Well! I have had the most fantastic week. If you haven't heard from me for a while, it is because I have just spent the week in Nigata for my ski trip. I will go through the days of what happened and stuff like that. After not using my email for a few days, I now have about 40 emails! Wow.. so please wait a bit for me to reply to everyone :)
19/2/03
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Together with my hostdad we caught a taxi to Hamamatsu station. I had this huge bag and a backpack and he had this little bag. We met Fernando at the station and off we went on a bullet train to Tokyo. During the shinkansen trip to Tokyo, we picked up a few other exchange students through the stops at stations. Finally after 2 hours we got there. I had organised (well carly had) to meet up at Tokyo station when I was waiting for my shinkansen (i was for about an hour). Carly and I talked and I ate quickly in the time that I had. I said my goodbyes and off I was again on another shinkansen to Nigata. We were going with a huge group of about 150 Americans who go to international school here. By the time we got there is was getting a little late and all we had to do was get our skis fitted and go to our rooms.. instead we all went outside and had lots of snowball fights! That night we didn't sleep till pretty late as we were watching movies on Lalo's laptop.
20/2/03
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Today I skiied for the first time in my life. Mark (an Aussie Exchange student) and I were the only ones who had not skiied before and so we had special lessons to learn to ski. The teacher was very happy with our progress and by the end of the day, I was skiing really fast down the slopes (well not too fast.. yet). We spent the day going down the slopes with an instructor till he thought we were going well. At night there was night skiing available and we all went out (when it was snowing down really hard) and skiied till late. By the end of the first day, my muscles were already sore!
21/3/03
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Today was pretty much the same as yesterday.. a lot of skiing! I also made an igloo with Mark (check the pictures section when I get it up) and a snowman. I was getting better at skiing and I was falling over less. For a while I thought that my left leg was getting too tired to ski and that was why I couldn't turn left anymore, but I later realised that I may have had the ski shoes on the wrong feet. We all got 2000 yen each day for lunch and that was plenty to get something nice to eat.
22/3/03
In the morning I called Carly on my mobile. I was calling to tell her not to bother coming to see me on the way back through Tokyo because I would only be there for about 20 minutes. She suggested that I ask my host dad if I can go back to Hamamatsu the next day and spend Sunday in Tokyo with her. It was all ok with my hostdad and so Carly said she would meet me at the station. The day went fast skiing and skiing until I couldn't stand up from my aching muscles. We all had to be out of there by about 4:30 and then off to the station to eat dinner and then rushed off again to catch the shinkansen to Tokyo.
At 7:30 p.m. Carly found me at the station and then whisked me off to her friend's house for a little while as we still had a bit of time. We needed assistance to get to the house as Tokyo is like a maze of houses everywhere and if we tried to get there ourselves, we would soon get lost. We then went off on another train to her home station and then walked to her house. Through all of this I lugged my heavy bag around everywhere.
23/3/03
Well today was one of the best days. This morning I met Carly's host family (a bit better than 2 seconds the night before) and we ate brekkie. We had a big day ahead of us and so we left about 9 and walked through a large park which was right next to her house. Carly says that sometimes there are flee markets and bands (but none today). We decided that taking my big bag to a convenient store and getting it couriered to my house was the best idea.. I didn't want to carry it all around Tokyo all day! Now Carly, if you are reading this, please check that I have got all the station names right. I have tried to remember them, but it is a bit hard.. also tell me if I missed anything. We caught a train from Ikebukura (maybe) to Shinjuku where we went to a large observation tower that overlooked Tokyo. I have some pictures of it that will be in the pics section soon. It was a bit of a shame because it was a bit smoggy? or cloudy? so I couldn't see much on the horizon (like Mt. Fuji) but I could still see the millions of houses down below. We were planning to meet an exchange student from America that went to Japan in Carly's year at 12:00 and we had a bit of time so we checked out some shops and then went of to Shibuya to meet at the dog. The dog is a little like the dog on the tuckerbox story. We met up with Lauren who Carly hadn't seen for 4 years and then walked off to Harajuku (?) to look at the shrine. On the way to the shrine, we came across some very very very very strange clothes that people were wearing. Apparently their parents do not know about what they wear as it is all secret. They all were here sitting and talking with the strangest clothes and makeup.
