Pictures From New Year's Day and Winter Break

A traditional New Years decoration.

The New Year decorations on my host family's door.

The pile of clothing that came inside of my fukubukoros.

My New Year's money came inside of these envelopes.

This soup includes mochi and many people eat mochi on New Year's.

I think this is sake and they drink a little bit of it on New Year's day inside of those little red bowls.

A closer look at what is inside the boxes.

The expensive boxes filled with food that people eat on New Year's day.

Christmas cake that had real gold flakes on top.

Bowling on Christmas.

Winter Break and New Year's

My winter break officially started on the 20th of December. The day before winter break Saturday the 19th, everyone went to school and they held a ceremony just saying it was time for break and we had a little Christmas service as well. We then cleaned our classroom and had to take everything home! I did not realize how many books I had and I am now dreading bringing everything back once school starts up once again. On my first day of winter break I went to the Rotary Christmas party. Everyone packed into one bus to head up to Unzen because there was snow there and people couldn't go in cars. However there was not as much snow at all compared to Minnesota. At this onsen in Unzen we had a buffet listened to some speeches and all of the exchange students performed a dance called Bon Dori and we also sang the song "Silent Night." We all had to bring one gift to exchange. The party ended with playing a game of bingo and getting to choose what present we wanted. Then after everyone received a present we were able to open them. I received a cup from Starbucks that can hold coffee and tea to go. I was happy that my present went to a girl I thought that only the exchange students were exchanging presents. I bought a Christmas Minne Mouse bow from Disneyland while I was there. It ended working out perfectly and the girl who will be an exchange student next year ended up loving it. We ended up going home early so a couple of the other exchange students and I went to karaoke in Isahaya. I didn't end up singing that much because my throat hurt. Chelsea and I then took the train back to Nagasaki. I rested a lot on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. On the evening on the 23rd though I had a Christmas party to go to and I enjoyed it very much. On Christmas I woke up and ate breakfast. Then I was able to talk to my cousins on Skype. It was so nice to visit with my family on Skype . I then opened up my packages that I got. I had three packages to open. I read one of my magazines I received and snacked on some of the treats that I received. It was a very peaceful Christmas morning. When my host parents were finished with work my host father took me bowling. I lost every game that we played but that was ok because my score got better every time. We also played air hockey. When we returned home we had a piece of Christmas cake. Christmas in Japan is very quiet and not much happens. People mostly celebrate by eating Christmas cake. My host mother explained that Christmas in Japan is mostly a holiday for couples. For Christmas dinner we went to my favorite Indian restaurant. On the 26th of December I went with Chelsea to the movie "Up" in Japanese, shopping, and out for Italian food. The movie "Up" here is only in Japanese right now. We didn't mind though because we had both seen it previously and it was a chance for us to study Japanese. On Sunday the 27th I met up with a few of my classmates and we went ice skating. It made me miss Minnesota. One of my friends had never been ice skating before so I taught her how to ice skate. By the end of our time ice skating she was doing so well. The next day I was also once again busy with my friends. We went to karaoke and was there for about four hours! I can't believe how long kids in Japan go to karaoke for. I get bored after an hour or two. On Tuesday I once again went out with Chelsea and we saw the movie "2012" in English. I was a little scared but ended up enjoying it. The next two days people were busy running around preparing for the new year. I went to go get a haircut and my host mother said that many people in Japan go to get haircuts for the new year so I was happy that I could participate in that tradition! On New Year's Eve we ate soba (long buckwheat noodles). It is traditional to eat soba on New Year's Eve because it symbolizes longevity. I did not stay up late on New Year's Eve. However I did watch the New Year's music program on the t.v. for a little while with my host family. It is the last concert of the year and all the famous bands and singers get together and have one last concert. The costumes and performances were amazing. I did not get to see my favorite band though because they came on too late and I already went to bed. On the morning of New Years day my host mother and I woke up early to go buy fukubukoros. Fukubukoros are boxes at stores and they put random items in them and you can buy them for $50 or $100. There are various prices. The $100 have around $300 to $500 of merchandise inside of them. At least the two that I bought were like that. The thing is there are only a limited number of fukubukors and you don't know what is in the fukubukors. People were lined up outside of the mall a while before the mall opened and when the doors finally opened people ran to their favorite stores to get a fukubukoro. I bought the last $100 fukubukoro at my favorite store. There were only ten and then buy the time I finished buying my fukubukoro at my favorite store they were all gone and so was the other store's fukubukoro that I wanted. However I did find another store that I liked and bought one more fukubukoro. There were so many people you could get swallowed in the crowd. When I got home I was so anxious to see what I got inside the bags. One of the fukubukoros that I got was really good and I liked everything inside. The one that I was expecting to like the most was quite a disappointment. It was from my favorite store so and I like everything in the store but I did not like many things inside the fukubukoro so I gave some of it to my host mother. When we returned home it was almost lunch time so we headed over to my host mother's parents house. They live only a little ways up the street. They are so nice and my host grandfather is very funny. They had these boxes filled with various foods and it cost around $200. I was so surprised. In between lunch and dinner I studied for a bit and my host father went through all their New Year cards. People send new year cards here out to almost everyone they know wishing them a happy new year. I received one New Year card from my school teacher. It looks like so much work. My host mother said she sent out around 200! We then went to my host fathers parents house which is right next to my host family's home. We once again ate one of the expensive New Year's food boxes. On New Year's day I received money from both my host parents and my host mothers parents. It is called otoshidama. Children receive this money from their grand parents and parents up until they are grown up and have a job. New Year's in Japan usually lasts for three days. So there is a lot of celebrating going on. The day after New Year's we went to the shrine to pray. Most people in Japan go to the shrine to pray around New Year's so there was a huge crowd. After we were finished praying we went to go get our fortune. We went to my host mother's parents house again for dinner because her brother was in town with his wife and his son. They lived in the United States for two years so they spoke English very well. I had a fun time talking to them and we also played a couple of games. It was nice to have that little family gathering because it made New Year's feel more like Christmas in the United States. On Sunday the 4th my host mother and I went shopping because there were many New Year's sales going on. Every store had a sale and so many things were marked down very low. We also went to go see the movie "Public Enemies." I enjoyed it a lot. This next week is my last week of break and I am a little bit excited to go back to school once again. Akemashite Omedetou gozaimasu! Happy New Year!

