Japan so far.

Japan has been so much fun so far. All of the people I met, I hope to remember. There are so many and they have all been so nice to me. From the woman I sat next to on the airplane who was a Japanese teacher and was willing to help me on the plane ride to the Aoki's for letting me stay in their beautiful house. Even, Manami-san who has helped us set up alien registration, a bank account, get cell phones and then help us get our phones operating, our tutors and the future CSU exchange students. Even the Internation Student Center office has had to put up with me for almost everyday that we've had class so far, because I have had so many questions. They know me already. In just 3 weeks, I have had so many fun and funny experiences and met awesome people.

The unbelievable feeling of being in a country that I never thought I'd get to see in person still hasn't worn off. It's such a fascinating country with so many facets and traditions.

It's been fun trying to settle into a country that I've never been before. Luckily, we live close to Yamazawa, which I think of as the Japanese Rite Aid with a grocery floor and Jujiya, which also has necessities. It was fun to discover the Japanese Wal-mart, Jusco, with the Latvian exchange students who showed us where the stop for the free bus to Jusco was. Before we bought any dishes for cooking, we ate a restaraunt where you order via vending machine and you give the ticket to the waiter. You can get anything in Japan via vending machines. Every half block, there is a vending machine or three. (There are a bunch of coke ones too that I took a picture of for Mom and I got a Coke can just for her.) Just watching TV to figure out weather and news is interesting. We like to watch the kids' shows such as 英語であそぼ, which means "Let's play in English." and Battle Spirits.

I have been the navigator by looking for landmarks to help us find our way. We live close to a rainbow tower, which is the 映画館, movie theater and also by a 7/11 (which is way better here than in America. They have the best melon bread and anpan!). It took us a while to figure out all of the twists and turns to walk from the 山形国際交流会館, the International House, to 山形大学, Yamagata University.

It was so intense to see the old castle in かじょ公園. It is one of the last remaining examples of earlyEdo period of the early 1300s. Seeing an ancient Japanese castle was in the top ten things that I never thought I'd get to see in person. I'm still in awe that I can walk 20 minutes to see it. Most of the castle is destroyed, but the wall still remains. It is the best place in Yamagata City to see 花見, cherry blossom viewing, because it has over 1,500 sakura trees!

So... unfortunately, I'm not just here for vacantion. About classes, it has been a struggle since I found out that there is even a placement 試験, test. Let me just start out by saying, that the placement test was not even close to being an accurate display of our skill with Japanese. I was so dissappointed with myself that I only made it into Upper Elementary Japanese after 2 1/2 years of study. After going to the first class of Japanese 2, I felt a lot more confident in my Japanese. I was a star student! That just isn't right. I was far above even the best student in the class. My work was being used as the sheet for otehr students to check their own work. I knew I was in too low of a level. They still weren't even using kanji on a regular basis.

I decided to start going to the Intermediate classes instead and talked to the woman in charge of my placement, 黒沢先生, Kurosawa-sensei. She said that I was allowed to try going to the intermediate classes and if both the intermediate sensei and I thought that was a good level for me, I could take it. Well even the intermediate was easy. We knew pretty much all of the grammar points. Where we're a little weak is all of the grammar. This is how we began to realize that the placement test wasn't at all accurate. Beecken-sensei taught us so much grammar, so quickly and efficiently that we are way ahead in grammar points. Ah well. They will help me with my listening and vocabulary. The only hard class is going to be kanji, because even the context clues for new kanji are with more new kanji. The best class will definitely be the Japanese Culture class. Our first class, we just walked to go see Sakura nad that was it!

Things done so far:
*We watched Okuribito with the Latvian exchange students, which is a movie that is set in Yamagata. Since Yamagata is considered small and rural by Japanese standards (which it's not!), they are all excited about it.

*Become an official alien resident of Japan and fileld out forms in really complicated Japanese. Thank you Manami-san! We would be dead without her or worse. She has saved us so many times. We're going to get her a good gift before we leave. She is our first 日本人の友達, Japanese friend.

*We got cell phones and went shopping at a Japanese Toys'r'us to get some board games for the apartment. It was fun to do it with Manami-san, who thought we were really funny. Plus we found the Mottainai book that Beecken-sensei read us and bought it! We were so excited that we e-mailed Beecken-sensei about it.

*I bought a new battery for my camera because I can't find out what is wrong with it. Unfortunately, it wasn't the battery. So, I spent $50 on a new one for no reason. I'll keep using it until I find out what is wrong with it and why it keeps flashing the evil orange light when I take a picture. It hasn't stunted the camera's performance at all. So, who knows?

*Did laundry and for the first time ever, used a clothes lines and air dried it. I miss having a dryer!!! Little did I realize how spoiled I am with dryer-access lol.

*We got to meet our Japanese tutors and the two students who are studying at CSU next semester (Hideto and Rina). We are already excited to help them out in Fort Collins!

*We got to take an "American-style" photo with a bunch of Koreans. We love the Koran foriegn exchange students. They are so funny. It is really amazing how people get so excited to hear that we are from America. America is considered fashionable and popular. I see so many English words on t-shirts, advertisements and buildings, because it is fashionable to have English, uch like we see a lot of Kanji on American clothing. They also want to practice their English and if you respond in Japanese, no matter how simple it is, they think it is amazing and say that we are really good at Japanese. So many want to ask us questions and take pictures. We haven't noticed any other foreign exchange students get quite the same reception we do, not even the Latvians who are white.

*We scared a group of little kids. We were walking behind them to go get some lunch. It was a slow trickle of little kids that began to realize that there were three white girls behind them. Once all of them realized it, they all started giggling. When we said hello to them in Japanese they started giggling harder, then screamed and ran away. We have even seen a group of boys wait to cross the street away from us so that they could say hello to us. They were pushging each otehr to go across the street, but others were pulling them back to wait for us. Today, I had a little boy come up by me and say English in Japanese and then he said "hello." His dad told him to practice his English by saying what is name was. It was cute cuz he got shy in the middle of the sentence and ran away. Its kind of like we are celbrities to them for being American.

*We got to see にんげんしょぎ, human shogi. Shogi is considered the Japanese equivalent to chess. Human shogi is similar to Wizard's chess in Harry Potter. It was a big festival in Tendo that we went to with one of our tutors and one of the future CSU student. It was so much fun and it was so nice of them to take us there. We had a lot of fun getting to know each other better and to watch all of the dances and the shogi. I have lots of videos and pictures!

Things to do:
*We are all participating in a festival during Golden Week where we do a traditional relay race where two people carry a 20kilogram apparatus and run. You dress up in costume and there are awards for quickest time, best costume, best performance and such. We are the 外国Cats, Gaikoku Cats. Gaikokujin means foreigner and since we are all foreign exchange students who will be dressed as cats, that's our name. The girl from Estonia, Angie, came up with it.

* See the Yamagata soccer team in action. There is a home game next weekend and there are advertisements for them everywhere.

*There is a circus coming throught! We want to go to that.

*We're excited to be going to an 温泉, onsen (Japanese hot spring), for class!

I will upload pictures and videos as soon as I am able!