Christmas in Japan

My first Christmas away from home went well. It was pretty different, but it was good. Of course I missed being home with everyone and decorating cookies and the whole Christmas morning routine, but I had a nice day here. It really didn't feel like Christmas to me though.

My host family doesn't do much at all for it. They had a little tree set up and a few other decorations and then on Christmas Eve they put out a present for each of their kids. In Japan, it is tradition to put it next to the pillow so you see it first thing in the morning, but my host mom wanted to put them under the tree this year because the kids always wake her up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning. :) My host parents took me shopping on the 23rd for my present.

Toru decorating the tree


With this being about all they do for Christmas here, it was fun to share a little bit of and American Christmas. I woke up a 5:50 (Toru gets up at like 6:15 or 6:30 every day). I quickly got dressed and stuff so I would look cute in the pictures, and then I played Santa! I put out gifts and stockings for the family (Thanks Dad and AnnaMarie and Tyler!). I even put out one present for me. It turned out to be The Tales of Beedle the Bard. From AnnaMarie. Thanks! So here are some pictures of me being sneaky.

Putting out presents


Done!


And then on the way back to my room for the last of the presents (as I'm wearing the Santa hat) my host dad looks out of his room! He started laughing and I told him to go back to bed. haha. But it worked out well because he got to video tape the kids when they got up and sjavascript:void(0)aw everything. And just so you know, my host dad was up early in his room working on a powerpoint for work. I wasn't so loud that I actually woke him up.

Abbey Santa


If you want to see the videos I took, they are on Michael's website.

After all the presents were opened and stuff (by like 8:00), it was just a normal day. My host Dad had work because Christmas isn't a real holiday here. I got to talk with my almost everyone on Skype. In the afternoon my host mom took me to the hair salon to get my hair cut. It was about time I did. I hadn't cut it since June. I just got some layers put in it so it looks a little nice down. So, that's about it. Oh, and then on Christmas night we ate our Christmas Cake.

Christmas Cake

SLEEPOVER!

After my class's Christmas party on the 19th (Friday), I went to Haruna's house for a sleepover! It was probably one of the best I've been to. For real, I had so much fun! And mom is amazing. We were super busy all weekend. I stayed until Monday. Just because there is no way I am going to remember everything I did any other way, I am going to go through it day by day. :D

Friday: After our party, which ended at 1, we cleaned the classroom and then me, Haruna, and Rinna walked to Haruna's house. Haruna's mom was at work, so in the evening we went up to Tokyo to meet her. While we were waiting for her to come meet us we got to look around at the christmas lights. We were in Shinbashi and the Shiodome area. The lights were spectacular! Here's some pictures:

Me and a train! Choo Choo!


Rinna, me, and Haruna in front of the "Blue Ocean"


Me and Haruna


Me and Haruna


Once we met up with Haruna's mom, we went to a yummy Chinese restaurant for dinner, and then we went to the top of the Dentsu office building to look out at the city lights. It was beautiful! We were on the 46th floor, and you could just see the city going forever. Tokyo is really really big. This was pretty close to the very center of Tokyo, too.





Then we went to Ginza. It is the main shopping district of Tokyo. For rich people, that is. All designer names and such as you walk through. I could never afford anything there, but it was fun to wander through!

Rinna, me, and Haruna in Ginza with our yummy chocolate drinks!


Ginza, Tokyo!



Saturday: Haruna and Rinna had cram school today. So, what did I do all day? I went out with Haruna's parents of course! We took a trip up to Chiba prefecture. When you go around Tokyo bay, from south to north it goes as follows: Yokosuka, Yokohama, Kawasaki, Tokyo, Chiba. Chiba is like directly across the bay from Yokohama. We drove to Chiba. We drove across Tokyo Bay. Well, technically we went under and over Tokyo Bay. That's right, we took the AQUAline. It is a tunnel that goes under the bay and then about halfway across it goes up into a bridge that goes over the bay. You can't see the water or anything when you are in the tunnel, but it is 57 meters under water. The AQUAline ends at a city called Kisarazi. From there we drove to a mountain called nokogiri-yama. "Noko" means saw, because of how the mountain is shaped. Nokogiri-yama has a daibutsu (Big Buddha), beautiful trees, and about 1500 smaller Buddha statues around it. Parking is at the top. So you walk down all the stairs first. But later you do have walk up them again.

The view of Tokyo Bay as we drove up the mountain


Going down...


