ZOMG! June already...stuffs abound.

Welcome to June, everybody. It is June right? Life is settling in to how life should be, I didn't blog the other day due to the chaos that happens both during and following exams throwing my normal blogging routine and access to computers out of whack. Exams we had no club and went home after the exam, last week we had 40 minute classes instead of 50 so that we could do club for like an hour and still finish school at the same time. ((During exams we don't do club so we can study. )) This week we are slowly getting back to normal with classes at 45 minutes and half and hour of club.

Next week screws up again as we have taikasai, I think it is called. Basically it is a sports festival in all of Kyuushuu where the schools compete against each other. We are required to go which means we go to school for an entire week without the customary weekend. After that we get possibly Wednesday and Thursday off. Pwnage. On the "weekend" we go and cheer, get our card stamped to say we attended and then we go and run around and do what we like. I think it is on Sunday we are going to Fukuoka for shopping. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let there be an anime shop. I am dying here. Nagasaki is good for manga but bad for anime paraphenelia.

Anyway, that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about my weekend, last weekend not the one just passed as the recent one wasn't very interesting and mostly consists of me playing DS games and reading Hannibal. I've almost finished andI borrowed it out yesterday.

Saturday, I wandered around with Yui and went to Nagasaki Bomb museum although I would like to go again as it was flooded with tourists and it is hard to concentrate with them all talking. I mean, geez, Hiroshima museum was silent not a bloody social gathering. But, I got a free pretty, vaguely attempted arty pictures. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum or else you would have a lot more. The signs were in English too with pictures so I couldn't feign ignorance. How scary is this, there were signs up saying "All of the staff of the Nagasaki Bomb Museum are wearing masks in order to stop the spread of the swine flu virus." Intense, right.

Oh, and how is this, I got a letter from JFIE (host company peoples) saying that if the whole swine flu thing gets any worse and takes over Japan or something, they may have to send us all home early. ZOMFGODZORZ. Lolz. Fail in Japanese is 失敗。（しっぱい）I have been using that.

Then Yui and I went to Heiwa Koen, for the Japanese impaired, Nagasaki Peace Park. Photots below.

After that we headed on down to Cocowalk, did some Purikura which I don't yet have a copy of and I learnt how dangerous game arcades can be (spent 1000 yen trying to get a figurine of Haruhi Suzumiya) and have thus banned myself from them. I also met a giant Pikachu.

Oh, Ash from Pokemon, his name isn't Ash, it is Satoshi. WTF? And Jigglypuff is Purin which is a great wobbly custard like treat.

Sunday, I went with Yui's mother, Ichiko, to Dejima which is a recreated town in the spirit of the Edo Period with a blend of both Japanese and Dutch style. That was interesting. Then we vistied some temples, ate a pizza with a cooked egg yolk on it, v.g, and some Chinese snacky things before going home. Finally, I got to see some culture, it only took 7 weeks but, hey. It is better than nothing, right?

Speaking of culture, here is an interesting little snippet, TeriTeri Bouzu. We made them together out of tissues. When you want something good to happen, ((Hitomi wanted it to be sunny on her sports festival day, the 27th)) so we made 27 of these and hung them up. It rained. But nevertheless, an interesting diversion.

On that note, I shall love you and leave you. I have to catch a train at five.

Love you and miss you all very much, but it won't be long now. Just over 6 months and the ball only rolls faster from here. Edit: You can see why I fail at maths. It is actually 7 not 6 as my lovely mother pointed out.

Love,

Ashley-chan.

Global Village

Global Village is an international camp held each year by my exchange organization JFIE. They give out 10 scholarships which waives the food, travel and participation fee. Considering I would have to travel by plane to get there (it is in Tokyo) and that I have to pay to participate, I need to get the scholarship. At least, if I don't get it. I'm not going. I don't have that much money to spend on a four day camp. Below the essay I wrote, it isn't my best, but it will do.

I have also included english translations for the Japanese-impaired amongst you.

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日本　(Japan) was once a place of mystery to me, after a short two week school trip visiting various places and seeing some of the best that Japan has to offer; I was quickly swept up in a wonderland romance with the 文化 (culture) , the food, 日本語 (language) , quirks and the people. This first visit strengthened my will to continue my study of Japanese not only at (school and University) 学校　と　大学 but resolving to one day, revisit the place that so excited me. With this message still engraved in my heart when I discovered the opportunity to take it one step further and dedicate 10 months of life to learning the intricacies of Japan, I simply leapt at the chance.

