カラオケ！！！

Yay! Karaoke!!! I have been to karaoke three times so far and I loooove it! It is so popular here!

It's a little difficult sometimes because obviously Japanese songs are written in Japanese and you have to read it at singing speed, but I'm improving (maybe). The karaoke rooms also do have a lot of English songs so those are fun.

We really have nothing comparable to Japanese karaoke in Australia. Basically you go to a karaoke place (bar? Box? Room? I have no idea what to call it) with your friends (I have been with five people once, and three people twice) and get a room which you enter, sit down and start singing. You get a little handheld remote control and search for songs, and create a playlist type thing.

Sometimes the film clip comes up as you sing but more often than not a 90s style crappy filmclip comes up (Juicebox by The Strokes had a car speeding down a road surrounded by city lights, Bleeding Love had a little love story going on, crappy clothes and picnics in the park included, and The Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar had some mechanics just walking around together in a garage and looking serious).

One thing about karaoke that surprised me is that people stay there for SO LONG. I haven't timed it, but I'd say 5 hours is a fair estimate of the longest I've been there. You order drinks and can also order food, and it really doesn't feel that long. Maybe it does but I just really like singing so it doesn't bother me.

Anyway, pictures!

体育祭と文化祭

Sports Festival and Culture Festival! Yatta!

This week my school had both the Culture festival on Wednesday and the Sports festival on Thursday. In addition to this, on Tuesday the whole day was dedicated to preparation for both of these events.

Preparation:
The preparation was kind of intense. My class did a haunted house for the culture festival which involves QUITE a lot of preparation. I truly didn't think it would get done, when it was 8pm Tuesday night and we hadn't yet managed to put up the wall separating the two parts of the room... Luckily, after working that late, then coming to school at 7am the next day, we finished it all.

Prior to that, we had been doing preparation everyday after school, usually finishing about 4 or 4.30. Our class' undertaking was definitely the biggest in the school, but I also think it was the most impressive.

The preparation involved making ghosts and zombies, making the walls for the path and setting, making posters and blocking out all light from getting into the room.



















Culture Festival:

After arriving at school at 7, we eventually finished preparing and the room was ready. First was the Opening Ceremony, which was unremarkable except for one thing. They showed a time lapse video of the construction of a 'Pirates of the Caribbean' poster, made completely from sticking little coloured stickers on in a pattern. After the video they unveiled the actual poster and it is actually so cool:



Anyway, after that we returned to the class room, the vampire, zombie and other creatures dressed up, the rest of us changed into our class tshirts (they have everyone in the class' name on it, including mine!). I was stationed at the exit, and people were terrified. One girl (third year, as in 17 or 18 years old) was crying.

I went through the haunted house after I had finished my shift. I didn't expect it to be scary at all, because obviously I knew all of the scary things that were in it, but I was terrified! It was just an overload; a zombie following you, hands coming out of walls, heads hitting your feet.

After that I ate lunch...




... and then saw four bands perform. They were all boys from the third grade and the other exchange student and I joined the only mosh-y part of the crowd (ie, third grade boys) and danced and cheered...

There was a closing ceremony...





...and then after the massive job of cleaning up...



... I went to Macdonalds with my host sister, her friend and the other exchange student. Japanese Macdonalds is so cheap! I bought two McFlurries (called makufuru), two smalls cokes (futatsu S cora) and two chesseburgers (cheeseburger) and it cost probably about $9 or $10! (I was buying for the other exchange student as well, not eating two of everything.)

Sports Festival:

The Taikusai opening ceremony is actually the best thing ever. First we have to march from our class tents to the field to brass band music. Then they say random stuff in Japanese, and after that we run and spread out (still in number and class order- we must be in two perfectly straight lines, one forward and one to the side) and then do Radio Exercises. They play this tape (it is in English, I have no idea why) and everyone does these stretches in unison. Clearly everyone in the school doesn't speak English, so they know it more or less off by heart.

The day was just a typical sports carnival, classes over the three gades compete, there are no age groups. I was only in one event which was the tug-of-war and my class came second, which I think is pretty impressive considering we are first year and we have only about 8 boys out of 33 students. We didn't place overall though.