Tokyo

I watch the show "Sazae san" sometimes on Sunday's to help me with my Japanese. At Fuji Television there is a whole store dedicated to the show. I bought a pin for my Rotary blazer there.

Fuji Television

Venus Fort. The beautiful outlet mall in Odaiba.

The view from one of the top floors at Fuji Television.

Harijuku

Ichi Mara Kyu. This is where many of the young girl fashions are.

The view from our hotel room in Tokyo.

Our hotel room in Tokyo.

The night electrical light parade at Disney Land.

At Minne's house.

Me with my honey popcorn and Pooh bucket.

The Candle Light show. You can't see very well but that is Mickey and Minnie.

Our room at the Tokyo Disney Land Hotel.

Night at the Tokyo Disney Land Hotel.

Fuji san

Early on Tuesday morning my host parents and I drove to the Nagasaki airport in the town of Omura. At the airport my host mother and I caught the plane to the Haneda Airport in Tokyo. On the airplane ride I was anxiously awaiting for my Rotary trip to Tokyo to begin! The airplane ride though was quite an experience because I got to see Fuji san! It was so beautiful! From the Haneda Airport we took a shuttle bus to Tokyo Disney Resort. The trip was supposed to take an hour but the first sight of our first destination was of this huge castle like building. At first we didn't realize it because the trip was supposed to take longer but it was our hotel! The lobby was decorated so fancy and there was Disney things everywhere. Once we left our bags at the desk we headed for the Disney tram to take us to Disney Sea. Disney Sea was so lovely the entrance part of the park was decorated like Venice Italy. Inside of the amazing buildings that made it look like Italy was Disney Sea's hotel. For lunch we kept walking straight over to the part of Disney Sea that was built like America's water front. We stopped for lunch at the New York part of the water front and ate at the New York Deli. We proceeded to do some shopping and went to the other part of the American water front which was Cape Cod. We then watched the show the Legend of Mythica. It was performed in the water right in the middle of the whole park. It was a pretty amazing show. One thing I really wanted to do was ride the Venetian Gondolas. So we rushed right after the show to take a place in the long line for the gondolas. I thought it was worth the wait. I really felt like I was in Italy riding a Gondola with the scenery. I think the people who were paddling the gondola were giving a tour of the Italy part of Disney Sea but I didn't quite understand what was going on. Later that night many people had returned home so I was able to enjoy many of the rides because the lines were so short. I was too scared to go on the big rides by myself though. At the end of the night we watched Disney Sea's Christmas show. It was so pretty. The name of the show was Candle Light Reflections and it was the last year that they were doing it. All the Disney characters came out on these boats with tons of candles and the candles were the only light in the park until a big glowing Christmas tree emerged from the sea. It was such a pretty show. Finally at the very end came fireworks and the fireworks were so amazing! I enjoyed Disney Sea so much because it was more of a grown up version of Disney Land. Also the scenery was so amazing and in some parts of the park I really felt like I was in Italy and then in others I really felt like I was in America. The next day my host mother and I got up early and began our day at Disney Land. We walked straight out of our hotel to the entrance of Disney Land because it was so close. Earlier we could see people lining up at Disney Land from our hotel room before it opened. First we went out to breakfast and I had a Mickey Mouse pancake. Then right away I went on many of the rides I wanted to go on. It was early enough in the morning where many of the lines were pretty short. It was so cool because many of the rides were changed for Christmas. The Haunted Mansion was changed to be like the movie "The Night Before Christmas" and the ride It's a Small World was changed to have many Christmas decorations and the music was Christmas music in different languages. While