三十か月後で。。。(Around 30 months later) after rubbing the genie lamp, I received my wish and now, ここ　に　いる (here I am), living and breathing in a small yet fantastic group of islands in Asia. Being currently located on Kyuushuu, I have found that the experience this time to be quite different. Outside of the fashion centre of 東京 (Tokyo), the rich cultural heritage of 　京都 (Kyoto)　and ever amusing 大阪 (Osaka), lies Nagasaki. It is here that I am, and it is here, outside the normal places of Japan that I found myself experiencing something that cannot be touched in a two week sightseeing trip. I am finally getting to know the real Japan.

This, so far, has been and I believe will be the period of my life that opens my eyes and mind to the delights and subtleties of cultures so diversely different from my own. There is no skimming the surface of a multi-faceted unique country, I have been given the irreplaceable chance to discover the depths.

Being a 留学生 (exchange student)　in a smaller, out of the way city feels a little awkward at first. 皆さん (Everyone)　looks, 学生 (students)　wave, in the beginning I was a novelty. Something I will admit to enjoying but at the same time it is hard to get to know anyone when all they do is wave. It is only after this initial phase passes that you can begin to know others for who they are and mostly, suprisingly enough, I have found them to be 人間 (human).

Albeit, they do things differently here, they take off their くつ (shoes), sleep on ふとん (futons), having artificially intelligent トイレ (toilets), they eat different 食べ物 (food), speak a different language and laugh at different jokes however all in all, they are 人間 (human). I find this very comforting. That despite all the obvious opposites in our lifestyles, cultures, upbringings and experience, we are still inevitable joined by our humanity.

Even when we can't find the words or pictures to communicate ( at least not completely coherently) we rely on our expressions, our 笑顔 (smiles), our bodies and the tone of our 声 (voices) to convey what is inside of us. Essentially, we use what is human, what is shared between every living person, to appreciate and speak to one another without words. Naturally, communication is vital to understanding each other but I think that the appreciation of other worldly practices and customs are just as important.

日本　に　いる間　に, (While in Japan) I have made おもいで (memories) and 友達 (friends) from different backgrounds, not only 日本人 (Japanese) but also American,　中国人 (Chinese)　and French, and although we can't all communicate to one another we do our best and know that in our differences lie our similarities. These people are all helping me to become a worldly person that savours other cultures and I will hopefully use the skills and experiences learnt in order to make more friends and memories in the 未来 (future).

そう言うわけで。。。 (For that reason) in the spirit of international communication, appreciation, friendship, harmony and learning that I would dearly love to attend Global Village so that I can open my mind even further to other cultures and become a globally-thinking citizen and to teach others about my own culture, オーストラリア　の　文化, (Australian culture) so that other people may learn to cherish it as I do. Languages and cultures are of a great importance to the shaping of the world, their preservation is vitally important but I think that the knowledge that comes from appreciating diversity and uniting together as people of the 世界 (world)　is of greater importance for a happy 未来 (future). United we stand, after all.

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That is all I have time for right now.

Love,

Ashley-chan

Parteh Pictures

Being the genius I am I finally remembered to bring my stupid iPod cord to school and as a result can delight you all with my adventures of last weekend. First parteh, then random shizzle for you.

So, this was the beginning before everyone came, after this photo was taken we had at least another 6 turn up as I think the grand total was just shy of 20. The strange little machine you see on the table is used to make takoyaki, (Octopus balls of more accurately, small pieces of octopus encased in a crispy shell. They ended up looking like this:
And this is Yuuri who is a very funny girl and dresses like a rocker bearing a plate of said takoyaki. I loved what she was wearing that day. ^_^

So, after the party got going a little and we had gorged ourselves on food, we turned to eating it in interesting ways. Mum is so right, if you can catch food in your mouth you get it for free. We had a bag of oppcorn just sitting there so Yuuri, who isn't in the photo below threw popcorn to us.

The five of us were sitting in a row and we were trying to catch popcorn in order, if someone missed one we would start again. I was sitting fourth in the line which wasn't great for me as I don't have a lot of practice catching food in my mouth and it meant that when it got to me, the pressure was on. So, after a lot of laughing, reused popcorn on tatami mats and me missing it twice we finally did it! It doesn't seem like a big deal now but it was a lot of fun at the time.

Me, Anna, Sayaka, Hitomi, Akane. Yeah, I remember people's names...

After that a bunch of people went into the other room and talked and watched television, I stayed behind and we took photos of each other being bored. As you can see I was taking a photo of a person taking a photo of Mako taking a photo. I like the added layering it gives...

Well, that is all for the party photos for now, that night I ate something considerably less apetizing than a bunch of sweets and lollies. It is the thing out of Banjo Kazooie. I don't know its name but it was gross and salty and I didn't like it. The odd, slimy ugly thing tasted like escargot without the flavouring. Straight out of the shell. Ewwww...but I tried it. You have t be proud of me for that.

