A few days

So the weekend just happened. Im not going to lie it was a pretty sweet time. to start it off we went out in the morning down to the beach to walk the dogs. it was beautiful. sadly i didnt bring my camera for this or many of the events i will be talking about . it was acting stupid. anyway the beach was really nice but my smaller host bro was holding up the walk pretty badly so we had to ditch him halfway through. the dogs names are kutpi and jyubi. they are some pretty fine dogs. only problem is i never have seen them being fed... ever.. they might want to try to do that.
anyway after this i came back home and did what i always do, i napped until my older host brother came back home. yah might think this is a bad thing and i should be out doing stuff. but im going to be honest their aint too much to do around here when everyone is either asleep or sitting around watching tv.
anway after that rousing walk and nap combo my host dad woke me up and me and 3 girls ( host bros cousin and her friends) all went on a huge tour of the town for a long time. it was amazing. there are some pictures on the last post showcasing it. but i dont think they really do it justice. its amazing.
after the tour and some lunch at the most japanese resturant ive been to since ive been here. i went back home. shortly after getting back home my host brother returned and we left on bikes off to play some pool. when we arived at the pool/ bowling place. we played some taiko drum game which was a ton of fun. i won both rounds we played.
so we played some pool once everyone arived. and let me just say, i sucked. i sucked bad. i think i got all of 2 balls in out of like 5 games.one of the kids was especially good at it. i think at one point he had a 5 ball streak.
after a couple of great games of pool we went down to a hamburger shop. i had a chicken burger. this place looked and felt like a fast food place but it was the opposite. i had some professional orange juice in a beer mug, a chicken burger that tasted as good as it looked without being unhealthy for you (unlike in america). and fries that looked more like they cubed and elongated potatos then crisped them up a bit ( in other words nothing like the fries back home). all around it all tasted just better then back home chicken burgers and was better for ya too.
after the food we went to a super market and i got ... nothing :) we got home like 10 mins late and my host mom was angry at host bro but i think she waited until after our card game which we played after i got home to tell him off. while we played the card game we watched transformers ... in japanese. and let me just say....... i couldnt understand a word.
anyway that was saturday. now for sunday. sunday started off stupidly. the day before the family said. " sure you can sleep in" so i assumed hey i can sleep till 12 and then we will go out and do stuff. NO. i slept until 8 (4 hours before i usually get up back home) and then they woke me up for ... nothing. absolutely nothing. we didnt do anything until like 12. at 12 we went down to the ocean for a good old swim time. it was really fun. i was reluctant at first to get in but once i was in i was in to stay. they had to work to get me out of there.
after this ... im not really sure what we did. the only thing i really remember was seeing a really really fat american lady leaving the ocean. i think that he largeness blocked out the rest of my memory.
so the next thing i remember is that we had a little celebration for fathers day. the cousins came over again and we had a little thing for the dad and grandfather. all the men gave a speech (including me). one of the cousins refused to move a towel they were holding from in front of their face and im not sure why. also that night was the first night i saw my little host bro nude. i say this because it has happened the next day (today) as well and i assume it will happen a lot more (He aint pretty).
anyway so then school came again. it was a pretty standard day of school. except today the place were we usually eat lunch was closed :(. so we ate in the math room. after i got done eating my host brother told me to wash out my little plastic stuff before i threw it away.. so i did. but then he said "one more time please" so i went to do it again but he took it from me this time. so ya know i assumed that was the end of it. Nope. 3 hours later at the end of school i found out he left it outside in the washing place for me to wash. kind of supprised me but oh well.
so another thing that happened today was. it seemed me and the girls of the classes seem to be getting along better and better. we talk more, play games and even sang songs today.
id have to say though that the worst part of the day happened at the very end of school. for 2 hours we had to sit in the gym and listen to a speech about memorial day here in japan (which is tomorrow so no school). anyway it wouldnt be that but if it wasnt for a few things. first off. its about a billion degrees in that gym. and its humid to boot. not only that but some old guy was talking in japanese and i couldnt understand it. next off i wasnt allowed to talk the whole time. which made it extra boring. lastly the floor was very uncormfortable and i felt like lieing down the entire time. but no. anyway the rest of the day has gone pretty eventless so far. i got home and ive been here ever since. we are about to eat dinner so i got to go but i`ll post some pictures later prolly.

picture post

decided to make a post of just pictures so yeah.

