Japan!
READ THIS!!!
Alright, here we go.
got to the airport
and got on the plane. the plane was pink, it was cool. the flight was about 12 hours long =/ so that was a restless plane ride. I got crappy airline food, but I also got Thai pepsi
. The view from the top was nice
.
got to Japan, and leaving the airport I got my first view of the city
. We got to 38 Moya (san ju hachi moya)and got into our rooms. I was in a room with about ten other girls:
tracy,
christina,
Sherri,
Amy, Tiffany, and Sumi,
Chi-chan, Hidemi (she's in other pictures), and some other girls, I forget their names.
I was thirsty so I went down to the lobby to get something to drink. They vending machines are sooo cool
. and the way they do the packaging on everything is too, especially the coke
and gingerale
!!!!
We got there in the afternoon so we went to sleep, and got up the next morning to go to Nara, the deer park. All the dear are sooo cute! and they come up to you because they want you to feed them.
In Japan, the deer kiss
and it's really cute.
Also, in Japan, the deer ear snog
...
this one tried to eat my pants
.
We went there to see this temple. It was a buddhist temple, and we're not Buddhist, so I don't quite know why we went there.
bowing to the deer
.
Anyways, I did that, and I came back to 38 Moya. Things are a lot more different there. When you go into a building, you have to take off your shoes and put them in a plastic bag that they give you. Wherever you go in the building you have no shoes on. Except when you go to the bathroom, they have slippers
that you can wear in the bathroom.
haha oh, and in a lot of the public bathrooms, instead of the western toilets we haev here, they've got the squatters
. haha those are the most confusing things ever.
I watched a lot of TV there
. There's only twelve channels, and only six of them work... most of the time anyways.
From here on I had to wake up at 4 almost every morning to go to morning service (I was staying in Tenri, Nara for a religious gathering, the religion is called Tenrikyo).
I was in the Shohi group (the older kids) so we had to do lots of Hinokishin (basically, it is comunity service) so we had to do corridor cleaning (this is where we get clothes pads on our knees and cloths for our hands, get on our hands and knees, and go through the wodden pathways in the temple cleening the floors. Also we did earth carrying hinikishin, which is basically carrying dirt in these woven baskets from one side of this park to the other. It's becuase they want to build these barrier things by hand, and not use machines. Most of all, though, we did the ocha stands. Ocha is tea. People drink a lot of tea there, the don't really drink that much water. So in Tenri, they have a lot of ocha stands where you can go and get however much ocha you want. So it's like a drinking fountain of ocha where people serve it to you. Our job when we do hinokishin there is to serve the people ocha and clean the cups so that we can keep using them. Oh, and also to cool down the tea. All of that was really fun, especially because we had ice wars and ocha wars.
One time, when we were working at an ocha station, it was in this HUGE play place. There were so many slides, and so much stuff to do. Since we all don't do it at the same time, and it goes in intervals of thiry minutes, after every half hour we have a half hour break. So me and christina discovered that there is this train that takes kids around a section of the park. And you know.. on train rides like that they always have some sort of narrator or someone that speak on a microphone. Welllll, the teenage guys that were doing it let me and christina do the microphone thing.. it was so good. We told them (in japanese) that we were going to sing american songs for them.. and we did... american rap songs..with cuss words and every thing. Hott in herre, welcome to atlants (the remix), "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one"... man it was so funny. I would never ever get away with anything like that in America.. and it was all good because no one could understand what we were saying.
The next day, we did more hinokishin, and koteki practice (it's like marching band). We had a couple hours of free time, so me and some of the other kids went to Hondodi (it's a shopping center). I barely had any time to go there.. I was so dumbfounded by all the cute stuff they had, i didnt know what to buy.. but low and behold.. I discovered the love of my life... Mister Donut!!!!!
oh I LOVE MISTER DONUT!!!!!!!!! it's soi magnificent and they have the best donuts i've ever had in my life.l mmmm so good. and they're sooo cute.
more hinokishin at the ocha stand. on our break, me and christina had a ocha drinking contest.
