Summer in Japan!! :D: 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!!