So ive had a pretty eventful time the past couple of days. as usual we started the day off with out radio excercises and breakfast. then we biked to school. it was a particularly sweaty day today for no real reason. On the way there i scraped my arm against a wall or somthing so i had to go to the nurse before school started. anyway after the nurse we (me and the other 2 YFU students at the school i go to) went to go introduce ourselves to the rest of the staff. the other two seemed a bit nervous to be doing this but for some reason ever since i have been here i have not been nervous about anything really. After this we started up some school. it was your typical waiting through the day with people asking many questions about nothing to me. On both of my days at school someone has called my hair something weird. first it was the boy calling it creamy. now it was a girl (oenda) who called my hair delicious. we all had a good laugh about it though.



anyway friday was kind of like test day at my school so after lunch we got back to class and had to go into another room so some students could test. i went to some reading room and learned to play a new card game. its called babanuki. basically you try to get 2 of the same card until you dont have 2 anymore in your starting hand. then one by one you pick a random card from the person next to you until one by one people lose all their cards and win. it was a very fun card game and i tried playing it later but the teacher got mad :(. anyway right after that card game we played the matching game with cards. i sucked hard at it and got like 2 pairs to everyone elses 5.



so then after school i went down to the soccer feild again to talk to amika and masayo the two soccer girls. it was a nice talk and we also went down to a super market to get some poccari sweat and vitamin water. when we got back masayo had to go to a practice for some play she is going to be in every day next week. im pretty sure she wanted me to go to it so im going to go.

after she left me and amika went upstairs to join peter and sarah the other YFU kids in the band room. we listened to them play about 3 songs which were freaking amazing then left. shortly after this we went home and i taugh the boys i was riding home with some curse words because they wanted to know some.



when we got home yoshiki let me know ( a bit too late too) that we were going to get a visit from his english tutor and his other student and her friend mine (she is half america so i communicated through her). on the note of communication. im not going to say i dont understand people. because i understand them fine (with the exception of my younger host bro i have no freaking clue what he ever says). its more that i can understand them but i cant think when i try to actually talk back in japanese.



anyway today so far i woke up. had some breakfast decided it was way to early to be up and went back to sleep until around 10 where we (me my host dad, young host bro , mine, her friends) all went on a huge tour of the town. which didnt take too long but it was the most beautiful tour i have ever been on. i have many pictures of it but i will have to upload them later as im putting like 2k pictures on the computer right now and its taking forever.



not really sure what im doing next. i know im going to the park at some point and to play some pool with the boys from school. but im not so sure about anything else. ill try for another update later but i might not be able to. so until next time cya.

First day of school

So i had my first day of school today. and it was just as awesome as i thought it would be. first off it was like a billion and four degrees over there. the air conditioning system was pretty sweet. i have to say thought that it really wasnt a problem at all. the people were so nice that it more than made up for feeling like i was in a sauna of fire the whole day.

I met a lot of people.. most of them girls. and strangly got a lot of kawaiis. they seemed to come up to me in drones then tell me their names really fast and then they would say. Ok now you say name. and i would sit there and stare until they figured out i had no idea. but besides that i got a lot of questions about sports language and miami. Also people are really interested by my hair. at first they were reluctant and tried to back away from the issue of my hair. but in due time they started to push forward into the question can i feel it? and there it starts many people felt for a long time. i even had a group of like 10 guys around my table at lunch reaching across to get some of the good stuff. One of them actually called my hair creamy which got a huge laugh from others.

Introducing yourself at this school is a horor. people just sit there and stare at you well after your done so you feel like a complete idiot just standing there waiting to be told you can sit. School didnt go on for very long though. i was only there from 8 am to 8 pm. there was soo much to do it was amazing. for the most part i hung out with the soccer team because my host brother is on it. but i also went into the band room and listened to them. went to the traditional dance room and then every time i passed it afterward they would Jump out of the room to get a picture .

anyway first period was i have no idea what class that was. followed by english where i had to read a story about yo yo ma and his life. next was like social studies or something i have no idea what it was. followed by P.E (i played a feirce game of badmitton against my host bro then with him against 2 other people. they wanted me to play some basketball but i said that i would do that tomorrow. after P.E was japanese. and at this point i might as well have been pure sweat. it was the middle of the day. sun a blazin and humid as hell. not to mention that i had just been running around. anyway next was something in the libary where i just talked to some of the other boys at my table. and they taught me the word for alien head (gatpai). after this was lunch where i ate with the soccer team in what seemed like an all boy resturant. this is where we had that creamy experience as well as many other little laughs like when i just kept saying oo instead of good and they just kept saying it after me.

anyway the rest of the day is pretty much nothing until after school. there i ran into chika not the best picture i have but its the only one i have on this camera so yeah anyway we basically walked around the school and talked for like 1 or 2 hours or something like that. she speaks amazing english. i also ran into a girl who looks 100% not japanese. i later learned her dad is english and her mom is japanese but she was born here so yeah. i have no pictures on this camera but im sure i will when i actually talk to her.