I waited in line I got to munch on some honey popcorn. Everyone in Disney Land and Disney Sea had these buckets filled with popcorn that they put around their neck. I didn't buy one at Disney Sea because I wanted the Pooh bucket at Disney Land and inside of the bucket came honey popcorn it was so good! They had so many other flavors of popcorn at both parks because it was the main snack to have. There was soy sauce popcorn, honey popcorn, curry popcorn, chocolate popcorn, strawberry popcorn, black pepper popcorn, and caramel popcorn. We met my host mother's friend at Disney Land because she did not live to far away and she had been to Disney Land many times so she was our guide for the day.We went on more rides and ate lunch. At night there was this amazing parade that consisted of lights. It was so pretty and I was surprised how many floats they had. Once again the night ended with an amazing display of fireworks. My host mother and I returned back to our hotel exhausted but before we went to bed we stopped by the hotel store one last time to pick up some more souvenirs for people. I have noticed in Japan it is very import to give gifts to people and my host mother got so many souvenirs to give to many people she knew! It was so nice. In the morning we woke up early to get all of our stuff packed up. We had two boxes of souvenirs that we sent back to Nagasaki! We then went and had breakfast at this restaurant in the hotel with an amazing buffet. It was delicious. After breakfast we left and went to the train station where we took the train to Shinagawa in Tokyo. The train had so many people on it and many people had to stand for such a long time. After arriving in Shinagawa we once again gave our bags to the front desk and headed out to go visit Shibuya and Harijuku. I loved the energy of Tokyo and the fashions in Tokyo. The trains however seemed very confusing and it seemed to take a long time to get from place to place. My host mother told me that you had to be really careful about what train you get on because you could be in real trouble if you got on the wrong one. I really loved Harijuku because there were so many shops with such cool fashions! One thing I noticed about the fashions in Japan is that many of the stores especially in Tokyo carry the same clothing or the same fabric but different pieces of clothing. For example, I bought a dress in Fukuoka and then later in Nagasaki I went to a store where there was a skirt and it was the same pattern as my dress! In Harijuku there was an H&M, a Forever 21, and a Kitson. There were so many people there especially in Forever 21. The Forever 21 in Tokyo seemed more upscale than the other ones that I have seen and I was really amazed. The next day it rained so much so we couldn't do much sight seeing. We went to Odaiba. In Odaiba there was an outlet mall called Venus Fort. It was the reopening day so it was supposed to have really good sales. The inside of the mall was so cool. I will post a picture of it. We didn't stay very long because I was tired of shopping so we went to Fuji Television where most of the stuff I watch on TV takes place. We were able to see the studio where all of the talents come to perform. At the time however there were no talents performing they were only preparing the stage for the show that night. We also went up to one of the top floors and we saw Tokyo's skyline. It was so pretty but the view was a little bit blurred because of the rain. I was even able to see a little bit of the Tokyo tower. That was our last stop before we took the train back to the Haneda Airtport and then left Tokyo for Nagasaki. It was a wonderful Rotary trip to Tokyo!

Birthday Celebration

Nawael came to Nagaski with her friend from school the day before her birthday so since we had the day off we all decided to get together and celebrate. Both Chelsea and Yuka came too. First we all went out to eat. We went to a soba restaurant and my meal was soba and tempura. Then we went and spent the rest of the day doing karaoke. Here is the picture that we took at the mall where they have tons of Christmas decorations up. This mall is also where the train station was so this is where we all said goodbye.

