Keziah

February 1st, 2017

I'm a little excited, a little bit in disbelief, and a lot scared out of my mind. I know I should be happy, but all I can think about is everything that could go wrong, that I could mess up. What if I forget to take something? What if I lose my passport? What if I get lost? What if I have to eat something I can't stomach? What if the hot springs are too hot? What do I bring to my host family? What if I forget all my Japanese and can't talk to anyone? What if something happens to me or to a loved one while I'm gone?

The trip hasn't even started yet and I'm already convinced I'm going to somehow ruin it for everyone. I know it's a self-defeating attitude, but it's all I can think of. I keep berating myself for not studying more, not preparing more, etc.

I'm most nervous about the weather--what if I don't pack enough warm clothing and I'm cold the whole time? I know that I'm sensitive to temperature. I'll be miserable if I'm not warm enough. What if the boots I bought are uncomfortable? What if I don't have enough warm socks? And what about laundry? What if all my clothes get dirty and I can't wash them?! I'm a normal human being. I sweat. How am I going to live on one suitcase of clothes for two weeks? I'm even sweaty sitting right here.

There are so many things to do, and only 10 days left. I can hardly believe it's actually happening--like maybe I'm still dreaming, or someone is going to realize it's been a huge mistake and that I shouldn't be here at all.

February 12th

Right now, I'm sitting in a room at the Tokyo Central Youth Hostel with Katie Jane, Taylor, Betsy, and Hazel. We're sharing a pretty small room with two bunk beds and one mattress bed, and we're all exhausted. I can't quite do the math in my head right now, but none of us have gotten much sleep in the past 24~36 hours.

We met at the airport on Saturday (the 11th) at 9 AM, took a group photo, said goodbye to our parents, and went through security. Thankfully it went pretty fast, so we had plenty of time to get food and meet back up at our terminal. Me and Hazel got some overpriced pizza, salad, and fruit; other people went and got candy to bring on the plane.

The plane ride was about 13 hours. I sat in--I'm not sure how to describe it. I was between two people in the group of three seats by the window. Does that make sense? Alex sat next to me, in the window seat.

The seats weren't particularly uncomfortable, but I had a pain with my legs because of my huge backpack, which had to go at my feet. It was also weirdly cold at times? I managed to sleep for about two hours, but I spent most of the time listening to podcasts on my phone or watching movies. One was actually a Japanese animated film called Kimi no Na Wa (君の名は), or Your Name, that I had been meaning to watch for a while; Kubo and the Two Strings, another animated one, but stop-motion (claymation??) this time; and the new Ghostbusters, which was incredibly good, and I'm not upset with myself for not going to see it in theaters. I expected that it would be too cheesy for me, but it was actually the perfect amount of cheesy? The actors were all really good. And the music, and jokes, and everything.

They also had Tetris on the plane, but I'm saving that for the return flight.

After arriving in Narita, we had to go through a bunch of customs stuff, which is always super scary because I never know quite what I'm supposed to do and I'm afraid of inconveniencing anyone or being too slow. At the airport, we got our money exchanged, got our rail passes (those will let us ride on trains and stuff), spent a while being fascinated with the vending machines (Paul accidentally bought a can of a corn-flavored soup/drink?), got some dinner from a 7-Eleven (those are really nice in Japan, most of us got onigiri (rice balls) or sandwiches & I got a nice peach-flavored (non-carbonated) drink), and then got tickets for the train to take us to Tokyo. Three trains got us to the Tokyo Central Youth Hostel, which is where we'll be staying the next couple nights.

It all still feels surreal and dreamlike, like I'm not sure if it's actually happening or not. I think that might be a product of the sleep deprivation, though.