after that long talk with chika i went back down to the soccer feild to talk to the two soccer girls on the team (they just fill the water bottles) anyway their names were masayo and amika. both very awesome. we talked for like an hour and a half about nothing in particular. no pictures of them at the moment. i also ran into hisae on the way around the school and we played some uno with like 2 other girls.

and yes that is like 10 draw 2`s in a row. someone drew a whole lot of cards

ahh yes and lastly there was a point in the day where i went to to a to a class to learn to make clothes. i made this beastly peice of fabric. some call me more than i man but less than a god.. i like to think they are right.

thats basically it for today. i probably could write more but i really should go hang out with some family or go to sleep whichever works. cya

In japan

So after about a million years in cali and waiting to get over here im finally here. it only took like 7 plane rides and 1 missed plane to get here. I met my host family and they are freaking awesome. i will try to upload more pictures and such later but for now its like 11 mins till dinner so i have to make it kind of quick. i have many funny stories already but they will have to wait. i can tell one how ever. its not really funny but when i got here my host brother was like Hey lets go to my soccer practice and you can watch it. so we got there said hi to the team.. and left... yup no watching any soccer practice. also he said we are going to stop by the school and we can look at it. so we passed by the school. and i thought we would turn around. but nope just kept on going . so when he says stuff i guess i need to take it very litterally. there isnt much to do at the house but its pretty high tech. internet is nice but there is too much to do around town to get caught up on it. this keyboard is so hard to type with too. i think im going to go now. its like 4 mins to dinner. look forward to another post soon

Computer problems

due to some recent stuff my mom has decided and has it locked in her mind that i should not bring my laptop. Now if this will make a difference i have no idea , my family might have a computer they might not. the schools will probably have a computer class and i will probably be in it. so this might not really affect anything more than the amount of posts i put up. but ive tried telling her all my reasons that i should bring it but she seems dead set that it will be a major distraction. i cant say i dont see where she is coming from but even though i disagree there isnt too much i can do about it. 

Anyway i will still be able to update this thing as often as possible at school, or internet cafe's or even at home and the fact im bringing a written journal just means that if i do get delays i will still be able to post many posts for different days when i get the chance to. i dont know if my mom will change her mind but dont worry because it wont affect me updating this thing as often as i can :) just something that needed to be said

Host Family Phone call

So i called my host family today, and after 3 failed calls where i dialed the wrong number and one where i started talking to someone who wasnt actually the right person (because why wouldnt i), i finally talked to my host family. or rather i talked to my host mom ( i think). after the conversation i wouldnt say im really nervous but rather im pretty Antsy about going. after reading that sentence you would probably say to yourself "Oh the conversation went well" as antsy usually means excitement. But nothing could be further from the truth. the conversation went down the cliff right after the first sentence. she asked me something i hardly got asking me about my family and what are there names. so i told her. and after that i couldnt tell you a single thing she said. something about .... .... ... well i know i heard something about their family a lot in there.
Anyway i thought my japanese was pretty good. but you know what apparently there is this little thing called dialect that i forgot to take into account, and it turns out its pretty dam important. She kept going on and on and saying sorry with every sentence because it was pretty clear she knew i couldnt understand her and she couldnt speak a word of english. i kept saying sorry back because i couldnt understand her.
SOooooo about after about 5 minutes or what felt like 20 years of the most awkward conversation ive ever had (im pretty sure she managed to ask me the same question about 15 times no matter how many times i told her i didnt undertand it) it was over.

Now dispite the awkwardness and terribleness of the actual talking it was not a complete waste of a long distance call. dispite our you know not being able to talk to each other we did get a lot of laughs in. Now dispite the fact that mine were probably from nerves and hers were probably from the fact my japanese was a good the typical digital talking dishwasher. i call laughter a definate plus.
All in all i think it was a good coversation dispite all the bad in the actual talking but then again when has conversation been about the talking ( shut up i know im wrong). i think we clicked on some level ... somewhere and thats that. soo when i meet them in real life for the first time it should be about 10 times as awkward but i happen to have a good talent for making the first meeting with a person i havnt seen in a while or ever very awkward and every conversation after that very ... unawkward :D.
i look forward to writing more of these but you know with actual stories and who knows maybe i'll add in more terrible grammer and horrible sentence structure ;D. but i must say to people ( if anyone is actually reading) that there is a chance i wont be able to post every night. so i will have everything written down from the moment i get there to the second i get back. that way if i get no internet at the house and no internet at the school or anywhere i can still get my stories to you people (or myself) at the end :D. its not what ya wanna hear but its possible and it had to be said. anyway ive talked more than enough and i need to learn to shut up faster so im out. expect a new post either right before i leave or after ive been in cali for a day or two dependent on when i can get to the internet. CYA