Sasebo

Here we are at the Huis Ten Bosch train station.

The Huis Ten Bosch hotel.

Yesterday I took the train to Sasebo with the other exchange students Nawael and Chelsea. Chelsea and I got on the train at around 10 in the morning and then Nawael got on 30 minutes later from her town that she currently lives in. On the way to Sasebo it was nice to be able to chat with them about our exchanges and stuff that we were experiencing or having a hard time with so far. About an hour later we then arrived in a town called Haiki where our friend Yuka from ROTEX picked us up to go teach us a traditional Japanese fan dance. We are supposed to be performing this dance on the 20th of December at the Rotary Christmas party/orientation. There was another girl there too learning the dance with us. She is going to be an exchange student next year. We practiced the dance for about 40 minutes. It was fairly easy because the movements in the dance repeated over and over again. It was a good thing that it did not take very long to learn because we were all so hungry. We took the bus to the mall in the town I think we were still in Haiki. Both Haiki and Sasebo are smaller towns than Nagasaki. We ate at a restaurant which had many options for everyone. I ate an omelet with shrimp and spinach in it. After lunch we were able to shop around for a bit and then we walked to catch a shuttle to the onsen in Sasebo. The onsen a Japanese hot spring. We all took a nice long hot bath. There was both an outside one and an inside one. I preferred the outside one because we could see the view of Huis Ten Bosch which is a residential style resort modeled after a Dutch town. We could mostly only see the hotel of Huis Ten Bosch but the hotel building is amazing! I asked my host father today if we could go and he said yes! I can't wait to see more of Huis Ten Bosch. We also enjoyed the dry sauna and the steam room. However after a while it got too hot and my head started to hurt. By the time we were finished though it was almost time to catch our train back home. After the train arrived back at the station my host mother was there to pick me up and we went out to eat at this restaurant called Afternoon Tea. It was a cute little restaurant and in a way it kind of reminded me of a restaurant in New York City, which was nice. I ordered the pasta set so I received pasta and a roll. The set also came with a piece of cake of your choice and tea of your choice. They had so many options. I chose chamomile apple tea with a small piece of banana bread. It was nice to sit there and enjoy my dessert and tea while listening to Christmas music. It seems as though these days any place with Christmas music I find myself feeling more at home and finding comfort in it. This week I was at Starbucks twice and it was so nice to sit there drinking chamomile tea and listening to the christmas music!

Omura

Making soba.

Making mochi.

This picture was taken on the restaurants deck. The sea is in the background, it is a little hard to see in the picture.

My host family took me to a town called Omura a while ago. The town is right by the sea and the Nagasaki airport. In Omura we went to this restaurant and ate the buffet they had. We got to sit out on the deck and there was a great view of the sea. After lunch we wandered over to the ice cream shop where they had homemade ice cream. I had sweet potatoe ice cream it was so delicious. The flavors of ice cream here are all so unique. One kind of ice cream they have every where in Japan is green tea. There was also a homemade bread shop we went to as well. They had sweet potatoe bread so my host family bought some and it tasted so good! There were so many people gathered there at this place in Omura. It had a green house, ice cream shop, bread shop, restaurant, vegetable shop, some stands for various foods, and a small petting zoo. After enjoying our ice cream we watched some people make mochi and soba. Soba is a noodle made from buckwheat flour. Soba is served differently chilled and hot. When it is chilled it is generally served on a bamboo tray with a type of soy sauce that you dip it into. Hot soba is often served as a soup. I have only eaten chilled soba so far. The way to eat your soba is to slurp the noodles! Next my host family stopped in to buy some fresh vegetables and then we drove home.

Oden Party

Two weeks ago my host family and I went to one of their friends houses for an oden party. Oden is a Japanese dish that the Japanese like to eat to warm up in the winter. Inside oden is usually konnyaku, boiled eggs, radish, tofu, mochi, and fish cakes mixed in with a soy broth. It is really hot broth so it warms you up quickly. People like to eat oden with hot mustard. A big pot sat over a hot plate with all the ingredients boiling and we could take out whatever we wanted to eat. They also had pizza delivered for me but I really like oden so I didn't eat much of the pizza. The apartment was downtown. People in Japan call those apartments "mansions." The view was so beautiful because of all the lights in Nagasaki.