February 13th

• Got up at 6:30 AM
• Had breakfast at 7 - Potato croquettes, sausage, eggs, purple stuff I forgot the name of, and rice w/ seaweed
• Took trains down to the Setagaya Plum Blossom Festival; stopped at a store right outside the train station to buy roasted sweet potatoes for everyone. They were extremely good, and they were a white sweet potato, which was interesting since I'd never seen any but orange and purple before
• Max, Jeff, and DJ got on TV. There was a little stand at the park where they were selling sweets and doing some kind of TV spot about it. The sweet was called Karinto, which I guess is a deep-fried snack made with brown sugar? Needless to say the boys were very impressive with their Japanese and made us look pretty good.
• Some of us got free tea at the same place in the park, and I bought a daifuku that had a plum inside it.
• After that, we rode the train to Harajuku. Originally were supposed to spend two hours there, but everyone ended up wanting more time so we stayed for around 3 instead
• Followed Sensei to Kiddyland; bought a couple Nintendo-related things
• Split off from the group with Daniel and Eytan. Spend a while searching for a good place to sit down and eat; ended up at a small food court on Takeshita Street (famous Harajuku street w/ tons of shops). Daniel and Eytan got kebabs or something? I got Long Potato and some chicken, which wasn't exactly super Japanese, but we were pressed for time. Had the experience of ordering food in Japanese, entirely by myself, though I wasn't exactly asking for something complex
• There were so many shops on Takeshita-Dori I wanted to go into; I could've spent so much longer there. I used to be really into Harajuku fashion. Mostly the cutesy styles of Lolita and Fairy Kei. I did actually poke my head into the Angelic Pretty store; I wanted to visit Bodyline, but 1. I didn't see it anywhere, and 2. we absolutely didn't have time. Later I found out Sensei had been there and all he got was A WIG.
• As it were, we went to Daiso, which is a huge store where almost everything costs 100 yen (less than a dollar). There were so many things there, and it was so hard to believe it was all just a dollar?! I could have bought so much more than I did, but it's probably a good thing I didn't.
• The lines were super long there, unfortunately, so we had to wait a long time for the last members of our group to get out, and we were late getting back to the meetup place. As it turned out, it didn't actually matter, since once we got there Sensei told us we were gonna stay another hour
• I could have spent so much more time on Takeshita street, but I still hadn't seen the Meiji Shrine, so I headed over there with Daniel and Drew, and I'm glad I did. It was amazing. I took pictures of the Torii gates, but they really just can't capture the full scale
• Went on a huge ferris wheel that gave us an amazing view
• Went on a rollercoaster called the THUNDER DOLPHIN; 16 or 17 of us went while all the cowards stayed behind
• Took a short train ride back to the hostel for dinner - I'm not even sure what all the options were but what I got was some salad that seemed like just shredded cabbage, shrimp dumplings?, egg rolls with beef?, fried squid, and rice, which should go without saying at this point I guess
• Headed out again after dinner to see the evening light up
• Came back to the hostel, finished Momotaro scene 2 retelling, did this blog post

Miscellaneous -

• I got a green tea and red bean flavored Belgian waffle from a vending machine
• I also got a cup of hot strawberry milk from a vending machine that had different flavors of coffee, cocoa, and milk

February 14th

Happy Valentine's Day! Breakfast was essentially the same as yesterday, but this time there was some ham (bacon?) and fried fish paste (?). We went to the National Museum at Ueno Park. The mascot of the museum is/are these clay figures called Haniwa, which are what the Gyroids in Animal Crossing are based off of. We were only there for about an hour and a half, and didn't get to see everything (at least, I didn't), but I found a room full of stuff related to the Tea Ceremony. The tea kettle looked almost exactly how the one we use for Tea Ceremony Club does.

We all spent a while in the museum gift shop. It was expensive, like gift shops always are, but I couldn't resist getting a few things, including a package of Yokan, which is something I think is delicious and no one else will even try. It might have something to do with how I keep describing it as "bean jelly"?

We went to the peony garden in Ueno Park. The peonies had little straw houses built for them, to protect them from the elements, I assume? There was also a place where you could write something on a piece of paper and pin it to a board, which I assumed was for prayers, since I had seen similar things at the Meiji Shrine, but later I found out it was for haikus. Whoops. (It didn't help that some of the messages pinned were just drawings, or said things like "amazing garden!")

An old man told me that a tree I was looking at, called a Mitsumata, is used to make paper from its bark. I was so surprised by his friendliness I couldn't think of what to say to him, and I'm afraid he thought I was being rude.

