Participating in a Japanese Archery Tournament!

This past Sunday was my first Japanese archery tournament!

My school club is kyudou, otherwise known as Japanese archery, and due to that I got to compete in a tournament! I'm not actually sure if it's legal for exchange students to participate, so shhh don't tell the Japanese government.

The day started out with me waking up at 5:20 so I could catch the 6:50 train, even though the tournament didn't start until 8. The reason I had to take a 6:50 train is because Miyazaki is very rural, so the trains only run about once every hour in certain directions.

While biking to the train station, I realized I forgot my lunch box at home. Whoops! I caught the train right on time, and knew I had to get off after about 3 stops. 3 stops later, I looked up and didn't recognize the name of the station. At that point I was nervous and fidgety. By the time the train stops at the next stop, I knew that I took the wrong train. I mean, where the hell is Tano!?

The station sign that made me lose all hope

I needed to get to Kibana station!! I also needed a taxi. I guess the one lucky thing was that an empty taxi with a nice driver was stopped at the train station. I asked him how much it would cost to get to the kyudou dojo, and he told me I would need around $50. At this point my heart sank because I didn't have enough cash on me. However, the taxi driver kindly stopped at a 7/11 for me to withdraw cash. The whole ride ended up "only" being about $40, but I still was not happy when I got to the tournament.

However, the tournament itself went well! Each time someone participates, they get 4 arrows. The first time I went up, I didn't hit any. The second time I went up I hit 2, which made me really happy!

During tournaments or formal practices, you have to wear special clothes called hakama. Everything from entering the target area to collecting the arrows is done in a very precise, specialized way. It's quite efficient, and we were able to go home at around 3.

Everyone lined up (I'm second furthest down!)

Overall, despite the mishaps, it was fun and I'm glad I participated!

(I do not recommend biking with a big ass bow in Japan's narrow streets)

Halfway Through My Exchange

August 28, 2017 is exactly halfway through my exchange.

Wowowow. It just feels so surreal. It feels as if I've come so far and changed so much, yet I'm still only halfway there. How much more will I change?

If someone asked me to say the ways I've changed, I would say the tenseness I had from America is almost gone. I just want to have fun with people I love! I want to learn, and challenge myself, and create. I want to do everything! I wanna live forever!

Anything that could be considered shyness is practically gone. I still have my moments, but considering all the embarrassing and awkward things that have happened, it's pretty hard for me to feel shy.

For example, there was a period of time here where I was getting diarrhea constantly, like every day ahaha (TMI) My body showed me no mercy even when hanging out with friends. So I was on a road trip with my friend's family. We had just stopped at a road stop, where I didn't feel a hint of anything that was to come. As soon as we pulled out I felt a little rumbling in my stomach, but I thought it would quiet down. Nope! Not even 15 minutes later I whisper to my friend, "Uhhh, I gotta go to the bathroom. Badly." I was the only one that got out to use the bathroom, and left them all waiting there for like 8 minutes. The finishing blow was when the concerned parents kept asking "Are you okay now?" throughout the trip. Ahah!



I don't want to go back home, but at the same time I'm excited for my future back in America. I want to see all my friends back in America, but I don't want to leave my Japanese ones. My Japanese friends are some of the kindest people I've ever met, I cannot stress enough how much I love Japanese girls! They are so sweet, interesting, expressive, and sometimes even a little sassy.

As for my Japanese, I feel pretty happy with how far it's gotten! Today I went to a cafe with a Japanese friend and it didn't end up feeling awkward at all, even though we were just talking for 2 1/2 hours. That's a pretty good indicator of my Japanese level! However, I still have plenty of room for improvement, especially when it comes to vocabulary. Hopefully I'll be able to easily read manga and easy novels when I come back.

I still definitely want to keep posting more stories on here and more YouTube videos, but now that school is starting up again I'm going to lose a lot of my free time. I'll try the best I can!

Thank you to everyone that is cheering me on from back home. I love you all!

Japanese Summer Festivals!

To put it simply, Japanese festivals are great, and a must if you go to Japan!

The smell of sizzling meat, sweat trickling down my back, and laughing with friends. Could a summer day get any better?

 As a HUGE foodie, one of the biggest attractions about festivals is the stalls that offer foods from ice cream to chicken to even fried squid! Some of the foods that I always get when I go to festivals are takoyaki (fried balls with octopus in them), hashimaki, shaved ice, and sometimes tornado potatoes.

