Disney Land || Zoo || Sakura || TV Stations

Finally stopped being lazy and uploaded photos on Facebook / made a blog!!!!
Well half the reason was because i never have energy, but still heres your blog youve been waiting for.....

Its the end of May, already its bee 4 months even though it doesnt feel like that at all! Definately going way to quick.....a bit upsetting...

But ive done so much this month and been to many places, so its been good! At the start of May i went to Tokyo from Saturday the 8th to Monday the 10th. I went with 2 other people, a young girl from rotary and a Korean guy who is friends with my first host dad, it was good because they were looking forward to this as much as me haha. It was an early morning Saturday as i had to catch the train from where i lived to the airport, then catch a 9'oclock plane to Tokyo. We arrived at about 11ish, then went straight to DISNEY SEA!! we left our suitcases in lockers they have there. I was soooooo excited for this weekend i felt like a kid again!! We stayed at Disney Sea until about 8o'clock that night. During the afternoon we went on various rides, some casual, some a bit extreme haha
I really loved the atmosphere and pretty sure i had a smile on my face the whole day.

Then we got back to the hotel at about 9 at night and went to bed straight away, we were extremely exhausted and had to be up early the next morning for DISNEY LAND!!
Sunday - I got up at 7:30, quickly had breakfast at the free buffet then went back to my room, got ready and we arrived at Disney Land at about 9:30 - we then spent the rest of the day there until around 7PM. Disney LAnd was definately better and way more fun! For some reason, even though it was crowded, the longest we waited for in line for rides was 50 minutes or less. Therefore we had plenty of time for the rides, and even went on a couple twice, it was so much fun, yet exhausting! One of my favourite rides was called "Splash mountain" where a group of people sit in this log looking boat, go through a nice river with disney characters either side of the river singing songs and making you feel happy/relxed, then you get to the end where you slide down this steep waterfall/rapids looking slope and water splashed everywhere!! luckily, i was sitting at the front of the boat, so i had the best experience, and got saturated when the boat fell! Unfortunately i dont have photos of it (or any from Disney Sea) because the memroy card wont work on this computer....

There was also a roll-coaster type ride called "Space mountain" where you can see anything and youre thrown around the pitch black room with holographic space scenery around you.....was quite cool.

During lunch time, around 12ish, there was a Disney parade going through the main area! i just stood there watching them dance and sing and taking photos of it - definately a good memory!!









I also bought alot of souvenirs for my friends, and myself of course. I think i was shopping for about 3 hours in the big souvenir street they had as you walk in the front gates...





I was so exhausted Sunday night, and slept on the plane back to Sapporo Monday morning, therefore i didnt have school that day. But all in all, an awesome weekend!!!!





Acouple weeks ago i went with my school counsellor and 3 other foreign students from my school to Maruyama Zoo (Maruyama is like an area in Sapporo, kind of like a suberb...) and it was really cool, BECAUSE i saw sooo many animals for the first time. I saw giraffes, hippos, lions/tigers upclose, different kinds of monkeys (hilarious), different kinds of bireds, all different kinds of big cats, deers, different types of BEARS! (including polar bears), wolves, penguins and seals AND they had a kangaroo pen, i was pretty suprised by that! But it was so funny because 2 of the males were fighting, it got pretty intense, all the Japanese were crowsing around the pen taking photos and i was like yeah AUSSIE PRIDE! haha









This little baby on its mums back was so cute, and it was so crazy swinging around everywhere like it just had a can of red bull!! haha







While we were at the zoo there were also a few primary schools there as an excursion. i kind of felt sorry for these kids wearing this uniform because it was embarrassing haha little tiny shorts, a bow, suspenders and a brown top hat with a ribbon sticking out!!



Because i have a level 3 Japanese ability exam on July 4th, everyday i have to study a vocabulary book, which may sound bad, but i actually remember it easy and ive learned alot of vocab so its a good thing! Also last week i was sitting at the table from 12 lunch time to 6 that night reading!! i was lacking so much energy....(actually i fell asleep in the chair for 2 hours but still) haha

My friend from Townsville sent me a new pokemon game a couple weeks ago so lately ive been playing it before i go to bed hahah just thought i would include that in this blog.