After that, we went to the Toshogu Shrine. There's this little place before you approach the shrine that has cold water and ladles, and the idea is you're supposed to wash your hands and your mouth before you pray, I think? I don't remember the exact instructions, but you're supposed to wash both hands, wash your mouth (take water into a cupped hand and put it in your mouth but do not swallow it, spit it out quietly), and then wash one hand again. I had done it at the Meiji Shrine the day before, too. Unfortunately, it made my hands SUPER cold.

Outside the shrine is a place where you can buy prayer charms, or other small shrine-y things, and where you can also get goshuin. We each bought a book for goshuin at Toshogu, and got our first stamps.

We then were let loose for a couple hours to get lunch and go shopping/sightseeing down an apparently well-known street I've completely forgotten the name of. It was like Takeshita street, but with a different vibe to it? I didn't really go into any of the stores, but me and Tiara played a rhythm game at an arcade while Abby filmed. I had to look it up, but I think it's called Taiko: Drum Master. I could have played it so much more than I did, but we didn't have time. I also got a crepe, which I had been wanting to do, but I had just eaten lunch so I wasn't super hungry and got one with just peaches and cream. It was about 85% cream, 10% crepe, and 5% peaches.

Sensou-ji was the penultimate stop of the day. It is the oldest temple in Tokyo. For some reason, there was someone dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow near the entrance of the main hall when we got there?

Near the temple, there was a place where you could get a fortune for 100 yen, by shaking a large metal thing until a stick came out and then going to the drawer with the number on your stick and taking out the piece of paper there. I got a "Regular fortune". There was a woman there with, like, TV equipment or something, who was holding up a microphone to people as they got their fortunes? But she wasn't asking us questions or anything, so it was a little weird and confusing. Taylor got a bad fortune, but when she tried to tie it off, it got torn, which I feel is a bad omen.

There were two places to get goshuin stamps for our books there, though we all had a bit of trouble finding them. Drew struggled to buy a piece of paper with cool kanji on it. Tiara and I pet someone's dog.

Down the main "hall" leading up to the temple, there were tons and tons of little shops, selling food, souvenirs, whatever. It was all really distracting, but 1. it was expensive/overpriced, and 2. since we couldn't split up/always have to be with someone else, it was kind of hard to stop (since you both have to want to shop there, you don't want to accidentally get separated, etc).

I led a trio of boys down a street that went behind the main shops, which also had a good number of shops along it. There were some awesome side alleys/streets that made for great photos, and another really big shop-y street that I wish I had gone down. We bought a stick of dango to share, because of a part in the Momotaro story we're studying in class currently where the old woman makes kibidango.

As it were, no one could remember whether Sensei had said to meet back up at 5 or 5:30, so we just went to the meeting place at 5 or so and hung around.

We went back to the hostel for dinner, then out again to go to the Tokyo Skytree. It's the tallest building in Japan!!! You could see so incredibly far, and the view was beautiful. I did actually feel a little sick when we went to the very top, which sucked, but I'm glad I got to see it anyway.

We were all exhausted by the end of that all, and nearly didn't make it back to the hostel in time for curfew.

February 15th

We left the hostel a bit before 9:30; Today was a day of changing lodgings, so we had to lug all our luggage around with us for a large portion of the day. To get from the Youth Hostel to the Shibu Onsen Ryokan, we had to take two short trains, an hour and a half (I think?)-long shinkansen (bullet train), a half hour-long local train, and then a short bus ride.

Here's the deal: There are 9 natural hot spring baths in this town. You're supposed to visit all of them to get your soul cleansed...or something? Sensei bought each of us a small towel, and at each of the baths, there are two stamps you put on the towel to show that you've been there.

In the ryokan, you take off your shoes at the entrance, wear slippers indoors, and take off the slippers before entering rooms with tatami mat floors.

February 17th

This is the day I'm going to catch up on my blog-writing. Once I finish this, I'll go back and summarize the past couple days.

Again, this was a day of mostly travelling; we gave a tragic goodbye to the beautiful Shibu Onsen hotel. Like the other meals, we had breakfast in our yukata, and like the other meals, I don't know what most of the things we ate were. From what I remember, I think there was a small salad, some miso soup, pickled cabbage, a pickled plum, tamagoyaki, some kind of fish tail, fish eggs, and tofu. After we ate, we took a group picture of everyone in our yukata, and then took a picture of everyone who finished the 9-onsen challenge holding up their towels with all the stamps.