...and back up


Daibutsu


Smaller Buddhas


After looking around the mountain and getting a nice view of Tokyo bay from the top, we went to the fisherman's market. We even got sushi there for lunch. It was really fresh and delicious.

From the top


Beautiful


Fresh Sushi


Fresh Squid at the market


Haruna's parents are so fun! It was really nice of them to take the day showing me around. On the way home we stopped halfway across the bay (right before the tunnel) to look at the sunset and Mt. Fuji. It was really an awesome day. Haruna's mom even taught me some kanji as we saw signs. And then quizzed me later. :D



Sunday: Today I went to Tokyo with Haruna, Rinna, and Haruna's mom. We went to Tokyo Tower! It was lots of fun. The city looks pretty different in the day than at night. We even got to meet a ... well, I don't know what it was. Some kind of food, I believe.

Rinna, Haruna, and me in front of Tokyo Tower


Tokyo


The cute... thing?


After Tokyo Tower, we went to a shopping area that I don't know the name of. It seemed like a place that not too many tourists go to. I probably would never go there without a Japanese friend. We went to a little shop called Swimmer, where they got me a Christmas present. A cute pen case and a matching make up bag. Everyone at school uses a pen case except me, so they decided to get me one. It was a fun day. Once we got home we made chocolate chip cookies together!

Y-U-M!


As we ate our cookies, I dunked mine in the milk because that is the best way to eat warm chocolate chip cookies. Then I realized that both Haruna and her mom were staring at me. They had never even heard of someone doing that before. I had them try it and they liked it. Or at least they said they did... Maybe mothers have a better way of getting their kids to drink their milk in Japan. Some things are just done differently here.

Monday: Today we just took it easy. I slept in until like 9:30. Haruna slept until 10:30, when her mom went in a took her covers off her one my one and then poked her. haha. We had a yummy breakfast including cookies from the night before and Pandapan and Kameron. Haha! Get it "Kame" and "Meron" together?! haha... okay, maybe only AnnaMarie got that one. But really, those were the names.

Breakfast!


Everything is cute in Japan


He was yummy, too! :D


In the afternoon we went to Kawasaki to a HUGE shopping plaza there. We were just looking today, but we are going to come back in January. January is when the sales are in Japan, and Haruna is going to take me shopping for some warmer tops and Japanese fashion! haha. If I can find it cheap that is. From Kawasaki I went home.

The sleepover was really fun! I am so glad that Haruna invited me over.

Christmas Parties! Lots of them!

For a country where Christmas isn't even a holiday, Japan sure loves it! Well, the commercial part of it anyway. Christmas trees and decorations went up the day Halloween (another holiday that isn't even a holiday in Japan) is over. They came down on the 26th, too. Now EVERYTHING is gearing up for New Years. Anyway, I went to a few different Christmas parties over the last few weeks. I'll just go through chronologically.

On December 17th I went to Iliana's house for her host family's Christmas party. It was so much fun! Definitely my favorite of the 4 I had. :D For dinner we had everything from pizza, salad, and rolls, to chicken, sushi, and wraps. Oh, and of course we had Christmas Cake. It was pretty good. I got to meet her host family for the first time, and they are awesome! I am so excited to spend 3 days there for New Years! Seriously, I can't wait. We just ate dinner and visited. There was her family (including a cousin and his girlfriend), her rotary counselor who is best friends with her host mom, and the host family's English tutor and his father. Yes, they have a tutor for the whole family that comes over once a week. For some reason, the english tutor thought it would be fun for us all to sing our national anthems. Ruan (Brazilian) also was invited to the party because Iliana's host family had lived in Brazil like 30 years ago. All the Japanese people sang together, and then Iliana, Ruan, and myself got to sing our's solo. The Star-spangled Banner is the hardest national anthem, and I am not a very good singer. And to make it better, they decided to record the whole thing! Oh, well. At least I didn't forget the words like I sometimes do. I got home at 10:10 (whoops, past curfew) and then put my package to send home the next day together. I finally got to bed at 1am. And then I got up at 5:30 for school. I was a little out of it the next day.

Party #2: December 19th. This was my school party. Everyone brought in a snack to share with the class. I brought home-made chocolate chip cookies. Everyone loved them! We all just talked and ate way too much junk food. It was fun.