As we were going into the shrine, we were approached by a group of first year uni students that study english. They wanted to be our guide for the shrine so that they could practice their English skills. We accepted and off we went to the shine. For some reason, there was about 4 traditional Japanese Shinto weddings going on, and it was really interesting. We went inside the shrine where people were making wishes. What you do is throw a coin in this big box thing and then you bow two times, then clap two times and then wish. I cant remember if the last two were around the other way! For lunch we went to kaiten-zushi, which is the revolving sushi bar (a belt brings the food around and you take off what you want). I spent too much money there!!! Every train I went of I had to spend about 200 yen and we went on a lot of trains. We then walked to Kiddie land where I thought I might find some Dragon Ball Z stuff there, but to my disapointment, there was not any there :( We then caught the train again to Akihabura (Electric Town) where there are thousands of electric shops.. you can get pretty much anything electrical here. We went on another train that went to a staion I cant remember and then walked to Ginza. On the way, we had to do a survey for the town on how we rated it.. most of it we made up as we only just got there.. at the end, we got a pen! Yay! We then walked to the Sony building, where they usually keep new technology there that has not been released.. Sadly, it was under renovation and I didn't see anything new :( Ahh well, it was still pretty interesting. I will have to go back in April? when it is done. After that we caught the subway to Tokyo station to where I would be leaving for Hamamatsu. We waited around and ate a lot of Korean nori (seaweed) and waited till my shinkansen came. I had a great day and thankyou Carly for taking me around those places. Carly rang my host mum and said Matt will take the bus home (as I had done it lots of times), but when I got to the station, she was there waiting for me. After I got home, I opened my box!! Mum and Dad sent me a box of stuff from Australia.. so I was happy. Well this week was a very good week. Now I have to catch up with the emails!!
19/2/03
----------
Together with my hostdad we caught a taxi to Hamamatsu station. I had this huge bag and a backpack and he had this little bag. We met Fernando at the station and off we went on a bullet train to Tokyo. During the shinkansen trip to Tokyo, we picked up a few other exchange students through the stops at stations. Finally after 2 hours we got there. I had organised (well carly had) to meet up at Tokyo station when I was waiting for my shinkansen (i was for about an hour). Carly and I talked and I ate quickly in the time that I had. I said my goodbyes and off I was again on another shinkansen to Nigata. We were going with a huge group of about 150 Americans who go to international school here. By the time we got there is was getting a little late and all we had to do was get our skis fitted and go to our rooms.. instead we all went outside and had lots of snowball fights! That night we didn't sleep till pretty late as we were watching movies on Lalo's laptop.
20/2/03
----------
Today I skiied for the first time in my life. Mark (an Aussie Exchange student) and I were the only ones who had not skiied before and so we had special lessons to learn to ski. The teacher was very happy with our progress and by the end of the day, I was skiing really fast down the slopes (well not too fast.. yet). We spent the day going down the slopes with an instructor till he thought we were going well. At night there was night skiing available and we all went out (when it was snowing down really hard) and skiied till late. By the end of the first day, my muscles were already sore!
21/3/03
---------
Today was pretty much the same as yesterday.. a lot of skiing! I also made an igloo with Mark (check the pictures section when I get it up) and a snowman. I was getting better at skiing and I was falling over less. For a while I thought that my left leg was getting too tired to ski and that was why I couldn't turn left anymore, but I later realised that I may have had the ski shoes on the wrong feet. We all got 2000 yen each day for lunch and that was plenty to get something nice to eat.