There were special treats left for us in each of our rooms! A manju with red bean paste, and these little wafer-cookie things that tasted like apple chips. The manju was great, but somehow I lost my cookie thing?? It must have fallen out of my pocket at some point. And that wasn't the last thing I lost today.

Quite a few of us forgot things in our rooms after cleaning up and bringing down our bags, but thank goodness, the staff were INCREDIBLY nice. They brought some of the stuff while we were boarding the bus back to the train station, and again while we were on the train about to leave--they came all the way from the hotel to return something someone had left.

We had a 40-minute train ride back to Nagano, spent about half an hour at the station there getting lunch, then got on a 3-hour-long express train from Nagano to Nagoya. Everyone else seemed to be working on homework, or Momotaro retelling related stuff; I managed to finish my scene 3 retelling draft and then passed out. I woke up to Sensei coming down the aisle telling everyone we needed to be extremely quick getting off at the next stop or we wouldn't make our transfer. That made me panic a bit? It was also extremely disorienting, since I hadn't realized I had fallen asleep.

It turned out that the train came in late, so we missed the transfer anyway, but only had to wait a couple minutes for the next one; a 30-minute shinkansen to Kyoto.

Then, before I knew it, we were there. Though it was dark and gloomy when we arrived, Kyoto is still incredibly beautiful. We had to walk a short distance from the station to get to our ryokan, the Nissho Besso. We're all thrilled to be here--even Sensei was geeking out a little. He had us all come in small groups to see his room, which is right next to a beautiful garden that he can just, like, go out and chill in at any time.

The boys are staying in 4 rooms of 3 people to a room, and the girls get 3 rooms of 3-4-3 people. I'm in the 4-person room with Betsy, Katie Jane, and Hazel for the next three nights. After we took our stuff up to our room and freaked out about it a little (there are tiny origami figures next to our pillows! little sweets laid out for each of us!), we all gathered back down in the lobby so we could go out for dinner and a bit of walking around.

We went to Kyoto Station. It was INCREDIBLE--just an amazing building, so cool to see at night, though I couldn't really take any good photos because it was so dark. We split up into lil groups to go get dinner; me, Hazel, Katie and Taylor went to a ramen place, and then went to a Mister Donut to get what else but donuts. Hazel tried to order a hot chocolate, but the employee there heard "hot" and gave her a hot dog instead.

I had a great time just walking around and looking at everything--there was a bridge that went over the entire thing, and these rooftop gardens, and tons of little stores and restaurants and stuff. I stopped in a 7-11 at the end and got a sakura mochi with red bean paste, which was pretty good, though there was like, a whole sakura blossom on top and I'm pretty sure it was pickled? That was kind of weird.

Now I'm sitting in my room with the other girls after having taken a nice bath, and I lied about the catching up with the other days because I'm going to pass out any minute now. It'll happen one of these days!!

February 18th

This has definitely been the coolest birthday I've ever had. It's so hard to believe I'm turning 18, and not only that, but it's while I'm in a different country having the greatest time of my life!

Today was a lot of bus-riding--we went pretty deep into the mountains, and couldn't have taken a train there, like we've taken to pretty much every other place. The first stop was Shirakawa-go, and the second/last was Gokayama for the light-up festival. When we arrived at Gokayama, the sun was just beginning to set, and the candles were being lit, and snow was starting to fall more and more heavily. It was almost dreamlike, though the temperature was a reality check. We got free red bean soup while we were there, which was incredibly good, though I nearly made myself sick eating too much of it since Zinta gave me her bowl.

Most of being there was just walking around, looking at the village and the lights; a group of us did get to see a beautiful traditional dance performance. I felt so bad for the performers, since they must've been freezing, and also because people kept taking photos with flash, which must have been distracting.

From Gokayama, the bus ride back was about three hours, which is a pretty long time! It flew by, though, because I was sitting next to Eytan, and out of boredom we decided to try and play a game of Dungeons and Dragons. It ended up being incredibly goofy and fun, and is definitely one of the reasons today was so great.