I won. I also got sick from drinking so much. oh well, it was fun, and it was worth it.
Also in Japan, when they do drink water, its from these public drinking things...
.
water comes out of the top, and they have these cups that everyone uses to get water that's coming out. it's a like a waterfall of water and you catch the water with a cup and drink it.
I think it's weird how japan is so clean, yet kind of dirty in that way. I mean, things are clean
there. You could literally eat off the floors there and be okay about it because it's so clean. Yet they're kind of insanitary in the sense that they put their mouths on everything, like that water.
We had this foreign exchange party.. its where we go to meet the shohi groups from the other groups (Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Japan). It was so much fun, Eaach group had to perform a dance or skit. Me and a couple other girls choreographed a dance to do, and thent he guys came in and did their breakdance stuff. it was soo good and it turned out so much better than I thought it would. I met so many cool people there, and it was definately the funnest night there. Full of dancing!!
It was so funny because when we first came into the room,a few of the japan boys were doing a performance... violins and synchronized dancing/swimming in speedos..
andways.. i met a lot of cool people, and i saw them before and after the party.. so it was really cool to go somewhere and know the people.
I was also in like.. 3 parades. it was pretty exhaisting. However, in the parades, i met the coolest guy from Korea ever. Seriously the funniest person I've ever seen.
whatever, best looking korean i've ever seen.. i guess that doesn't say much seeing as how i haven't seen many koreans outside of this trip.
We had evening lectures every night.
this is mr. ito. he was one of the lecturers and one of my dad's old sensei's (teacher). He's so nice. such a happy person.. he gave very good, insightful lectures, too. He taught me soo much about this religion that i have always known the name of in the back of my head, but never known anyything about the religion itself.
Soon enough I had to leave.. it was a very fun trip. now that kodomo ojiba gaeri was over, i left with my aunt to stay in someone's guest house. Though, before i left, i took some more pictures with people!
ocha man!!
playboyyyy
takashi, the head counselor
laurie
frog boy!!
taichi!! my favorite couselor
me, tracy, taichi, and christina, my favorite people on this whole trip.
all of the counselors!!
me and shota (boy from hawaii)
crazy koreans
the coolest guy ever that I met from Brazil. I didnt speak portugese or Japanese, and he didn't speak english. but emilys translating emails for me so that's cool.
raymond!
me and milo, we're such badasses
mikey hahah
some girl from brazil
haha i love trippin out little kids, he thought i had cooties so i pretended to try to kiss him on the cheek and he started screaming, seriously the funniest thing ever.
taichi!
raymond, how cute.
I went to my cousin's judo match
my cousin
this guy was so good with a swrod, i was stunned how good he was at kendo.
it rained
.
i met the people who's house we were staying at. it was cute, the littler kid,
his younger brother, was taken to me, and i swear man.. he thought it was his mission in life to teach me japanese. soo cute. when we left he gave me this note in japanese.. too bad i can't read it...
we also went to my aunt's frieend's house.. her name is kazue and her brother kiosho. that was a lot of fun, and they were really nice. she spoke english so it was cool. she took me to the 100 yen store. :D
I fell asleep there, and kiosho who was in love with my camera took a picture of me when i fell asleep.
we also went to my aunt's cousins church (he's the head of the church) and they have this huge play place with lots of food and games.
huge spiderman slide!!
I went to kyoto ad saw one of their main buddhist temples. it was so pretty, i stood on this bridge, it used to be a love suicide bridge. i didnt have my camera with me that day, so i couldn't take pictures :(
it was beautiful though.
I went to osaka and saw a lot of stuff there too. we had lunch there. oh, we also saw osaka castle.
another thing about japan is taht everything is smaller.. their cars too. almost all the cars were this small.
this
is the highschool.
more pictures of/inside oska castle
the inner moat that's dried up
view from the top
i tried to blend this one so you guys could see the panoramic view, but the colors didn't mix so well, but that's what it looked like
.
I'll probably remember more about the trip later, but i can;t remember everything right now.. there was a lot to tak ein and a lot to type.
I leave again for camping/vegas the day after tomorrow. I'm kind of jet lagged.
