The End

Today is my last day here in Japan. I thanked my school's principal and said my final goodbyes to the Kendo club. I'm really going to miss everybody. It's been a fantastic experience and everybody has been so nice and supportive here. The bottom line is, If you have a chance to go abroad, take it. Go anywhere and meet people. Establish relationships and learn about people. You won't be disappointed. If you're still in high school or younger and reading this take my advice and look into an exchange. I can recommend YFU highly. With a bit of writing, you can earn a scholarship and establish a home with a new family. And if your experience is anything like mine, you will truly become family members. Even now, I'm hoping to return to Yonago. This may sound cliche but its true. This experience has established relationships for me that will last my whole life.

 This experience changed my life.

Time in Tokyo

This Wednesday through Friday I went to Tokyo with my host family. We went because my host brother Riku left for the US for his year long exchange. (Also if you haven't heard yet, he will be staying with my family.) However, we had time to be tourists while we weren't at the airport. We visited many famous places such as the Tokyo Tower, the Tokyo Skytree, and the Kaminari Mon (Lightning Gate). In this post, I'll be sharing my time at these places.

Shibuya

Shibuya is a famous shopping district in Tokyo. I did do some shopping there, but I'll get to that later. Pictured above is Shibuya square, where hundreds of people cross at a time. The above picture was taken during a relatively light traffic time. Also pictured is the bronze statue of Hachiko in front of Shibuya station. If you don't know the story of Hachiko it can be found here.

Tokyo Skytree

Tokyo Skytree is the tallest tower in the world. The tower itself is 634 meters tall, and the observation deck the above pictures were taken from is 450 meters up. For me, a person afraid of heights this was terrifying. At the same time however, it was also breathtaking and amazing.

Tokyo Tower

The Skytree essentially replaced the Tokyo Tower. The tower itself is about 333 meters tall, shorter than Skytree's observation deck. However, I myself preferred Tokyo Tower. Since it isn't as tall, it wasn't as terrifying. It had a nicer atmosphere too. Plus there's another reason I liked it that I'll get to later.

Kaminari Mon

Kaminari Mon is one of two gates leading into a Buddhist temple. While many followers still make pilgrimages here, tourists are far more common. To be honest, it irritated me a bit how many of the tourists had no consideration for the customs. However, the area has become a major hit among tourists most likely because the many shops between Kaminari Mon and the temple.

One Piece

This is going make me look like a giant nerd but oh well. My favorite series of anything is by far the Anime/Manga series "One Piece". So when I heard that we were going to Tokyo I told my host family about a couple place famous among OP fans in Tokyo. They were glad to take me to those places. First off was a store completely devoted to OP in Shibuya.

This store was awesome it had life size statues of characters, a model of the pirate ship, and just so much stuff. Next was the Baratie, a restaurant modeled off of the restaurant within OP of the same name.

The Baratie also had character statues, and all the food was based off of characters and events within OP. It also was very tasty. Finally was One Piece Tower, a temporary event within the Tokyo Tower's lower floors. It was essentially a mini OP theme park. It was fantastic!

Important Thoughts

Tokyo was alot of fun, I really enjoyed my time there. However, I would never want to live there. There are a few reasons for this. A, Tokyo is expensive. Before my exchange many people were telling me, be careful because Japan is an expensive country. However, I can dispel this myth. Japan is not expensive, Japan's tourist attractions are expensive. Since Tokyo is essentially one big tourist attraction, it is expensive. This brings me to B: It's full of tourists. Even as a tourist myself, I felt that there were way too many tourists there. Many of the tourists were quite irritating too. C; Tokyo is crowded. You saw Shibuya square. Imagine all those people crammed into a subway train. My point is proven. While the subway was an interesting experience at first it got to be a hassle within the second day. (It's expensive too) Finally, D: It's hard to sleep. Tokyo is noisy and bright even at night. Like New York, Tokyo is a city that never sleeps. Don't get me wrong, I loved my time in Tokyo. However, I'm truly glad I got to live in Yonago instead.

Final Days of School

Things are beginning to come to a close. Last Friday was my last day of school here in Japan. Since I realized I didn't do a great job explaining everyday school life here I figured now is as good a time as ever.

After biking to school, Riku and I would park our bikes here. As you can see there are a lot of bikes. Biking to school is the most popular mode of transportation to school.

From the bike parking its a 161 stair climb to get to the school. All students enter through here to get to the genkan.