We didn't get back to the ryokan until nearly midnight--everyone was falling asleep on the train home. Also, when we got back, everyone sang happy birthday to me and I got a couple awesome birthday presents?! Like I said, pretty much the best birthday ever.

February 21st

Today was cold cold cold! I finally didn't feel like the only overdressed person in my big coat and several layers of clothing. In fact, I would go so far as to say I was the only appropriately dressed one. I was still cold, though, since I get cold super easily.

Like yesterday afternoon, we took buses rather than trains to get around everywhere, which Sensei hates. I don't mind it so much, but buses are much smaller, and with our group of 24 people we take up the entire thing.

In the morning, we went to the Kenroukuen Garden and Seisonkaku Villa. Like always, I'm astounded by how green everything is, even though it's still winter. The garden was beautiful, and everything was covered in moss. The trees were all held up with supports and ropes to keep them from breaking under the pressure of snow. They have to do that every winter to protect the trees. It was kind of beautiful.

After seeing the garden and museum, we stopped for lunch. Most of us went into an udon restaurant. I got some udon with chicken and a bowl of zenzai/red bean soup (which I've developed a taste for since having it at Gokayama). I wasn't anticipating how big it would be!! Daniel and Eytan helped me a little, but I still couldn't finish it, which is really just another page in the book of Me Not Being Able To Finish Food. I did finish the zenzai, though, and it was delicious. I might love red bean flavored stuff more than anything?

Tomorrow is finally the day we start living with our host families. I'm feeling apprehensive for a number of reasons, main one being that I'm the only one who hasn't gotten any contact whatsoever from my host student, so I don't know anything about her.

February 22nd

My host family is incredibly kind, and like always, I feel like a clumsy elephant trampling through a garden of flowers. My host student is Moeka, a 16-year-old first year high school student. There's also her 12-year-old little brother, Kai, and her mother, Mai. The father is in Thailand currently, so it's just the three of them. After all the Evanston students met up with their host families at the station, they showed me to their car; we drove to a supermarket to get dinner before heading home. Mai bought so much food, I was starting to get a little scared!! We got tonkatsu, karaage, two packages of sushi, takoyaki, and salad. Thank goodness I didn't have to eat it all. I was still full from lunch, and all the food I got from 7/11. It still tasted great, though--I was surprised by how much I liked the sushi, since I've only tried sushi once before and I wasn't a fan.

On the car ride home, I found out that they have a cat named Cabbage, and Moeka showed me pictures of him. He's orange and has a super round face and wide eyes. I'm going to try and take pictures of him, but he's very very shy; We couldn't find him when we got home.

Mai teaches English, and I'm pretty sure she was late because she had to pick me up; Pretty much immediately after showing me inside, she had to go to work. But her classroom is a room in the house--I could hear the little kids practicing English while me and Moeka ate dinner. It was pretty cute.

I have my own room (!!) with a door that closes (more than my host siblings have, which I feel bad about), and more importantly, I have Internet, so I can keep in touch with everyone! I was worried I wouldn't--there are a couple people who don't, I think.

The first thing I did after they helped bring all my stuff up to the room was present my gifts, or omiyage. I had lots of stuff from Chicago/America, and Yokota-sensei also told us it was typical to bring gifts from the place you've been if you've been travelling, so I had a couple things from Kanazawa, too. I'm afraid I kind of overwhelmed my student, because I wasn't sure what to say, and I just kept bringing stuff out. I hope they like it all, though!!

After that, I showed Moeka my photo album, which went pretty well! She was surprised by how big my family is. I don't know how to explain that Jaya is my god-sister, so I just called her my little sister and said my family is 8 people. Since Mai was working, she couldn't see it right away, but later I showed her too and she was also pretty impressed by my number of relatives.

After showing her the gifts and photo album, me and Moeka ate dinner. Everything tasted so good, I wished I was more hungry!! Also, I had takoyaki for the first time, and had to really hype myself up to eat that piece of octopus (the suckers were RIGHT THERE), but it wasn't that bad. I was expecting it to be tougher/more rubbery than it was.

Kai came home while we were eating. He seems a little shy. He didn't really say much to me. But I knew he played video games, so I asked him about it, and we agreed to play Mario together.