Alright, here we go.
got to the airport
and got on the plane. the plane was pink, it was cool. the flight was about 12 hours long =/ so that was a restless plane ride. I got crappy airline food, but I also got Thai pepsi
. The view from the top was nice
.
got to Japan, and leaving the airport I got my first view of the city
. We got to 38 Moya (san ju hachi moya)and got into our rooms. I was in a room with about ten other girls:
tracy,
christina,
Sherri,
Amy, Tiffany, and Sumi,
Chi-chan, Hidemi (she's in other pictures), and some other girls, I forget their names.
I was thirsty so I went down to the lobby to get something to drink. They vending machines are sooo cool
. and the way they do the packaging on everything is too, especially the coke
and gingerale
!!!!
We got there in the afternoon so we went to sleep, and got up the next morning to go to Nara, the deer park. All the dear are sooo cute! and they come up to you because they want you to feed them.
In Japan, the deer kiss
and it's really cute.
Also, in Japan, the deer ear snog
...
this one tried to eat my pants
.
We went there to see this temple. It was a buddhist temple, and we're not Buddhist, so I don't quite know why we went there.
bowing to the deer
.
Anyways, I did that, and I came back to 38 Moya. Things are a lot more different there. When you go into a building, you have to take off your shoes and put them in a plastic bag that they give you. Wherever you go in the building you have no shoes on. Except when you go to the bathroom, they have slippers
that you can wear in the bathroom.
haha oh, and in a lot of the public bathrooms, instead of the western toilets we haev here, they've got the squatters
. haha those are the most confusing things ever.
I watched a lot of TV there
. There's only twelve channels, and only six of them work... most of the time anyways.
From here on I had to wake up at 4 almost every morning to go to morning service (I was staying in Tenri, Nara for a religious gathering, the religion is called Tenrikyo).
I was in the Shohi group (the older kids) so we had to do lots of Hinokishin (basically, it is comunity service) so we had to do corridor cleaning (this is where we get clothes pads on our knees and cloths for our hands, get on our hands and knees, and go through the wodden pathways in the temple cleening the floors. Also we did earth carrying hinikishin, which is basically carrying dirt in these woven baskets from one side of this park to the other. It's becuase they want to build these barrier things by hand, and not use machines. Most of all, though, we did the ocha stands. Ocha is tea. People drink a lot of tea there, the don't really drink that much water. So in Tenri, they have a lot of ocha stands where you can go and get however much ocha you want. So it's like a drinking fountain of ocha where people serve it to you. Our job when we do hinokishin there is to serve the people ocha and clean the cups so that we can keep using them. Oh, and also to cool down the tea. All of that was really fun, especially because we had ice wars and ocha wars.
One time, when we were working at an ocha station, it was in this HUGE play place. There were so many slides, and so much stuff to do. Since we all don't do it at the same time, and it goes in intervals of thiry minutes, after every half hour we have a half hour break. So me and christina discovered that there is this train that takes kids around a section of the park. And you know.. on train rides like that they always have some sort of narrator or someone that speak on a microphone. Welllll, the teenage guys that were doing it let me and christina do the microphone thing.. it was so good. We told them (in japanese) that we were going to sing american songs for them.. and we did... american rap songs..with cuss words and every thing. Hott in herre, welcome to atlants (the remix), "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one"... man it was so funny. I would never ever get away with anything like that in America.. and it was all good because no one could understand what we were saying.
The next day, we did more hinokishin, and koteki practice (it's like marching band). We had a couple hours of free time, so me and some of the other kids went to Hondodi (it's a shopping center). I barely had any time to go there.. I was so dumbfounded by all the cute stuff they had, i didnt know what to buy.. but low and behold.. I discovered the love of my life... Mister Donut!!!!!
oh I LOVE MISTER DONUT!!!!!!!!! it's soi magnificent and they have the best donuts i've ever had in my life.l mmmm so good. and they're sooo cute.
more hinokishin at the ocha stand. on our break, me and christina had a ocha drinking contest.
I won. I also got sick from drinking so much. oh well, it was fun, and it was worth it.
