In Tokyo!!

I know it's been a couple months since I updated, but, I'm on Spring Break right now and have a lot of free time on my hands. Wow, so I have a LOT to talk about. I'll start with my trip to Sapporo.

I decided to spend 2 weeks there, and during one week of my travels was the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival). It's held during one week in February and it is VERY famous. People from all over the world come to Sapporo to see the festival. And the main attractions are the snow/ice sculptures. They are SO magnificent! Here are some of this year's sculptures!

Here is a collaboration of One Piece and Toriko

A whimsical undersea adventure!

 A castle based off of Tsuruga Castle

 This is a local sculpture. It was built by the hostel I was staying at. And I helped build it! :D This is of the Sapporo TV Tower and other mascots of Sapporo.

 From the Sapporo TV Tower, you can see the whole park where the sculptures are located!

I loved it there! I want to go back soon, but this time, with friends. And maybe just a week. Haha. But now I'm in Tokyo. I'll be spending about a month here, so I think I should be able to see/do everything I want to. It's impossible to get bored in Tokyo. There are so many things to do! But there have been days where I just want to stay in my room and enjoy a good book :) Can't always be out and about (or at least that is what my feet tell me).

I'll post more pictures soon (in the next couple of days, I SWEAR!). I'll especially make a post if my special Giga Pudding hunt day goes well. (Because it's so hard to find!!)

Well, I'll be back soon! Later!

OMG!!! UPDATE!!!!

I totally forgot to update!! I'm so sorry!! Thanks to Kelly for reminding me! :)


It's been about three months since I've updated, huh? Wow! Well, what's happened so far? Umm...let me think....recently I went to Nagano for Winter Break with my friend Aki. We went snowboarding (she skied) for two day and that was A LOT of fun! It was nice to snowboard again. :3 After that, I spent the rest of my vacation (about 7 days left) in Osaka. I mostly did homework though. >.< I've never had that much homework to do in my life. But I survived.

As for what's going on now, it's finals week here at KC and I am running like a chicken with its head cut off. Seriously. I had my kanji test today....and failed it. 46%. D: Luckily, my teacher is nice enough and wants me to pass her class, so she told me to write a report that uses all the kanji from the test, and writing all the kanji I missed 5 times each. I have to turn it to her office by Monday. Looks like I'll be a busy bee this weekend.


What am I doing right now? I am studying for my composition quiz. I have to write about 3 different topics. The first one is about a present I received. I wanted to talk about the stuffed moose Kelly gave to me before I left for Japan (and I brought him with me). The second topic is about my opinion/comparison of Japanese fashion to American fashion. The last topic is about my favorite book, which is The Sword of Shannara. I have lots of writing to do tomorrow!!!

After all of my work is done, it's time for me to start packing for my spring break trip! I get two months off from school, so I am going to travel all over Japan. First, I'm going to Sapporo for two weeks for the Snow Festival. After that, I'll spend a month in Tokyo. Then, I'll be back in Nagano again, but this time I'm going to see the snow monkeys. Then, I'll go to Toyama overnight to see my friend Lisa before she returns to the US. After that, I'll go to Nagoya for a few days, then go to Kyoto for a week, and then another week in Hiroshima. Seven places in total! @~@ So much to do and see! But I can't wait. It'll suck having to come back to school in April, but I look forward to May when the UW students will come. That means I'll be able to see Liz, Ashley, Josh, and all the others.

Spring semester will be a busy, but hopefully fun and exciting. It'll probably go by so fast and before I know it, I'll have to go back to the US :( I hope I can graduate in May and stay in Japan till August. I really want to focus on studying Japanese next semester. So, I guess I better send in the anticipated graduation date form to the UW Registrar's office. >.<

I'll try my best to update as much as I can over spring break. I'll be sure to write a note and place it in my note book (which I look at every day). I'm sure I'll write more often :)

Later everyone!

Finally, an update!!

Sorry! I haven't updated in a while >.< ごめんね！(gomen ne! ~sorry!) But, I have been having a blast still! Four weeks into classes and I'm loving my classes. My kanji class is probably my hardest class, but one of my favorites. I'm really enjoying learning kanji and how to read and write them. So far, I've learned over 70 kanji that I already didn't know! So maybe I know around 100?

I also like my Japanese culture class. For the past two weeks, we have been doing ikebana, which is Japanese flower arrangement. However, ikebana is more than arranging flowers. It really is an art form that you have to put A LOT of thought into. Which flowers look best? Is it too crowded or not enough foliage? Does it look like something nature would create? These are some of the questions I have to ask myself when I was doing ikebana. It was a lot of fun, regardless of all the careful thinking.

Here I used Siberian dogwood, sunflowers, monstera, and I'm not sure what the white plant it, lol

My whole ikebana

This was from last week. I used roses and some other plants I can't remember haha

And tonight, I went out with some friends to eat okonomiyaki. It's really hard to describe, but it's kind of like a sandwich without the bread, instead using batter or egg sometimes. There is usually pork as a meat, but there is seafood, beef, and chicken too. I think I'll let you decide exactly what okonomiyaki is by showing you some pictures.

(from left to right) Me, Satomi, Yuki, and Yuka (Kimika was taking the picture)

(left to right) Satomi, Yuki, Yuka

OKONOMIYAKI!!

We ordered a lot of okonomiyaki :)

Yummy! I really like it. :)

Well, I have to get going, but some places I'll be going to in the next couple of weeks are Osaka (again), Nara, and Kobe! I'll post with pictures when I return!