After dinner, Mai finished teaching, and before her students left she brought me out to say hi to them. Then, I got to show her my photo album, and I played video games with Kai. First was a Mario game--I think Super Mario Bros U? And then I asked if we could play Mario Kart. I beat him pretty good! It was cute. He complained about how I kept using bananas to thwart his shells, and called me "tsuyoi" (strong).

Also, we finally found Cabbage! He was hiding under the table. He's ADORABLE, but a scaredy cat; he won't let me pet him yet.

Mai showed me how to do laundry, so I washed all the dirty clothes I had accumulated. In Japan, pretty much no one has dryers--instead, they hang clothes up to dry. Sensei says that they do it outside, even in winter, but my host family has a place inside for them to hang. I also noticed that after being washed, most of my clothes weren't particularly wet, so they don't need to dry so long.

After doing laundry and taking a bath (which I've kind of forgotten the customs for, but I was too embarrassed to ask? I'm pretty sure I did the important things), I said goodnight to everyone and headed to bed. Well, sort of. I was so relaxed I spent a long time catching up with some of my friends, which leads me to my next entry...

February 23rd

Today was a whirlwind of emotion. I started the day off by sleeping through my alarm, which is very bad!! Mai had to knock on my door to wake me up, and told me to hurry. I feel terrible about it. Breakfast was delicious, fish and tamagoyaki and cucumber and miso soup and rice, but I didn't take a picture of it because I was afraid it would come off as rude and I didn't get to finish it because it was time to leave!!!

Mai packed me a lunchbox in an adorable Moomin-themed carrier. I almost forgot it when we were leaving--that would have also been bad. She drove me and Moeka to the train station, and from there, we boarded a shinkansen (only about 15 minutes) and then took a bus to school (less than 10 minutes).

I saw Momoka on the bus! The student I hosted my sophomore year!! I felt so bad because I haven't kept in touch with her, but she recognized me anyway and said hi, and it was so sweet to see her.

I was surprised that we didn't have to take off our shoes in school. I was expecting to have to wear slippers. The Japanese students all changed into gym shoes, and I think I was supposed to too? But Moeka just gave me a towel to clean the bottoms of my boots with. I'm pretty pleased with this, because it is cold cold cold in the school, even with shoes on.

Everyone's students showed us to the meeting room, which is basically our base of operations, where we left our backpacks and coats during the school day. It was so sweet--someone drew a welcoming message and adorable picture on the chalkboard, and there were sweets and tea for us, including green tea and strawberry flavor Kit-Kats! Those disappeared pretty quickly once everyone discovered them.

One of the Japanese sensei came in and told us that Sensei and Yokota-sensei boarded the wrong shinkansen and were going to be late. Sorry, senseis, but we laughed pretty hard at that. At least it didn't happen when we were all together? Or maybe that would have been better? Either way, it wasn't a very long delay, and we just switched the first two periods of the day to compensate.

The first period of the day was shadowing Moeka. I think it was an English class? I'm only unsure because there were two English classes in the day, one here and one at the end. This one was probably English conversation (英会話), because conversing is what we did. The teacher gave everyone a sheet of paper and told the KJ students to go around and ask the ETHS students questions, and try to find out as much about us as possible. It was actually a lot of fun! I used a mixture of English and Japanese the whole time. Some of the questions/answers were pretty interesting. I asked a group of girls what their interests were, and one of them said "cute guys".

After that, the senseis arrived, so we all went to one of the gyms for a welcoming ceremony. Sensei didn't tell us they would play THE AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM, so no one knew what to do. I mean, we all figured it out eventually by looking at Sensei, but there was an awkward few moments there.

A KJ student gave a speech, and then DJ gave the one everyone collaborated on, and then Sensei gave one. I have nothing against speeches, but thank goodness they were short, because it was COLD in there.

KJ also presented each of us with a special towel, which I haven't opened yet. I think that's the third towel I've gotten on this trip? Like my quest for waffles, my desire for towels is unsatiable.

After the ceremony, we went to a room to see a short presentation by some KJ students (the media club, I think?), and then watch a video made by the second-years. The second-years are the ones who came to America last year, so most of the people on this trip had hosted them. They made a really amazing emotional video using the photos from their trip, which apparently made Sensei cry. They also recorded themselves saying hi to their former host students, and apologized that they couldn't be here--they're all on a ski trip currently.

