Day 1 (Sort of?)
I didn't make a blog post yesterday, so today is going to include two days!!!
Yesterday wasn't as nearly eventful as today. For a while, being in Japan felt like being in a very clean America-like, very clean. Plus, any sort of seafood at 7-11 was safe to eat, so that was a shock. Anyways, yesterday went by in a sort of blur. The thirteen or so hour flight didn't pass by as sluggishly as I thought it would. I slept every thirty minutes and was absolutely awake for all of the airline food.
We get to Tokyo, take a few trains, "ooh" and "ahh" at some buildings through a train window, I realize that the train stations don't have the pee smell that resides within Chicago's train stations, us girls take a bath, then we go to bed.
Fun day. I'm also halfway dead right now, I might edit this in the future.
Got called out on neglecting my blog, so here I am again. I lied about discussing two days in my last post, so I'll try to keep it smooth on discussing the past four or so days in this post.
The only problem I have with the land of Nihon (Japan) is that it sucks up all of my money. I've learned that money-wise I'm incredibly irresponsible and should probably look into taking a basic math course.
Day ???
Sorry about my lack of posting. I just arrived to my host student's home today. Her name is Nao and she is a queen-which is young person term for her being amazing-. She lives with her younger sister Rina, her mom, her grandmother and her dog Luke. This was the week I have been on and off nervous about. In times where I was not whisked away by the beauty of Japan, the homestay was the thought that never left my mind. It lingered behind joking around with the other students and quite often came around while I slept. The mix of excitement and nervousness has since resided since I arrived home with Nao.
Looking back on the past week, I suppose I never really found a chance to dwell on my experiences until now. Japan in itself is great, however I have met plenty of new people that while, before knowing nothing about them, I have grown closer to in a mere seven days. While in Ueno, I was trying not to cry from laughing at the stupid comments and jokes I made with Alex, Dennis, Jose, Jack, Owen and Lucy. Forgive my repetitive nature, but I've grown closer to the other trippers and I feel a lot more comfortable around them than I do majority of the people at our own school. I think a huge part is just looking out for one another, separating into groups and discovering different areas of Japan and creating unique experiences with one another has brought us all together. I think I will make more of an effort to say "Hi" in the hallways now.
Through people like Alex and Lucy, I've found that a bunch of people at our school all play one video game-I won't name it, I'm afraid even the parents will roast us for playing this game-and there are tons of people searching to play. Being at my host family, I already miss everyone else. It's odd, I was homesick from being away from my family in the beginning, however I find myself to be homesick from the "family" of trippers now. It has been an interesting transition so far.
Yesterday, while we climbed the mountain in [will return to add in the little town we stayed in], I think I realized how awesome it was to meet and talk with Alex, Lucy and Dennis more. They're all great people and being around their humor and overall kindness is pretty refreshing. They all make me laugh and smile a ton. I mean, lets be real, that's basically everyone on the trip as well.
On the train to see our host families today, I talked with Marisa a lot more, which I'm happy that I did, she is super pleasant to be around and pretty funny. I'm glad that I grew closer with a lot of the girls as well, the gap between junior and senior hasn't made things as weird as I thought they may have been.
I want to add pictures to my blog, so once I get those downloaded I'll upload them and find some time to explain everything that's going on. Thanks for reading day 6 (?), I'll be back to chat with my followers in a day or so! Also, hi grandma & grandpa, I know you're super excited that I finally updated this.