This is the genkan. As with most Japanese homes, you do not wear you shoes in school. Most students wear specific slippers that I believe are sold to them by the school. However, since my feet were way too big, I wore a pair of Nike slides that I brought from the US.

From the genkan, Riku and I walk to our classroom through the main hall where the above two murals are displayed. The one on top is made of many tiles. On each tile there is a message written by a student, myself included.

This is our classroom. Unlike in American schools, the students in Japan have a homeroom where they stay most of the day while the teachers move from class to class. Also pictured is the AC. The entire school is not air conditioned. Rather, individual classrooms have their own units. Also, these units are only used if it becomes really hot. Most of the time students simply opened the windows.

Every day after a short home room class, the students would clean the school. In Japanese highschools, there are no janitors. Half of my class would clean the classroom while the other half would clean the main hall.

During classes that were deemed too difficult for me to understand, I went to the library. While there I either read low level books in Japanese, or practiced writing Kanji, the Chinese characters that Japan also uses.

After school ends, most students go to clubs. I was no exception. I went to kendo club everyday after school. The above video was taken during parts of the practice deemed too dangerous for a beginner like me. Tomorrow is my last practice with them. While I'll miss everyone at school I'll probably miss my kendo teammates the most. Probably almost as much as my host parents.

Yesterday I went to karaoke with them and it was so much fun. We stayed there for about 5 hours just having a great time. Of all the people I don't want to leave behind, these guys are at the very top of the list.

Fun With the Kyuudo Club

My host brother, Riku is a part of the school's kyuudo club. So, when the club does something, I get invited along. Last Saturday, Riku invited the club over to his house and we all gathered to watch The Exorcist. In all honesty it was my first time watching it.

I'm going to be real and say I thought the movie was hilarious. We watched it in English with Japanese subtitles, so there wasn't an issue of anyone not understanding. Most of the girls were scared and so was Riku. It was a great time though, I made alot of friends in the kyuudo club that day. So, when I was invited to go bowling with them last Monday, I immediately said yes.

My bowling was sub par, but in the past few years I believe that was my 2nd time going bowling so I expected that. After bowling we went to eat at Big Boy's. I was kinda surprised Big Boy's even existed in Japan. However, the menu is very different. In Japan, Big Boy's is a steakhouse. The vast majority of the menu was steak which was a bit expensive. So I ordered my meal off of the sides menu. I had fried squid, fried chicken, and french fries. It was great! After that, Riku, and two other kyuudo members, Sosshi and Itsuki (who I've become good friends with), and I went to a game center. We played some arcade games for a while and took part in a bit of Japanese culture known as Purikara. Purikara is basically a photobooth meant for teenage girls. It takes photos and automatically does makeup, makes eyes bigger, and removes any blemishes. So when guys do it it becomes kinda comical. Some of the pictures can be seen below. In all the pictures, the one on the left is Sosshi and the one on the right is Itsuki.

I made food!

The title says it all. The other night I made takoyaki with my host family and tonight I made okonomiyaki with my host family. Here, I'm going to walk you through the process of what I made.

Takoyaki

This stuff is delicious. Basically it's a ball shaped pancake with octopus and other fillings with a special sauce and Japanese mayo (which tastes very different from American mayo).

The first few steps are simple, prepare the batter and fillings then oil and fill each cup in the pan.

After waiting a few minutes a skewer is used to check if the bottom of each one has hardened. If so, the skewer is used to rotate the bottom to the top to thoroughly cook the entire takoyaki. 

Once cooked sauce, mayo and seaweed is added on top. Looks good huh?

Okonomiyaki

To be honest, the taste of Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki is very similar. They are both basically pancakes with special sauce and mayo. However the differences come in how they are made and what goes inside. For Takoyaki, they are ball shaped and there's always octupus in side. Takoyaki literally means fried octopus. Okonomiyaki on the other hand, is flat and you can put whatever you want in it. Okonomiyaki can be roughly translated to fried "whatever you like". 

In Okonomiyaki, you can put larger fillings on the skillet first before adding the batter. In my case, we added bacon. Because you know, everything's better with bacon.

Next, batter and some smaller fillings are added. In my case, we added shrimp and squid.

From there on out, it's just like cooking any other pancake. When it seems ready, flip it!

Once cooked, the process is exactly the same as takoyaki, add sauce, mayo, and seaweed

The two foods above are my two favorite foods. They really are that good.