I basically spent the day talking to people and trying to stay out of the sun (I failed and got pretty badly sunburnt...) I didn't take all that many pictures, but here are the ones I did take:











じゃ、 またね！

食べ物3

So I figured that after singing the praises of most Japanese food, I would also mention those food experiences that have been kind of... weird.

The first of these was ウニ or sea urchin:




I valiantly tried it and thought it was disgusting. I ate this whole sushi in one bite so it took me a while to swallow it too... ick.

Next, bones. I have no idea what animal these bones belonged to, all I know is that they cooked them on the BBQ then we ate them and it was probably one of the weirdest things I have ever eaten. I did not particularly enjoy it.

Finally (wow, short list) natto, or fermented beans (I think...). This is a traditional new year food but my family bought natto sushi and I tried it. I only had a tiny bit so I can't be all that accurate, but suffice to say, I will not be rushing out to eat natto again any time soon....

食べ物2

So I've decided to make this food thing a series, cause I keep eating awesome food. Off we go, part 2:

Cooking takoyaki:



The finished product:



Watermelon ice-cream:



Sushi train:



Korean food:



This tasted waaaayyy better than it looks:



BBQ:



Obentou (school lunch):



Okonomiyaki!!!:

学校！

Okay first, I know I have been really slack with blogging lately, but I am making an effort to not be...

Anyway, school! I've been going to school for just over a week now an I guess there is a lot to say so I'll break it into sections (*^o^*)


Biking to and from school:


あぶない is generally my most frequently used word when bike riding. It means dangerous.

It takes about 40 minutes to get from home to school, probably about two thirds of which is on the road. It's not quite as scary as I expected it to be, but still quite scary, especially considering my bike riding skills kind of suck. It is kind of fun though. I am always disgusting and hot when I get to school (so happy it is Autumn, Japanese summer was painful) but at least my classroom has air conditioning!

Surprisingly enough, I have yet to crash (badly- I sort of crashed into a pole, but I didn't fall, so I figure that's not really considered a crash).

Literally EVERYONE bike rides to school here, it's amazing. Everyone bike rides in general, from kids to really really elderly people.

Bike riding through the typhoon was kind of unpleasant; my rain coat didn't do much to expel the aggressive rain drowning my face. See below:







Uniform:


Not much to say here expect that my uniform is kind of adorable, so much nicer than my Australian uniform...


Food:


Everyday I have a bentou, which is basically a Japanese lunchbox consisting of rice, vegetables/salad, some kind of meat and maybe some omelette.




Also at school there is a kind of small tuckshop which just sells bread type products. For example, bread with chicken inside. Also it sells really yummy mini donuts! My school also has vending machines for drinks (they are literally everywhere in Japan) which are unbelievably cheap (a drink generally costs 100-150 yen in Japan, maybe $1.50-$2.00.)



Lessons:


Not much to say here except that I understand soooo little. I understand science the most probably, because they are doing quite basic science (not that I actually know the topic they are studying, I just understand the equations). Modern Japanese is super boring so far, just a matter of copying from a text book to your note book. I like music and English the most by far. Music is fun, especially since the other exchange student is in it (we are together for music, calligraphy, all english classes and home economics), but also because it isn't hard to understand. They sing a little bit at the beginning of the lesson (although no one actually sings) and then play guitar, which I suck at but it's fun.

As for English, I have one General English lesson with my class, two English expression lessons with the other exchange student's class, and OP 1, 2 and 3 (with the first, second and third grade respectively). I love the OP classes because they are completely in English and taught by a native English speaker predominantly so they are one of the rare occassions I can understand what is being said.


Japanese:


On that note, let's move on to Japanese! It's really hard at times, manageable at others. I see slight improvements in my Japanese (massive improvements in my ability to speak naturally but minor in the actual Japanese I know). I'm sure the improvement will come (hopefully quickly, because I have a Japanese speaking contest in October in front of my whole school and I kind of don't want to embarass myself....)


School festival/ sports day:


So this week is our school culture festival and sports day. For the culture festival my class is doing a haunted house! I will update about these once they have happened!



Okay, so there we go! If there is anything you want me to write about let me know in the comments! (Also, I apologise if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes- I am using an iPad keypad AND a program with no spell or grammar check...)