30/3/03 Josh's Birthday

I was planning on sleeping in today, but Fernando and his ex-host brothers, appeared on my front doorstep to go for a ride.. I quickly scoffed down a bread roll and off I went. We rode and rode and rode, and it was not just flat roads, it was very hilly mountain roads. Everyone else had these nice sports bikes, and my bike (from my host family who is full of girls) is a girl bike which doesn't allow you to use 2nd gear and the back part of it is falling off (and also the breaks don't work very well). Apart from that, I survived and got back home safely to go onto my next adventure for the day.

My host mum had got free tickets to see the Hamamatsu orchestra in the city that day and so we went there. After I had got home and felt like turning over and dying from exhaustion, I remembered I had to ring Josh for his Birthday. We talked for about 30 minutes and after the call I watched T.V. Carly mentioned this show on her site, but if you don't read her site, then I will mention it here. A very funny show (which I cant understand much about it) is where they get a few old senile senior citizens and ask them bizare questions.. usually they say very strange and funny answers. I don't understand much of it, but I doubt many people do. There doesn't seem to ever be a winner and by the end of the show, the scores were 0, 0 ,1!!

29/3/03

Today I went Rockclimbing! This is the second time I have been now, and I have got a lot better.. but not as good as the guy that was there. He was Japan's Number. 1 rockclimber and he was literally like a monkey when he was climbing up, with arms and legs swinging this way and that way! After the rock climbing, we went to a Garlic Restaurant. Every had Garlic in it. (Just like the Monty Python Spam Sketch). Garlic Rice, Garlic Spaghetti, Garlic Garlic. By the end, we all stank horribly, but it did taste nice!

28/3/03

It is now the season (or week) for Sakura (Cherry blossoms). All around my town the sakura have bloomed and are looking fantastic. Sadly they only last for about a week and then the flower petals fall. I don't know if this only happens once a year or more. Today I rode with my host sister to our town's sakura that are all in a tunnel line beside the river. We had lunch under the sakura with heaps of other people who thought of the same thing. I will put up some pictures soon when I get some pictures of the petals falling.

27/3/03

Well I finally gave in and got my haircut today. I wasn't wanting to get a haircut because of how expensive it is in Japan. It is about $40-50 to get your hair just cut here. I didn't have to worry about the cost, because my host mum wouldn't let me pay for it :)

26/3/03

Today I had Rotary. Every week, we all stand up and sing the Rotary song together. In a video of the history of Rotary in Japan that I watched today, the Rotary club stood up and held hands in a circle while they sang. I think Carly once mentioned this before and I didn't believe her, but I do now.. and I think I'm pretty lucky :) !

Ashleigh Coleman has now joined the web page family and here is her site:
http://www.geocities.com/diximouse/

Well I have now updated my site.
There are new pictures in the pictures section from my trip to tokyo and sakado, and also my host family trip to Shirakawago.
Enjoy the new site and if there are any errors or stuff wrong with it please post a shoutout to this message.
Thanks!

Well everyone stay tuned. I will be updating this site to make it into a real site within the next few days. I will be putting up new photos and heaps of new things (I just have to think of what to put in first). I have now got access to a new Toshiba Dynabook E7 (my host mum bought one). So be prepared for a big facelift within the week.
If you have any suggestions for me to add (no josh, I already know about the thumbnails and I am working on it) please write them in the shoutouts!

Host family trip
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Last weekend our family rented a small bus to take us on our family trip. My host dad ended up not going because he was either sick or he had something important that came up (I didn't understand). We all got our own rows of seats in the mini-bus and I slept a lot of the way (seeing as it took about 5 hours because of the traffic).
The town we were going to was called shirakawago which I guess means white river town? There was still quite a bit of snow there and it looked fantastic. I will be putting up new photos soon when I update my web site (in a few days) now that I have access to a laptop. All the houses in the village had straw roofs which were made a certain way (I will put up the translation of how it is made when I get the photos up). All the wood in the houses were protected from fire by having a fire (incidently) at the base of every house and the smoke created by the fire blows up to the top and puts a sort of soot on the wood in the roof.
After staying in that tonw for a night, we then headed off to a town called takayama (tall mountain?) and we stopped off at a teddy bear museum. I think my host sister wanted to see it, so we stayed there for a little while and then headed off to the actual city part. We were all getting a bit hungry so we decided to get some of the famous ramen noodles that were there. At the ramen shop there was a line right out the door! So we waited for a long time and then finally got in to eat our lunch... by then I was wasting away! After lunch we went to check out the traditional section of the town and we bought (i didn't) heaps of souveneirs. Since my host dad couldn't come, we bought him some sake (Japanese alcohol). Then we continued our way home for another 4-5 hours in the car (lots and lots of cars).