But on the note of food, this is (so far) one of my favourite discoveries. Chocolate chip, melon bread. It is just fanatstic and it only costs like 115円. How awesome is that, not to mention that it is sold like 5 minutes walk away from my house. Very dangerous.

While on food and drink, look what I found in convenience stores. Yes, Fanta. Muscat flavoured fanta, it was quite nice but wow, they have a lot of flavours. Have seen: Orange, Grape, Grapefruit, Lemon, Muscat, Melon and Grape and Orange flavours with Jelly in them. Japan is big on assorted jellies in drinks, nice but they don't particularly quench your thirst, nevertheless, I had to try one.

And look: it is Sephiroth on a can. I love Japan...
This is, I don't even know what it is called but we made it in Home Ec, the only fun thing I have done in class so far. Hopefully, I will be able to ditch classes soon. I will keep pushing as sitting through half a term worth of Japanese classes that I don't understand is wearing my patience a little thin.

That is all for today, exams start soon and I get to chill (supposed to be studying) out in the teachers room. I brought my DS to school, for Kanji practice, naturally. XD

Love,

Ashley-chan

Parteh...

Ooo...you all must hate me, it has been over a span since I have posted. Naughty me. Yui didn't have club on thursday so we went home at the normal time and I had no computer over the weekend so it honestly isn't my fault.

Btw, a span is 10 days. You can blame my mother for that, sending me an awesome book and all. Thank you mother! It helped with my boredom and I will definently read it again. (Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss...I think...comes highly recommended by me.) But, thank the Lord, I have now been introduced to the Library which is only one train stop away at Kikitsu and a short walk. Next time I will be getting my own card so I can use it at my own discression.

Their english section is only small but the do have the entire Harry Potter series, some Dan Brown, Stephen King, John Grisham and a smattering of the classics. I'm am sure I can keep entertained for a little while. Currently reading: Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. It isn't bad, nor is it great but it will keep me occupied. I have a small haunting in my brain which says that I have read it before but since I don't remember it, I'll continue.

Oh, yeah, by the way peoples, I bought a Nintendo DS Lite. Brand new, crimson-black for around $170 Australian, exchange rate included. Also bought a few games, KanKen 3 (Kanji practice game), The World Ends with You (a new SquareEnix game), Code Geass which i picked up for only 1000円, and happened to stumble upon Kingdom Hearts: Chain of memories which is a Gameboy Advance Game that was only ever released in Japan.

Oh, Kitty you are going to love me. I own all but one of Ouran Host Club and...GUESS WHAT? There is a DS game of that too, I just have to hunt it down first. >_<; Planning to buy sometime in the future: Ouran, Kuroshitsuji, Death Note and other assorted anime games that you can only get here. Don't worry mum, I am buying all my games second hand so they don't cost nearly as much as they should. I got Code Geass, World ends with you and Kingdom Hearts all for under about $60 which is pretty good if you ask me.

But, this post is about a party not nerdish books and games. So, party. Last Sunday I went to a party, it was fun. This sounds like a gradeschool essay... We all ate takoyaki and everyone brought a multitude of Japanese sweets and not wanting to pass up the opportunity to taste them all without having to actually buy them I duly sampled pretty much all of them.

No pictures today, sorry, I hadn't planned on ditching everyone at lunch to write this and thus did not bring my ipod cord on which all my photos are stored. It was quite a walk from the station to Arina's house and there was about 20 of us all in all. We took photos, watched television and played a few games. After that 6 of us went and did Purikura. The one sucky thing about not having a phone over here is having to ask everyone to send Purikura to your email which is a little costly and inconvenient for everyone... Wait, mother has come to save the day taking pictures from my email which I never received. That's odd...

"Here's some of Ash's purikura photos from the party, I stole them from her email last week but I don't know how to put them in the text. Sorry guys and Ash <3> " Don't worry, I fixed it. Thanks mum.

Just reading emails, umm...no I am still doing every bloody class, no spares, and we are coming up to midterms which I gracefully refuse to take. Death. Sorry, felt like that was necessary. Ok, I have to wrap it up now as next class it going to start soon and I don't even know what it is. Mendokusai...(It means like troublesome/bothersome) and is somewhat commonly used here. Signing off,

(Do you know train conductors in Japan salute each other as trains go past, every time. Lolz.)

Love,

Ashley-chan

Golden-ish Week

So, Golden week wasn't quite as Golden as I thought it would be. I only know of one person in my class who actually went on a trip. (Fukuoka and Hiroshima) That kind of surprised me because I thought everyone trecked around on Golden Week. The one interesting thing I did, besides staying home, watching The Little Mermaid Three, shopping and sleeping was a family visit to Unzen Onsen.

