I LOVE HOLIDAYS :D

ヘロー！！　ミンアゲンキ？

At the moment im on spring break, and i sound so American when i say that too. But still, im enjoying not waking up at 6 oclock for school each day!!

firstly i was asked what 'kanji' was by my trusty grandad last week when i mentioned it in the other post. Kanji are those weird symbols/characters that Japanese and Chinese write in. E.g. 誕生日学校場所公園貸借登　if you force yourself to study them and remember them (like im trying) its not so difficult. Anyway....

Last week Monday and Tuesday, they were just normal school days, nothing much happene. But on Wednesday the holidays started and schol finished at about 12ish. After school i went to my friends house with a few other people and we just chilled at his place before i left to go home, it was good. I showed them the scrapbook i made for the first time (because up until now i hadnt showed any friends, only host family and teachers, basically adults in general) and even though i was embarassed they really loved it so that was a relief!

Thursday i did nothing but stay at home and do homework, the people i wantd to hang out with were busy so i kind of had nothing to do but it was fine.
Friday morning i went andn had a Japanese lesson with my tutor at Starbucks (as usual) and stayed there for a few hours.
Friday and Saturday night i went out to dinner with my host family, yes 2 nights ina row. It was because im changing families this Saturday (3rd) so it was a kind of farewell thing.

Sunday i met up with a girl from Thailand who was an AFS exchange student in 2008. She came back in February to continue studying and staying here until May. She goes to my school and because she doesnt like speaking in English we have japanese conversations. We hung out for most of the day, took purikura (those cool photo things) ate at 3 different places and walked around shopping areas, it was a good day.

Monday i went to the hairdressers (first time!!) with Minami, (girl who did an exchange in Australia remember?) and i got a different cut, and colour.



Everyone likes it so thats good. I kind of let the hairdresser do what she wanted and it turns out Japanese Hairdressers know their stuff!! Then i told Minami to cut her hair, and she was like "umm....ok then" so she got her hair cut after me by the same lady. I really like that lady she had skill. But anyway, Minami's hair was probably almost halfway down to her back, and she had it cut really short, into a bob (not touching her shoudlers) it looked good.

THEN we went and had some cake at a cake shop where you watch through a glass room of these ladies cooking so many cakes!



Took some purikura aswell of course! Its pretty much something every teenager does when they hang out with their friends in Japan, almost like tradition...



Tuesday i went to another lesson with my tutor at Starbucks. Because of the holidays i had 2 lessons a week rather than one. Then after the lesson i met up with a girl from Australia, who is completely Japanese, but Enlgish was her first language. And she graduated last year like me but living in Sapporo this year working. Shes not an exchange student though. Her name is Ellen. We bought some really cheap Japanese music (im talking 3 CDs for roughly $12.50!) and took purikura, ate at a REALLY nice Japanese restaurant and went to a supermarket. FUN day!

Now the thing with Japanese music is, i dont like it. At all. It either all pretty much sounds the same or there is no beat/rythym that you can enjoy. So Ellen forced me to buy music and try it out (she recommened CDs for me) i took them home, listened to them expecting it to be really good! But ALL of it was c**p. I was so let down because i had high expectations for these. I dont think im meant to be a Japanese music person. But its ok because i have my awesome english music to listen to. And everywhere in Japan (eg shops, restaurants, on the radio, etc) are ALWAYS, i mean ALWAYS playing the latest english songs! Japanese love English music and some even prefer it over Japanese music. I may or may not have told you that before i cant remember...

This is a purikura i took with Ellen, we dressed up as Manga characters!



Wednesday (Today) i went to Ai's house for the afternoon. Her family is also hosting the American Rotary exchange student, so pretty much all of us exchange students went over there today, it was good. AND!!! guess what?! it was unexpected, BUT, the host dad showed took me into the traditional room in the house and showed me a real samurai outfit on display! There was the helmet, sword and everything! AND THEN he told me he was going to put it on me!!!! so as the other exchange students watched, he dressed me up as a samurai it was SO COOL!!!!!!!!! i have heaps of photos but theyre are not on the computer yet so i will show you next time. But seriously it felt amazing to be in a samurais fighting gear, i felt unstoppable! haha
He gave me the sword aswell, i loved it! And suprising, it wasnt that heavy...either that, or i just got strong...

Tomorrow its an American girls birthday so we are all getting together and celrbrating it western style! Should be good. And its 12:20 in the morning at the moment so maybe i should go to bed, its technically Thursday, but ive been going to bed really late everyday in the holidays like i would in Australia, im young, its what we do.

I have to mention a few things...
First, thankyou nan and granadad for sending me an easter card, my family didnt understand what easter was so i had to explain it to them. But thank you very much!
And BIG thanks to mum for sending me HEAPS of creme eggs in the mail!! my favourite kind of easter chocolate!! yum

Oh and also, how do you like the new look of my blog?? i was bored a few days ago so messed about with the settings and made it look alot better!

ok im going to do some studying then go to bed! Goodnight, おやすみ～！！