Sakura FINALLY bloomed!!!! its the end of spring and it finally got warm enough for sakura to bloom everywhere around sapporo, it really is amazing and the best thing spring has to offer!! Except they never last long and changed to normal leaves after a week, but i got plenty of photos!!







For some reason they look edible, and that if you eat them it tastes like strawberry........umm...ok anyway.....

Last week on Tuesday and Wednesday i went to school for only 1 hours (that being a school japanese lesson) then went back home, and Thursday and Friday i had no school at all, it was wonderful!! haha Reason being that the teachers at my school helped out at a Track and Field carnival all week, so therefore they wouldnt have been at school to teach classes.

On Thursday i went to Sapporo dome, which is i big DOME where ther are baseball and soccer matches, it is pretty epic i think! we did a tour, and so walked onto the field...



...as well as seeing the locker rooms and areas that the baseball/soccer players use during the game, it was really interesting. My host mum got free tickets to see baseball games next week. Sapporos baseball team is call THE FIGHTERS and we are watching them play other teams this Tuesday and Wednesday night. For some reason i think i will enjoy watching it, baseball looks as though it could be really interesting...but i will let you know how i thought of it after i watch the matches!

Friday was a VERY good day. My host mums friend works at a TV station, as so me and my mum were lucky enough to walk INSIDE into the studio (this by the way is the most well known station in Japan) and i met some famous Japanese tv presenters AND i watched BEHIND the cameras as they were filming a morning show on set! it was so good and gave me a glimpse of what making movies would be like!! the show was live, and they were all so friendly and were really good at their job. I got to know what these kinds of people do during commercials and how everything works.I also met the producer of the station (which by the way is called 'UHB'). While the show was going i was taken out of the studio and through the corridors seeing different rooms such as the make up room where tv presenters were getting their hair done and things like that, i also went into the sound room where directors are sitting at desks with a million buttons infront of them, running what people would see on tv, eg. switching between different cameras and such (its kind of hard to explain sorry!)I also sat in their chairs! haha
But honestly it was so surreal and a REALLY cool experience to watch a group of proffessional people do something like this, and yes i was tempted to run infront of the cameras but i didnt.....
OH, and i got photos with them >>>>>







Well nothing as of yet is planned for June, but im sure things will happen and plans will be made, so until then - its study time!!!

SUPER AWESOME HOKKAIDO TRIP!!

I just need to say this first.......umm, i had this blog pretty much finished, with a fair few photos to go with it. Yesterday i didnt have time to publish it as i had to go out to my japanese lesson and so i left it open on the computer. I came home to find that my host mum accidentally turned off the computer, meaning i lost my whole blog. And it had taken me 2 days to type it, including attaching the photos as they take a while to upload. SO i will re-do this, but i dont have the time to add all the photos i wanted to show you, sorry! i will add a couple though *sigh*


(And just letting you know this blog is gonna be pretty long...)

Ok so we went on a family trip around Hokkaido, travelling to the east side, then back to the west where Sapporo is. We left early Saturday morning quite early, as in, i got up before the sun did - can you believe it! We left the house at about 6AM.
it would have taken about 4 hours from my side of hokkaido to the other side (where we stayed the night) but we stopped so many times so we didnt get to the hotel until about 4 oclock that afternoon.
During the car trip i listened to music, slept, read some manga, and did some kanji practice to pass the time.

What we did was, first me, swiss guy, host mum and host dad bought a hokkaido travel book for the weekend. And inside is a page for each town where you stamp it to say youve been to that town. Eg, we stopped in so many different towns on saturday and sunday, and every time we got out of the car, walked inside of the tourism building, and got that towns stamp and put it in our each of our books. Then later on we can look through the book and say that we have visited that town. They were only small towns so basically the only building there WAS the tourism buildings. We visited at least 10 during the trip.

While i was listening to music and half asleep in the car, my parents told me that they got a bit lost, even though they have a navigator in the car. I could definately tell we were lost as we drove through a tunnel, then when we came out, there was snow everywhere on the road, almost like a blizzard. i realised they had started to drive north, rather than east, it was pretty funny.