Also in Japan, when they do drink water, its from these public drinking things...
.
water comes out of the top, and they have these cups that everyone uses to get water that's coming out. it's a like a waterfall of water and you catch the water with a cup and drink it.
I think it's weird how japan is so clean, yet kind of dirty in that way. I mean, things are clean
there. You could literally eat off the floors there and be okay about it because it's so clean. Yet they're kind of insanitary in the sense that they put their mouths on everything, like that water.
We had this foreign exchange party.. its where we go to meet the shohi groups from the other groups (Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Japan). It was so much fun, Eaach group had to perform a dance or skit. Me and a couple other girls choreographed a dance to do, and thent he guys came in and did their breakdance stuff. it was soo good and it turned out so much better than I thought it would. I met so many cool people there, and it was definately the funnest night there. Full of dancing!!
It was so funny because when we first came into the room,a few of the japan boys were doing a performance... violins and synchronized dancing/swimming in speedos..
andways.. i met a lot of cool people, and i saw them before and after the party.. so it was really cool to go somewhere and know the people.
I was also in like.. 3 parades. it was pretty exhaisting. However, in the parades, i met the coolest guy from Korea ever. Seriously the funniest person I've ever seen.
whatever, best looking korean i've ever seen.. i guess that doesn't say much seeing as how i haven't seen many koreans outside of this trip.
We had evening lectures every night.
this is mr. ito. he was one of the lecturers and one of my dad's old sensei's (teacher). He's so nice. such a happy person.. he gave very good, insightful lectures, too. He taught me soo much about this religion that i have always known the name of in the back of my head, but never known anyything about the religion itself.
Soon enough I had to leave.. it was a very fun trip. now that kodomo ojiba gaeri was over, i left with my aunt to stay in someone's guest house. Though, before i left, i took some more pictures with people!
ocha man!!
playboyyyy
takashi, the head counselor
laurie
frog boy!!
taichi!! my favorite couselor
me, tracy, taichi, and christina, my favorite people on this whole trip.
all of the counselors!!
me and shota (boy from hawaii)
crazy koreans
the coolest guy ever that I met from Brazil. I didnt speak portugese or Japanese, and he didn't speak english. but emilys translating emails for me so that's cool.
raymond!
me and milo, we're such badasses
mikey hahah
some girl from brazil
haha i love trippin out little kids, he thought i had cooties so i pretended to try to kiss him on the cheek and he started screaming, seriously the funniest thing ever.
taichi!
raymond, how cute.
I went to my cousin's judo match
my cousin
this guy was so good with a swrod, i was stunned how good he was at kendo.
it rained
.
i met the people who's house we were staying at. it was cute, the littler kid,
his younger brother, was taken to me, and i swear man.. he thought it was his mission in life to teach me japanese. soo cute. when we left he gave me this note in japanese.. too bad i can't read it...
we also went to my aunt's frieend's house.. her name is kazue and her brother kiosho. that was a lot of fun, and they were really nice. she spoke english so it was cool. she took me to the 100 yen store. :D
I fell asleep there, and kiosho who was in love with my camera took a picture of me when i fell asleep.
we also went to my aunt's cousins church (he's the head of the church) and they have this huge play place with lots of food and games.
huge spiderman slide!!
I went to kyoto ad saw one of their main buddhist temples. it was so pretty, i stood on this bridge, it used to be a love suicide bridge. i didnt have my camera with me that day, so i couldn't take pictures :(
it was beautiful though.
I went to osaka and saw a lot of stuff there too. we had lunch there. oh, we also saw osaka castle.
another thing about japan is taht everything is smaller.. their cars too. almost all the cars were this small.
this
is the highschool.
more pictures of/inside oska castle
the inner moat that's dried up
view from the top
i tried to blend this one so you guys could see the panoramic view, but the colors didn't mix so well, but that's what it looked like
.
I'll probably remember more about the trip later, but i can;t remember everything right now.. there was a lot to tak ein and a lot to type.
I leave again for camping/vegas the day after tomorrow. I'm kind of jet lagged.