The 23rd was my Rotary Club's Family Christmas dinner party. My club invited Iliana, too. :D Honestly, between her club and my club, both of which know we are best friends, I don't think either of us will have another free weekend. But that's beside the point. The dinner party was fun! There was a band and singers playing jazz-type Christmas music. I felt like I was at a dinner party in an old movie or something. Then, they had magicians! It was so cool! They did a couple tricks for everyone and then they went around to each table individually. I got to be the volunteered assistant at our table. I don't know how he did it, but he put two foam balls in my hand, had me close my hand tight and shake it. He didn't touch my hand or anything. And I didn't feel anything in my hand. I open it, and there were 4! It was amazing! haha

This was the first time any of the Rotarian's families were at a meeting, so they all came over to my table and introduced their wives and kids. It was nice. I got to meet my second host family, too. It will be a lot different at their house I think, but I am excited to see what it's like. One Rotarian introduced his son to Iliana and I, and then asked me to stand up. I was a little confused until I stood up. He wanted to know who was taller. See, guys? There are some tall boys in Japan. It was exciting so I asked him if I could take my picture with him. haha!



At that party I also had, I mean got, to give a 5 minute speech to all my rotary club members and their families. I did a pretty good job. And my speech was written in all Japanese. No romaji! I was so proud of myself. Oh, and right before the meeting, I went shopping with my host mom for my Christmas present. My host family got me a new purse! I love it!



Me with my new purse and my new haircut! Buy you probably can't tell the difference. Just a little layering.


My last party was at my friend Risako's house. She is in my class at school. It didn't really turn out to be a very Christmasy party, but it was fun! We had pizza for lunch, played wii for a few hours, and then had Christmas Cake.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Well, this entire month has been insanely busy! So, here goes my attempt to catch everyone up on what I've been up to. Since Disney Sea, this is what I've done. I gave a 20 minute presentation about Ironwood to a middle school (equivalent to 7th grade) class; gave my monthly speech at the Rotary Orientation meeting for exchange students, after which I went out for Chinese food with my rotarians; then it got crazy...

December 16th: Nou with Iliana and her 3rd host family.
17th: Iliana's Family's Christmas party (yes, it was a school night with very little sleep).
19th: School Christmas party. After school I went to Haruna's house for a sleepover.
19th-22nd: At Haruna's house for an amazing sleepover.
23rd: Rotary Club's Family Christmas Dinner Party. I gave a speech with no romaji!
24th: Risako's (a friend from school) Christmas Party.
25th: Christmas!
26th: Ice Skating and Karaoke with other exchange students.

phew! Today has been my first free day in a long time!

So, I am going to break this up into a few different blog entries. Hopefully I'll get them all up tonight or tomorrow. This one will talk about my presentation and the nou. Then I will have one for the various Christmas parites, one for my sleepover, and one for Christmas. There isn't too much to say about the ice skating and Karaoke. It was lots of fun, but that's about all there is to say. :D

I was asked to give a 20 minute presentation about my home in America to the middle school grade one class. The high school classes were having exams that week so I spent the week working on the project with the english (my Japanese) teachers in the school. I had a powerpoint and everything! I think it went really well, and I find it easier to study Japanese by working on a project or speech in Japanese rather than by reading a textbook.

A nou is a Japanese play (kind of) with traditional singing and dancing. I think the nou I went to was a little different than they usually are. I think they usually have a story, but the one I went to didn't. Maybe it wasn't really a nou. It was very interesting to see all the men and women in the traditional kimonos and stuff. They did some kind of temple ceremony, and then they did their singing and dancing. To be honest, it was very interesting, but it was very long and boring. They did the same singing for like and hour and they only did the dancing for a little bit. Maybe I just didn't really understand what was going on, but I think a lot of the Japanese people there were pretty bored too. If I had known what it was going to be before hand I still would have gone because it is Japanese culture and all, but I'm not exactly begging anyone to take me to another one. It was a good experience to have once, though!