To all,

Sorry I haven't written for ages. I haven't had much internet access (cos it is the holidays) so sorry about the lateness of emails and this update.
Trip to visit Carly
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To get to Tokyo, I had to catch a 4 hour bus (cos I am a bit cheap and didn't want to pay double the price to go by bullet train).
Before I met up with Carly, I stayed with my host mum's younger sister for a few days to check out that part of Tokyo.
Then I went to go visit Carly and she took me to the town which she lived in (Sakado) when she was an exchange student.
I was able to meet a lot of her host familes she had which I had heard a lot about. I also got to meet Minami's mum.
The next day we went to Kawagoe which is an old town famous for making japanese lollies. The food and lolly streets were good... you never buy anything, you just go and help yourself to the taste testings of all the lollies at every shop! Carly and I went shopping after for Josh's and Ben's presents, but we never found anything for Josh! Anyone got any ideas?
I stayed at Carly's house the next night and we talked to mum and dad on the phone (but we had to talk short because Carly's favourite drama was about to start!)
The next morning I had to go back on the bus (another four hours) to hamamatsu. After I got back I went to my first violin lesson... but I played pretty bad cos I hadn't practiced for about 5 days (cos I was in Tokyo) and also cos I had just got off a 4 hour bus. She was still a little bit impressed and I will have another lesson in a couple of weeks.

So what else is news...
I had my Japanese exam yesterday and it was soooo long.. I took nearly 2 periods instead of about 1 to do it, but in the end I think I got about 90-95% correct (I dont know the results yet). Tomorrow I am going to Tokyo by highway bus which will take about 4 hours. I could take the shinkansen, but it would cost about $100 as compared to $50 (so you know how I am, I'll take the cheaper way no matter the consequences). In Tokyo, I will staying for two days with my host mum's younger sister. Her daughters (Aged 17 and 18) will take me around Tokyo to check things out and also to Akihabura because I am interested in buying a laptop (when mum and dad sells my other computer... Just sell it as soon as you can please mum and dad :) ) I am thinking about this Toshiba E7 the model that has a DVD R/RW and numerous other things which I wont bore you with. After my two days in Tokyo, I will catch up with Carly for two days and she will take me around maybe to Sakado (where she stayed however many years ago). Hmm... what else? I have found out that Ben Folds may be coming to Japan in November and so I want to go see his concert (so does carly). Well thats about it! Tomorrow is my first day of 25 days holiday and so I wont be able to go to school and use their computers there for emails... so don't get upset if I don't send you an email straight away! Enjoy school/work/whatever and I'll try and write sometihng here during my hol's. Seeya.

Whats news? Yesterday went bowling with my host mum. It seems to me, most Japanese people have a natural ability for bowling... everyone was getting spares and strikes heaps around me and I was just barely getting them. (although it might have just been a lot of people there that play a lot). My first game I did pretty well getting about 3 strikes yay! but the second game.. hetakuso! Later that day I went to a concert of a friend at school. It was a choir concert and an orchestra concert. Something I liked that they played, was the songs from Star Wars :P
Today all the students have their end of year exams. I have one exam tomorrow, a Japanese exam, but I don't have any others.. and I have to go to school monday, tuesday and wednesday and sit around for the day doing nothing, while everyone does exams. Oh Well.. I probably should do some study for my exam tomorrow :)

Well I am getting the hang of Japanese school lifestyle because.... Today we had this most boring thing (god knows what it was about) and everyone went into the gym (I think cos it is the last day of school (besides exams)) and we had speakers and stuf for about 1 and a half hours. Since it was so boring, and I saw that everyone else did too (as they were all asleep) I went to sleep too :). It would be good if they allowed it at Maroondah in Year 11 Chemistry classes. In one of my biology classes, about 25/37 students were asleep by the end of the class...
Last night I got to go to kaiten sushi (the sushi with the conveyer belt to bring the plates to choose). It was again delicious as always, and I ate and ate and ate lots of ebi (shrimp) and many other things which I have no idea what they were but they were still tasty.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, everyone has exams but luckily I only have one on Tuesday. It is a Japanese exam, which shouldn't be too hard (I hope). After that, I go only my srping vacation till the 8th of April.... Too many days! I think I might have to go somewhere. Carly wants me to go to Tokyo or Sakado again. Seeing as shinkansens cost about 7,500 yen (A bit over 100 dollars) to get to Tokyo, I will probably just take the highway bus which is about half price. Well thats about all. I have bought some new kewl sony headphones and yesterday received my spending money for this month. Yep thats it. I might have a bit of trouble answering emails in the spring holidays but I will try to answer them sometime.. just dont expect an answer straight away :)

Wow, it has been really windy and stormy two days ago. Some houses were blown over (I think it was probably a dodgy house anyway) and in the city, you can find heaps of umbrellas that have been abandoned due to the wind blowing away their skins or turning them inside out.

I talked to Josh for 22 minutes, and that cost me about 450 yen.. I think about $6 Aus.. I thought it was cheaper Carly!!!
If anyone wishes to fax me anything, here is my house's fax number (053)522-3421 (I think you need to put in a country code at the start too)

Well not much else has happened.. I went to Karaoke, waited about 1 hour to go to a sushi restaurant (there were heaps of cars there, so we thought it must be a good restaurant)... and I went to see a musical concert in the city Sunday lunchtime.