that YFU sponsored. There we got to wear a Kimono again, and we went into this room and they walked us through a traditional tea ceremony. It was really cool! I give props to the Japanese people who have to sit on there knees....it REALLY hurts after awhile...I dont know how they do it. After the ceremony I saw Hitomi (an exchange student that was in Houston for the previous year)! it was really cool seeing her! Then we went to this other area where we "fished" for balloons. I got mine on the first try! :D After that we changed back into our normal clothes and chatted with other people. I saw some people from the orientation I knew so I talked to them, then I saw Yuta (another exchange student from the previous year). It was awesome to see them there with their exchange students. After awhile we finally left for home. That night we went out to dinner at this Japanese restaurant. For seating we got our own little room. It had the table in there. It was really cool! For dinner my host dad just ordered a bunch of stuff and I just tried everything. I had this cooked asparagus wrapped in bacon, different types of fish, chicken, pork, salad, and stuff like that. I actually got to try chicken liver, which wasn't that good, chicken heart, which was amazing!, and pig tongue, which was actually pretty good. At the end I was really full and couldn't eat anymore. Then we went home and all went to bed. 
7/2/12
Today, Monday, I went to school. The classes I had were 1st-homeroom 2nd-math 3rd-music 4th-geography Lunch 5th-English and 6th-Old Japanese. In almost all of my classes I don't understand anything, so I just sit there and read or write in my journal. I think that while I've been here I've read about 7 books during school. Tonight my host dad will be cooking dinner and I'm very excited to see what we will have! :)
Next week are Final exams at my school, so I don't have to go to school that week! Yay. hahah I'm so happy I don't have to take any tests and that I'm done with that for another month. :)

School...I can't remember which class this is.

Japanese Bread <3

Kimono

My host mom, Jade's host mom, Jade's little host sister, Jade, Me

Track club!

The most amazing hurdles ever!

Me and Aya in the Zoo :)

PANDA!!

Tiger, I love this picture!

Sloth <3

Giraffe <3

This famous dog statue in Shibuya

Shibuya. The whole day I felt like I was in the Japanese New York City

Kimono's Part 2

Sitting like this hurts soooo much after awhile

Tea maker

Sushi restaurant 

I love this picture <3 

Me, Aya, and My host dad

Well that's all for now! I'll try and post more often then I have been :)
Kenzie