22/3/03
In the morning I called Carly on my mobile. I was calling to tell her not to bother coming to see me on the way back through Tokyo because I would only be there for about 20 minutes. She suggested that I ask my host dad if I can go back to Hamamatsu the next day and spend Sunday in Tokyo with her. It was all ok with my hostdad and so Carly said she would meet me at the station. The day went fast skiing and skiing until I couldn't stand up from my aching muscles. We all had to be out of there by about 4:30 and then off to the station to eat dinner and then rushed off again to catch the shinkansen to Tokyo.
At 7:30 p.m. Carly found me at the station and then whisked me off to her friend's house for a little while as we still had a bit of time. We needed assistance to get to the house as Tokyo is like a maze of houses everywhere and if we tried to get there ourselves, we would soon get lost. We then went off on another train to her home station and then walked to her house. Through all of this I lugged my heavy bag around everywhere.
23/3/03
Well today was one of the best days. This morning I met Carly's host family (a bit better than 2 seconds the night before) and we ate brekkie. We had a big day ahead of us and so we left about 9 and walked through a large park which was right next to her house. Carly says that sometimes there are flee markets and bands (but none today). We decided that taking my big bag to a convenient store and getting it couriered to my house was the best idea.. I didn't want to carry it all around Tokyo all day! Now Carly, if you are reading this, please check that I have got all the station names right. I have tried to remember them, but it is a bit hard.. also tell me if I missed anything. We caught a train from Ikebukura (maybe) to Shinjuku where we went to a large observation tower that overlooked Tokyo. I have some pictures of it that will be in the pics section soon. It was a bit of a shame because it was a bit smoggy? or cloudy? so I couldn't see much on the horizon (like Mt. Fuji) but I could still see the millions of houses down below. We were planning to meet an exchange student from America that went to Japan in Carly's year at 12:00 and we had a bit of time so we checked out some shops and then went of to Shibuya to meet at the dog. The dog is a little like the dog on the tuckerbox story. We met up with Lauren who Carly hadn't seen for 4 years and then walked off to Harajuku (?) to look at the shrine. On the way to the shrine, we came across some very very very very strange clothes that people were wearing. Apparently their parents do not know about what they wear as it is all secret. They all were here sitting and talking with the strangest clothes and makeup.
As we were going into the shrine, we were approached by a group of first year uni students that study english. They wanted to be our guide for the shrine so that they could practice their English skills. We accepted and off we went to the shine. For some reason, there was about 4 traditional Japanese Shinto weddings going on, and it was really interesting. We went inside the shrine where people were making wishes. What you do is throw a coin in this big box thing and then you bow two times, then clap two times and then wish. I cant remember if the last two were around the other way! For lunch we went to kaiten-zushi, which is the revolving sushi bar (a belt brings the food around and you take off what you want). I spent too much money there!!! Every train I went of I had to spend about 200 yen and we went on a lot of trains. We then walked to Kiddie land where I thought I might find some Dragon Ball Z stuff there, but to my disapointment, there was not any there :( We then caught the train again to Akihabura (Electric Town) where there are thousands of electric shops.. you can get pretty much anything electrical here. We went on another train that went to a staion I cant remember and then walked to Ginza. On the way, we had to do a survey for the town on how we rated it.. most of it we made up as we only just got there.. at the end, we got a pen! Yay! We then walked to the Sony building, where they usually keep new technology there that has not been released.. Sadly, it was under renovation and I didn't see anything new :( Ahh well, it was still pretty interesting. I will have to go back in April? when it is done. After that we caught the subway to Tokyo station to where I would be leaving for Hamamatsu. We waited around and ate a lot of Korean nori (seaweed) and waited till my shinkansen came. I had a great day and thankyou Carly for taking me around those places. Carly rang my host mum and said Matt will take the bus home (as I had done it lots of times), but when I got to the station, she was there waiting for me. After I got home, I opened my box!! Mum and Dad sent me a box of stuff from Australia.. so I was happy. Well this week was a very good week. Now I have to catch up with the emails!!
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