We spent a while in the meeting room learning how to make origami snowflakes. After that, we practiced our presentations in the Language Lab, and shadowed our host students for the rest of their days. Something I was surprised by is that the students all help clean after school--like, they literally get out brooms and start sweeping the hallways. We helped, of course.

After school, we were all invited to the Tea Ceremony Club. (I also saw Momoka again, and took a picture with her!) It was really interesting--it was different from our own, for some subtle reasons. Since there were so many of us, they only actually prepared one bowl of tea in front of us, and brought out the rest all at once. (There was a really nice okashi beforehand, and it had a familiar taste, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called.) After we all drank tea, they invited us all to try making tea.

Overall, today has been amazing! I hope my host family forgives me for being awkward and not knowing what to say most of the time. They've been so incredibly kind.

February 24th

Today, I actually managed to get up on time! I discovered my problem is that I'm practically guaranteed to sleep through at least one alarm. So I set four of them. And I woke up with the second one! I thankfully had plenty of time to get dressed and eat breakfast.

When I came out of my room, Cabbage was there. He was still very shy, but he let me get closer and closer...I spent a couple minutes gradually scooting closer to him, trying not to scare him, and he kept moving away. I eventually got close enough to let him sniff my hand, but he still wouldn't let me pet him. I told my host family that to pet him is my goal.

Mai made a delicious breakfast. I felt kind of bad that she didn't give me rice or miso? I guess she noticed I haven't been finishing my miso soup (it's way too salty and heavy for me, and I don't like soup in the first place), but I have been eating the rice! Rice is so much better here than it is in America.

There was no bento today, because we decided to eat in the cafeteria instead. I was a bit disappointed, because the lunch yesterday was so cute and delicious.

At about 7:20, we headed out; Car, shinkansen, schoolbus. (We ran into the Senseis at the train station!) Moeka told me on the first day that it usually takes her a 40-minute or so train ride to get to school, but she's taking a shinkansen while I'm here, so it's only 15 minutes.

Back at the meeting room, the drinks and snacks had been replenished. New snacks!!! I immediately ate, like, 5 of them, and made a cup of the instant "cafe au lait".

Today was the day of presentations--both ours and those of the KJ students. But first of all, we all gathered in the gym. Everyone organized into neat lines. Four boys got up on the stage and led everyone in warm-up exercises, which caused a bit of giggling, since none of us Evanston students knew what the exercises were, but everyone else had obviously practiced them a million times.

Then, we split up into teams based on homeroom classes to play jump rope. Like, with a really big rope. The idea was everyone had to work together to jump at the same time. It was way harder than you might think, especially since the groups were so big! Our group only managed to jump ONCE in a row. Nobody else was much better, but I think another group managed 5 or 6 in a row in one attempt. We posed in groups for pictures afterwards, and then had to rush to get to the first class of the day.

In Moeka's case, it was Japanese. I didn't quite know what to do, since it was obviously much more complex Japanese than I could understand, and I found myself wishing I'd brought my homework for something to do; but Moeka let me borrow a piece of paper and pencil, so I wrote down words I heard and doodled some cats.

After that, we headed to the art room for some KJ presentations. Me, Molly, and Eytan were in a group together; Our job was to listen to the KJ students present, and then ask questions and give advice. I actually think I did pretty well! It's super easy to give them tips on English grammar, since I'm basically an English expert.

Our own presentations were split up into two periods, 4th and 6th. The first two groups to go were food and geography. Everything seemed to go pretty well! I know everyone has been stressed out about the presentations, so it was nice to see all the hard work pay off.

Between presentation periods, I had lunch. We went to the cafeteria today, which is actually located in a separate building, so we had to walk outside in the cold for a bit. The food was so delicious, but since I eat SO SLOW, I couldn't finish, and I felt terrible about it.

Then, soon enough, it was time to present. My group's topic was "Cartoons and Superheroes". We talked about various American cartoons and showed some clips from them. My topic, specifically, was cartoons that had been inspired by anime. Aside from a couple technical difficulties, it went great!

The dancing group went next. It was pretty awesome to see six American high schoolers teach sixty Japanese high schoolers how to juju. Some of the KJ kids were REALLY into dabbing.