Bye bye!!!

Kobe College!!

Today was my first day of classes! I only had one class today, which was American Politics and Society. You're probably thinking, "You're and American! You should know this stuff already!" On the contrary, this class is very different. Yes, we are covering much material that was taught in K-12, but this class takes on a different viewpoint that many Americans aren't taught; how did America evolve through the eyes of the minorities? More specifically via the Japanese Americans (because I am in Japan). So this is something I've never learned before and I am eagerly waiting to see what this class is like further in to the semester.

I'll update more about my classes as I'm taking them throughout the week and I'll update in general about how my classes are going. :)

Other than that, I got my denshi jisho yesterday from Yodobashi in Umeda. A denshi jisho is an electronic dictionary that come in many different languages. Of course I bought a Japanese to English and vise versa one. However, there isn't an English language setting, so it's all in Japanese! That's ok, because I've figured out the main functions already. And what makes this denshi jisho awesome is the fact that I can write out kanji and it'll tell me what kanji it is. This will be very helpful when I need to decipher kanji I don't know.

 My denshi jisho!!

I also took some pictures of Kobe College. Check them out!! :D

 Picture from my dorm room balcony.

 Water feature from the Shakespeare Garden. It's the symbol of the school.

 The Emily Brown building.

 The court yard between the Science and Literature buildings.

 The Science building.

 Part of Nishinomiya from Kobe College. KC is on top of Okadayama, and tiny mountain.

The chapel building.

 This is a jinja or a shrine. Kobe College is a Christian school, so it's quite odd that there is a shrine.

 Court yard in between the Science and Literature buildings.

Close up of the fountain.

I'll post later. Sayonara for now!

Umeda!!

Today, I went to Umeda with my friend Asahi. It was sooooo much fun! We looked around the shopping malls there and for lunch, we went to a ramen shop. Officially, Japanese ramen is much MUCH better than American ramen. I don't think it should even be called ramen. :)

After that, we went to the arcade where there is a place called "purikura." It's basically like a photo booth, but much larger and more fancy. And the pictures are really cute too!

 After that, we went to a karaoke bar! That was a fun experience and I really want to go back there again. :)

After singing our hearts out, we hit up a takoyaki restaurant. It's like a fried battered ball with octopus in the middle. It's really yummy!! However, the Japanese really make you work for your food! You have to cook it yourself on a takoyaki frying pan. It's really hard to turn the takoyaki around, so Asahi had to help me with that. :P

Once we finished, it was getting late but we got some crepes before going back. Then it was time to go home. Asahi lives inbetween Osaka and Kyoto, so she had to take a different train than me when we got to the Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi station (It's a big station where many of the station lines depart from). So I had to ride
the train all by myself back to the Mondo-yakujin line (where Kobe College is near) but luckily it was only one stop up from Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi.

Then walked up the hill back to the dorms and I'm now officially tired. Time to go to bed! Thanks for reading! I'll post more when I go on new adventures! :D

おやすみなさい！！！(oyasumi nasai!!!) [Good night in Japanese!]

In Japan!

Well, I finally made it into Japan. As much as I hate airplanes, both flights went very well. The flight from Denver to Seattle was very nice, about 2 and a half hours. The flight from Seattle to Osaka was 10 hours. We hit some heavy turbulence, which scared me, but other than that, it was a smooth ride. I got into Kansai International Airport around 3:45 pm local time. Customs went over very well; I didn't have a problem with any of it. It was super hot when I got there though. あつい！After a long bus ride to Kobe College, I finally got to my room and was able to rest. :)

Today, I got my internet working. I'm not liking the little yellow triangle warning in the corner of my screen saying that I don't have internet access though. However, since I do, I'm not going to worry about that for now. Maybe if I restart the computer....

After that, went to get my alien registration card so I don't have to carry my passport around me all the time. I should be able to pick up my card in about a month. After getting that done, went to the grocery store to pick up some food. I had no idea what to get because they have a lot of different things here than in the US. I ended up getting and an avocado, tomato, and onion to make some guacamole. Got some corn chips too, but I'm convinced that they are a Japanese version of Bugles. :P Also got some cereal and milk, rice, water, olive oil, and chili sauce. I'll have to find out how to create some food from that. lol.

Then we came back to the dorms and now I'm relaxing a bit. I think a nap is in order, then to write my paper for Wyo government D: I'll post pictures when I take them too, so look out for those!

Be back soon!!!

Amanda

Getting Ready

Haven't made an update in quite a while, but now would be a good time. :)

Well, I leave for Japan on the 13th. I'm super excited, nervous, and anxious all at the same time. I'm hoping that I can get over the bad feelings and enjoy myself while I'm there. I can't wait to see Mayu and Asahi when I get over there. And I really hope to see Lisa during winter break or something!

I've started packing and that has been a HUGE challenge! I packed everything that I wanted into two bags, then unpacked it all, took out what I really didn't need, and re-packed. Took a good 5-10 lbs out of my bag! :) I'm probably still going to have to pay overweight fees since Delta decided that they were going to lower their international weight from 70 lbs to 50 lbs. -_- And my bags may be oversized too by a whole inch. I'm just hoping that they don't catch it ;D

Something has worked out in my favor though! I finally got my yakkan shoumei! This is needed to bring in any prescription medication into Japan, and it sure was a pain in the ass to get! I was worried that it wouldn't come in time before I left, but I got it the other day.

I want to make a more detailed post about my packing experience, so I'll leave this post as is and come back later.