Saturday lunch time we stopped in at my host dads friends house/diner for a big feed! It is actually their house, but it was built into a restaurant for people and they run it everyday as their own business. The food was sooo good we ate so much! i forgot to take a picture but just imagine a table full of different japanese meals. I was distracted by how nice it all was i ended up eating too much and got SO full! but it was worth it. They told my host parents we didnt have to pay for it because they were friends so that was nice. After talking with them for over an hour, we got back in the car and continued driving.

Along the way we saw so many Japanese style trees and there were mountains and hills everywhere! It was really nice scenery.
Saturday afternoon we arrived at a place called Abashiri. It is know for its prison which has been turned into a museum and it is really popular! There were so many people there, it was interesting.
After we checked out the museum we walked down the area where prisoners were kept in their cells, like the REAL part. it was kind of creepy and probably haunted at night time.



After we left we drove past the REAL prison (the first part was just a museum) and i wanted to see if we could get in. So me and my host mum walked over a bridge (just like stereotypes, the prison was in the middle of a lake, so if they wanted to break free they would have to swim a long way) but anyway we walked across the bridge and went to the front gate, where i could see the courtyard, but sadly no prisoners......we werent allowed in, which is a pity because i wanted a photo with the prisoners hahaha but atleast i got to visit it.


After that we drove to the place where we were staying at, which was a Japanese style inn. Very traditional, it was fun. Hopefully these photos can show you what it was like......







The food was SO nice, ive grown a liking to japanese food. This is how much we ate for dinner>>



Breakfast was also fairly big, and straight after we ate, we packed up and left at about 9 in the morning for the second part of the trip. We drove down the south side, eventually getting back to sapporo later that night. (We actually got back at around 11PM!!)

We first stopped at a wharf on the way home where there were people feeding all different kinds of sea birds flying everywhere around us!!



I quickly got some pictures then ran back into the car with a fear of getting bird faeces on my clothes...

We kept driving then stopped at a really beautiful lake, with snowy mountains in the background. Me and my host mum were attempting to skim stones across the water. It was a really good view!





Then we drove and stopped at a 'Ainu' hut. For those of you who dont know (probably all of you), Ainu are like, the indigenous people of Hokkaido (only hokkaido though, not any other part of japan). Its like Australia has Aborigines, Hokkaido have Ainu people, with their own language that they spoke. Only very few people know the Ainu language now as it isn't being taught to anyone and they are slowly dieing out, so not much is left of it. The history is really interesting though. This is a photo of it >>



I walked inside and their was bonfire kind of thing lit in the middle of the hut, with traditional clothing/accessories/weapons/tools/etc being displayed on the walls. I was lucky enough to be dressed in traditional Ainu wear and got a photo! >>



IT consisted of robes, a sash, a sword (you cant see it in the photo) and some straw design on my head. hahaha
Before i left i bought an Ainu band to wear around my wrist, looks pretty cool.

During the afternoon, we visited a beach and a national park.

OH! i saw deers for the first time! As we were driving around hokkaido, when we went through the mountains, which were basically right next to the road, there were deers grazing around the place, it was awesome as!! Me and my host mum saw a big hard of them, so we got out to take a photo, but they saw us and ran like into the woods.....damn. But when it got to night time (as i said before we got home at about 11 oclock sunday night) they were right next to the road, i was scared one would stupidly jump out in front of the car, but they didnt.

I was SO tired when we finally made it back home i pretty much went to sleep straight away.
AND THAT WAS MY TRIP!

A few other things, it was the swiss guys birthday on monday so that night we had a big dinner party. My host mums friend came over and they got drunk together. The swiss guy and my host dad went to bed, but me, host mum and her friend stayed up til about 2 oclock tuesday morning talking/laughing. I enjoyed it.

I go back to school tomorrow as ive been on a week long holiday since Thursday last week. AND Saturday morning i have to get up early as im going to TOKYO!!!! Im going to Disney Land so i cant wait!!!! then coming back monday, meaning i wont be at school that day. I will have to make a post about tokyo next week.
BYE!!!!