After that, about half of us did an activity with the GS students (the other half had already done it earlier in the day). We made origami cranes (kind of--I couldn't figure out how to do mine, and one of the girls had to basically do it for me). We also did a game I've forgotten the name of where you blindly try to stick facial features on a piece of paper with a head drawn on it. Some of the results were pretty...interesting. I put my nose on upside down. But Amalia's somehow turned out perfect!

Also, I got to wear a yukata--the kind you would wear to a festival, they said, not the pajama-like ones we wore in the ryokans.

I'm not sure what GS actually stands for, but the five students there were VERY good at English.

After classes, in homeroom, we took a couple pictures as a group, and then the KJ students presented each of us with a gift: a copy of the picture we had taken earlier in gym! The teacher invited us all to say some parting words, either in Japanese or English. Betsy's were great. She said that even though KJ was cold, the people were warm (kind) (warm-hearted?). I can't believe we were only at the school for two days. It was pretty hard to say goodbye.

Back home, Mai gave me and Moeka a daifuku surprise, since I had said before how much I like daifuku. These ones were huge! They just had red bean paste inside.

I FINALLY PET CABBAGE! He was hiding under a clothes rack in Moeka's room when I came up and offered him my hand. He sniffed it a little, and then let me scritch his head. So adorable! I think he's warmed up to me a bit.

February 25th

I'm suuuper tired right now, but extremely content. Today was a busy day in Niigata City. A group of about 20 KJers and ETHSers, me and Moeka included, took a shinkansen (Genbi Shinkansen - a special shinkansen with a museum inside, and cool exterior design! Each of the cars was a different "exhibit". It was extremely cool) to Niigata City, and then took a bus to this bowling-sports-arcade-karaoke entertainment center, where we spent the larger part of our day.

There were tons of things to do--rollerskating, basketball, pool, table tennis, arcade games, etc., etc. I mostly played arcade games, including a weird arcade version of Mario Kart. Turns out, I'm really good at drum games. Taiko: Drum Master is the most famous, but there was another one I played that I don't know the name of. They're a great arm workout.

We got some simple lunch there. I had karaage, and Moeka got takoyaki. Then, it was bowling time.

I was on a bowling team with Alisa and Rion. They were incredibly nice and supportive, despite my ABYSMAL bowling skills.

Afterwards, we took the bus back to the train station, and of course we couldn't resist taking a bunch of pictures in front of the giant "What's Niigata?" installment. A group of skater boys were practicing while we were there. Pretty interesting to see.

The KJ students then led us to a big shopping mall. I wasn't expecting to, but I actually did buy some clothes. I was surprised by how cheap things were. You know, everything told me how expensive Japan would be, but I've been constantly surprised while I'm here!

The only clothing stores I went to were H&M and a Japanese store called GU.

At one point, the group split up to go to different stores. I ended up at a bookstore by complete chance, and found possibly my favorite purchase of the entire trip: the art book for my favorite video game, Bloodborne. It was 3700 yen, which is also the most expensive single thing I've bought, but it was WORTH IT because this baby is SIXTY DOLLARS online and it hasn't actually come out in the West yet. I also got the Splatoon artbook, the first issue of Super Mario-kun (manga), and the first issue of the Twilight Princess manga. I could have gotten more, and almost did, but I was rapidly running out of money and carrying capacity.

The day was amazing enough already, but to top it off, Mai made SHABU-SHABU for dinner!!! I could not BELIEVE how delicious it was, and I was so excited that I knew what it was! We had it at the Shibu Onsen ryokan. It's like, there's a pot of boiling water with stuff like onions and cabbage inside, and then you put things in it to cook, like mushrooms and tofu and pieces of beef and pork that are sliced so thinly that they only take a couple seconds to cook. I ate soooo much, and I honestly wish I had eaten more.

I had a wonderful conversation with Mai after dinner about the plane ride home (how long it is). I'm really amazed by how much I can understand and communicate. She's very kind, and is really good at saying things in ways that I can understand, if that makes sense.

Since she could tell both me and Moeka were exhausted after having such a long day, she said I could sleep as long as I wanted. Thank goodness--I definitely need it.