That was...weird.

I got naked with randoms...w00t...

Anyways, it was about an hour and a half from home (current home) to Unzen, it was a bloody big mountain and somehow on top of the mountain they managed to fit a whole village and a golf course, that confused me a little. I always though the tops of mountains just had the little flag planted atop the summit. However, no such luck. It was a somewhat misty day which added to the fog and cloud leaving me unable to really see anything from the top but it certainly didn't stop the cold nor the lovely scenery able to be seen on the journey up the winding mountain.

Naturally I did the logical thing on a mountaintop in the freezing cold, I ate an icecream. (^w^)

It looked like Chirin Chirin Icecream but it was a little different. After that we headed to the onsen...the onsen itself wasn't one of the super awesome outside ones as I had hoped which left me slightly disappointed but they had a shop that sold Pocky so that made up for it.

So, I put my shoes in a shoe locker and than walked around a wall and BAM! Boobs flying everywhere. I tried not to look but it was really difficult to avert your eyes without perving on another. Following Yui (very closely) to a locker I continued to strip down to well...nothing...save for the love of my life: a modesty towel. Naked as a baby, including no glasses which I was slightly thankful for, I made my way into the bath house. Don't worry, my valuables were in the locker and the key is on a nifty little band which you put around your wrist. I thought that was pretty clever.

I had to wash myself before getting in the onsen bathy thing, the room was pretty steamy and everything was blurry due to the lack of spectacles. It made me feel better too that I couldn't see people staring at me and that everyone was in the same position and no one was particularly embarassed or else they wouldn't be there. That put me at ease slightly, at first it was still kind of surreal how such modest and polite people (the adults, anyway) could just strip off with 50 other people. I just was slightly confused...still am a little...it just catches you off guard.

Anywho...I washed and got into the hot water which was nice. I may have possible made a small fool of myself when getting in. You see, the water is foggy, absolutely cannot see through it and I didn't have any idea how deep it would be. So I go to the stairs, and slowly make my way down feeling with my feet where the drop was. It was only until I sat down and kind of crept along the ground that I realised there isn't any bloody drop at all, the water is less than knee high. What are the bloody stairs for then?? To confuse and poke fun at foreigners lack of knowledge?!?!?

I guess, I should have figured it out by the people walking across the water...I just thought that everyone in Japan had Jesus-like qualities and I would be left to drown...I wasn't really paying attention, okay? Not to mention all the Gorons in Zelda: Twilight Princess are in shallow onsen, not deep. Should have thought of that...though I am not a boy nor in a wii game. Shame that.

Anyhow, washed, bathed, it was really hot, made my way to a window where there was a cool breeze flowing through. I quite enjoyed that feeling, of being able to breathe and bathe at the same time.

After about 20 minutes or so in there, I got out and went back into the changing room. I made my way to my locker and unfortunately had a little holdup. A lady was taking off her clothes and putting them into the locker under mine which left me with no access to my locker and standing there butt naked while she stripped. Slightly awkward. Finally, she moves, I get my locker back, dry myself and begin to put my clothes on. As I am putting my bra on, someone reaches into my locker and grabs my towel. I was like, "Stop! Towel fiend, what are you doing? Why would you steal my towel?" In my head, of course. It was only after when she started patting my back with it that I realised she was helping me. Then she asked me where I came from, in Japanese, and I am so gosh-darn thankful that I understood that otherwise it would have been really awkward.

So, changed and happy and with a really ridiculously red face I made my way out into the foyer and waited for everyone to finish straightening their hair. After that we had a little look around the Unzen town where the actual Onsen water came from. About 18 years ago it was a volcano that erupted...I think...don't trust my translations...and we looked around the bubbling pools of water and there was steam everywhere and the place reeked of Sulfur. Really badly, it made me want to stop breathing at one stage however that would be most hazardous to my continued livelihood so I persevered.


Oh, Saturday I went to Koto's house (my final homestay girl) and had a little play on Wii Fit (Don't ask!) and I got to meet her mother and sister who seem nice. We ate Champon at Ringer Hut, (I had Chahan and Gyoza), they seem really nice. Then we went to Baskin and Robbins which everyone here calls "31" and on Golden Week it is 31% off cause the week is Golden and all that. I had Rocky Road and Vanilla Caramel double scoop. Then we went to karaoke with Akane as well who happens to be my second homestay girl...so that was fun. I have pictures somewhere...there they are:

Today I am back at school with a Welcome Ashley party planned for Sunday. Better late than never, right?

Love,

Ashley-chan