One other thing that I have just started recently, like 3 days ago, is studying kanji. Kanji are the Chinese characters. I was talking to Dad on Skype about next year when I go back and we got to talking about school. My plan is to take some kind of self-study Japanese course, weather it is just a high school course or if it is an A.P. course. Dad looked up the A.P. Japanese exam and I will have to know over 400 kanji to even dream of passing it! Yikes! Before we talked about this I probably knew less than 20. So, my first reaction was okay, fine. I just won't take the A.P. test. I'll just take a placement exam before I start university. But I thought about it and I decided that I do want to learn Kanji eventually because I really hate not being able to read anything. Being illiterate is such a pain! So, I started studying! :D Kanji are split up into school years. My host mom let me borrow one of Wataru's books on kanji because he is in first grade. There are 80 first-grade kanji, so I made myself nice flashcards of them. I now know all them! Well, almost. I can recognize all of them and know their meanings in english. I know probably 75 of them from Kanji to Japanese and I can write about 70 of them if you give me the Japanese meaning. I am so proud of myself! :D One week ago, I didn't even know how to write 20 kanji, and the ones I do know from before aren't all first-grade kanji. I keep the flashcards in my purse, so I can study them on the train and stuff too. So, my goal is to get through at least the 2nd grade level kanji (there are 160 second year kanji) completely memorized before I go home. Hopefully more than that. And maybe, if I study really hard, I can take the A.P. exam.

Omochisuki!

Last Saturday (December 6th) I went to an Omochisuki! Omochisuki is a mochi making ceremony. I was invited by Iliana, who was invited by her 3rd host family. It was at a templ, so they did some temple ceremony before we started the actual omochisuki. That was interesting.



Mochi is like sticky rice balls. To make it, you take the cooked rice and squish it and beat it with big wooden hammers. They add water a little at a time so the rice doesn`t stick to the bowl and hammer.



When you hit the rice you have to yell "Yosho!" I had a good time with that. When Iliana and I had both had our turn her 3rd host father was like, Abbey did it better than you. haha. She did a good job too...



Them we rolled the rice into little balls and ate it! Mine had anko (sweet bean paste) on it. It was yummy!

After that we left for Asakusa to do Christmas shopping. Asakusa is a place in Tokyo with a big temple. It is a popular place for tourists so there are lots of little shops. I am happy to say that I was very successful with my shopping. ;)

Disney Sea

Last Sunday (October 30), I went to Tokyo Disney Resort's Disney Sea! Shiratori-san (one of the rotarians in my club) took Iliana and I there with his wife and son. It was very very nice of him to do that for us. I had an awesome time!



They seemed to know the park pretty well. Their son, who is 10, had been there like 5 times! They had planned out our whole day really well. They really knew how to use the fast-pass system there. We were always moving from one ride or attraction to the next. We didn't have to wait very long at all for most of the rides, which was great! I think we did all the fun, adult rides, along with some of the kiddie rides. We even got to see a few of the shows. I absolutely love Disney, so I thought the shows were good, but Iliana didn't seem to enjoy them quite as much... The best show was "Big Band Beat". It is a broadway type show with jazz and tap-dancing and Mickey Mouse. It was all Christmas songs, and it was all in English. That was fun for me. The crowd didn't quite get it when they announced things like, "give it up for the SAXOPHONES!"



My favorite rides were the Tower of Terror and Indiana Jones. It was a long day and I was exhausted by the end, but it was really really fun. I even got to meet Goofey!



And thanks to the Shiratori's I didn't even spend any money! They were nice enough to pay for our tickets, lunch, dinner, chocolate popcorn, and the picture of us in the Tower of Terror. Yay for rotarians!



I love Disney Sea!

Kamakura

On November 23 I went to an exchange student program in Kamakura, which is just south of me. I still don't know exactly what it was. Some sort of high school volunteer program for Japanese high school students. Most of them spoke English pretty well because they either did an exchange of some sort or they lived overseas when they were younger.



Anyway, I went down with my host family in the morning. We went to the big temple for Toru's special day. There is a holiday that is something about 3,5,7. Girls that are three and seven, and boys that are five. Toru is five so he got all dressed up in a fancy kimono and we went to the temple with the family and grandparents. We also had family pictures done. Which I was in. :D After Toru's thing, I left to meet up with the group for this program.



We got to talk and get to know each other for a while while we had lunch. Then we had a nice tour of Kamakura. We went to three temples and the Daibutsu (Big Buddha). It was really fun. And I met lots of new people, including other Japanese high school students. Yay!



The next day was a holiday, so some of us met at Yokohama Station. It turned out that none of the other girls could make it, which was not what I was planning on when I threw the idea out there. There was the german guy, myself, and two of the Japanese guys that we met the day before. One of them invited two of his friends along, so that was fun. Not that they said a single word to me after we were introduced. We went to a game center (arcade), where I got to lose to everyone else at Mario cart racing, but dominate at air hockey. Then we went to Karaoke, which was a blast!