Hashimaki

Tornado Potato

All this delicious food is the reason why I gained 7 kilos since coming to Japan!!! :,(

Another charm of festivals is wearing traditional Japanese "Yukata" or "Jinpei." My friend Natsuko actually gave me a yukata, which I'm super thankful for :) I'd recommend buying flipflops to wear with the yukata, because the traditional Japanese shoes that go with yukatas are not comfortable

Other than the food stalls, there is always some sort of event going on at festivals. Usually, there is a stage featuring dances, acts, etc. Sometimes, festivals are based entirely around fireworks, like a giant Fourth of July party! The recent festival I went to, which is one of the biggest in my city, had around 7 stages as well as big marches.

A lot of people use festivals as a chance to meet up with friends as well as take pictures with any acquaintances they happen to meet. It's always a festive environment, and fun to yell/squeal if you see a friend!

If you ever come to Japan, please try going to a festival at least once! And you can also buy yukatas for fairly low prices ;)

Appearing on Japanese Television!

Last Saturday, I was on Japanese television! The segment I was on was in the news for about a minute and a half, not long at all, but I had a mini-interview within that time.

So, why was I on the news?

My LP coordinator, Rika Kubota, invited everyone in my chapter (Miyazaki prefecture) to Miyazaki's agricultural high school. This meant my friend Maggie and I were waking up at seven on a Saturday, and our friend Nina was catching a train to get to Miyazaki city at about the same time.

But, contrary to being sleepy, everyone was excited. The only thing we knew was that we would be taking an emergency course for what foods to cook if an earthquake occurs. We were looking forward to talking to the students who would be helping out with the course and making new friends! I set a goal for myself to be energetic, positive, and fun.

We arrive, and after a few shorts icebreakers and a slideshow, I finally notice a cameraman. I turn to a girl I had gotten close to, Ayaka, and whisper, "Whoa...is this going on the news?"

"Yup! I think so!"

I then ask my LP, and she tells me that she thinks it's advertisement for the school.

So, we proceeded to be filmed throughout picking vegetables from the school garden and preparing dishes.

 I was getting to be friendly with the cameraman, as well as someone that I think was a news reporter. So who knows, maybe I'll be in some newspaper as well!

Overall, the whole experience was super fun and I'm really glad that Rika organized for us to go. Other than the three AFS high school students, there were 3 college exchange students and a grown woman from the United States. Everyone was super friendly! I'd say that the foods we made were definitely more about Japanese culture than "survival" foods, because all of them required some type of heat ahah. 10/10 experience!

Mochi

Miso Soup

My table of dishes

My Japanese High School Class!

It's been a fun few weeks :) I thought that I would write about my classmates, because a lot of them are interesting people that make school wonderful! I won't write something about everyone, but I thought I would write a bit about the people I interact with the most/most interesting personalities.

First of all, there are only 6 boys in my class. I actually prefer this MUCH more than if it was half-half. All of the girls feel free to act like how they normally would, without being shy/acting fake because of  boys. There is also way less of a "clique" feel in my class, and I also think this is because there are fewer boys. In the other departments in my school where the numbers of boys and girls are even, there is definitely a less welcoming attitude.

I'm in the English department at my school, which means everyone genuinely has an interest in English and Americans/foreign things. This is nice as an exchange student from America :) I would like to include pictures of my classmates when I talk about them, but I'm not going to for privacy reasons.

Onward!

First, my closer friends! I'm very close with two girls named Tamaki and Midzuki (even though Midzuki's in another class).

Midzuki was the first person to approach me, and she somehow always understands what I'm trying to say despite my sometimes awful Japanese :O I usually laugh the most with her.

Tamaki seems really shy, and she's really cute so a lot of boys like her, but the little jokes she pulls contrast her shy girl image completely and she's not afraid to show who she really is.

Airi is half-Japanese half-American, and she also loves talking about...rated r stuff...which is SUPER rare for Japanese girls. V amusing!

Kyanmera is an adorable shy-seeming girl who loves k-pop and wants to marry a korean. Also super good at dancing!

Speaking of k-pop, there's also a girl who looks like a k-pop star, she's absolutely beautiful. Her complexion is the best I've ever seen. Her name's Nariho, she's also always smiling and a cheerleader!

I also have a very chill friend, the most chill Japanese person I've ever met. Just being with her somehow soothes my soul (lol). Her name's Amane :)

There's also a super cute girl who loves bears named Chise. I sometimes call her Hiyoko, which means chick, because her personality is just like a chick's.

Misaki is a girl with the loudest laugh I have ever heard. You can hear her laugh from 2 classes down. She's also super funny and outgoing!

Moeka has the disposition of a princess, but her personality is not stuck-up at all! She's easy to talk and the boys in my class always call her Kimiya, which is the name of her boyfriend.

Now onto the boys!

Shuty is short and a lil chubby, so his friends will call him pig sometimes, but he's also adorable. Beat him in arm wrestling!

Yoshi was pretty distant at first, but he's actually funny and I consider him a good friend!

Hibiki is loud and likes to make people laugh. He gets the worst grades in the English department, and he's always making jokes. A lot of girls don't like him at all because they think he's annoying, but I personally like him.

Hunter is half-Japanese half-American, and SUPPEERR incredibly shy around girls. All the girls think he's cool, probably because he's really good at basketball.

Ryuuji. Oh, Ryuuji. He's very attractive, but people are starting to call him a psychopath because he'll start laughing randomly and then stop, and he does really creepy things. He can be pretty mean, but also hilarious! He has a super cute gf.

Juugen is really nice, and tends to eat lunch alone. I consider him my closest boy friend! He's really easy to talk to.

So that is everyone I'm going to talk about. I interact with way more people on a daily basis, but this post would be too long if I talked about everyone!

New Videos! Culture Shock and My School Uniform!

Hey guys!

I have made two new videos, one is about culture shock and the other is a showcase of my school uniform.

Here's the links!

Culture shock
Japanese High School Uniform'

Enjoy :)

Two Months in Japan

Wow. Two whole months in Japan! I can barely believe it, and every time I think about the fact that 1/5 of my exchange is done, I feel like crying. I love it here! Life in Japan as an exchange student feels so rewarding, and I am incredibly grateful I was able to come here. So, two months? A lot can happen in that time! First, I want to talk about Japanese food, and how my body has changed since coming here (not necessarily in a good way lol).

Japanese food is delicious. Any sushi/ramen lover would agree. But, how does real Japanese food compare to the cheap cup noodles that college students live off of? Real Japanese ramen is so delicious that even writing about it is making my mouth water. It is a perfect mix of ingredients, be it spicy or salty.

Tonkatsu ramen from Kagoshima

Karamen from Miyazaki, spicy level 15/25

There were also foods that I needed a little time to get used to. One is umeboshi, which is a pickled plum that is SUPER salty. I didn't like it when I tried it in America, but now I love it! Another food is "raw" chicken. Since my Japanese is not perfect, I could be a little bit wrong, but in Miyazaki prefecture it is okay to eat raw chicken. It's either raw or has very little roasting done to it. The texture is really chewy and feels like chewing slightly hard fat. The taste is surprisingly fine! The taste of squid is also going to take some getting used to; it's really strong.

One thing that has shocked me is how weak Japanese people are to spices. They cannot handle them! Eating spicy hot Cheetos would probably kill some of my friends ahah

As expected of exchange students, I've gained weight :( I don't understand it. because I bike 80 minutes every school day (way more exercise than I did in America), yet I am still gaining weight. It could be the fact that I ate way too many Japanese snacks in my first weeks here hehe! Also, because of those darn delicious snacks, my skin is the worst it has been in a while. Before I left for Japan, my skin was the best it had been in years. Now, my chin is a warzone :( but I won't let that make me insecure about my face!

When you live in Japan as a foreigner, especially if you're in a rural area, you will get stared at a lot. Sometimes, I have fun with the staring and stare back. But I will admit that it does get to me, and I'll find it creepy occasionally. Especially if it's someone older. Not going to lie, I also stare whenever I see foreigners ahah. They're rare here in Miyazaki! 

The nature and views here are beautiful. I'm surrounded by small mountains, and there are lots of rice fields. Biking to and from school, I basically go from the downtown area to rice fields to city again. 

My view of rice fields while biking home

Speaking English has become weird to me. When I hung out with another exchange student after not speaking English for a while, it felt so strange to have my mouth forming sentences. We both had weird pauses in our sentences initially. I will admit, I miss the versatility of English and how fun English slang is! But Japanese is awesome too. I especially love using Miyazaki-dialect, like なんしちょっとinstead of なにしてるの. I want to sound like a Miyazaki native by the end of my stay! 

As for homesickness, I got hit pretty hard in the beginning. But now, I'm completely fine :) Thinking about going home actually makes me sad! I <3 Japan

Since school is the biggest part of my life right now, I am going to make a separate post and a YouTube video for it. I'm also going to be making one for culture shock, so stay tuned~

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