Japan Blog #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJuOnCr7vt0
Not the greatest video of our West African Ensemble (it doesn't even show us doing anything but moving in a circle), but...楽しかったです! It was so much fun!
So I'm thinking of using this journal to blog my trip to Japan and keep track of it until I can make an actual webpage or something...So...I guess the details are that I leave on Monday...and though it's not really an exchange two families have agreed to host me in a small town in Hokkaido called Kamiyubetsu out of the kindness of their hearts. I mean, how cool is that? They just took in a random University student! The community is very excited and the people I have met are very welcoming - even the mayor says he's looking forward to my visit. Kamiyubetsu itself is about 6,000 people and its biggest attraction is a tulip park. http://www.kamiyu.org/ No tulips yet though, unfortunately. That's all I can say about the town really, other than that it's pretty far from Sapporo.
I met some of the junior high school exchange students from Kamiyubetsu yesterday and they are adorable and opened up a lot more when they learned I could speak Japanese. Before they knew I could understand they said I was very pretty, which definitely set me at ease. They did express a desire for me to come to Kamiyubetsu JHS and hang around the English class, and I was a bit nervous about being the chubby brown girl without the school uniform.
After spending two weeks in Hokkaido from May 2 to May 16, I'm flying back to Tokyo and backpacking/hosteling another couple of weeks while visiting Kyoto, Osaka and Mount Koya. I'm looking forward to seeing my Japanese friends again like Sae and Ritsuko, who I met last year, and a friend of a friend who does kigurumi (full-body) cosplay and insists I see "the real Akihabara".
I'm taking a bunch of gifts, 5 sets of slide film and my digital camera. Expensive trip, but I'm sure it will be worth it. A great opportunity. And damn I hope my Japanese improves some...
Not the greatest video of our West African Ensemble (it doesn't even show us doing anything but moving in a circle), but...楽しかったです! It was so much fun!
So I'm thinking of using this journal to blog my trip to Japan and keep track of it until I can make an actual webpage or something...So...I guess the details are that I leave on Monday...and though it's not really an exchange two families have agreed to host me in a small town in Hokkaido called Kamiyubetsu out of the kindness of their hearts. I mean, how cool is that? They just took in a random University student! The community is very excited and the people I have met are very welcoming - even the mayor says he's looking forward to my visit. Kamiyubetsu itself is about 6,000 people and its biggest attraction is a tulip park. http://www.kamiyu.org/ No tulips yet though, unfortunately. That's all I can say about the town really, other than that it's pretty far from Sapporo.
I met some of the junior high school exchange students from Kamiyubetsu yesterday and they are adorable and opened up a lot more when they learned I could speak Japanese. Before they knew I could understand they said I was very pretty, which definitely set me at ease. They did express a desire for me to come to Kamiyubetsu JHS and hang around the English class, and I was a bit nervous about being the chubby brown girl without the school uniform.
After spending two weeks in Hokkaido from May 2 to May 16, I'm flying back to Tokyo and backpacking/hosteling another couple of weeks while visiting Kyoto, Osaka and Mount Koya. I'm looking forward to seeing my Japanese friends again like Sae and Ritsuko, who I met last year, and a friend of a friend who does kigurumi (full-body) cosplay and insists I see "the real Akihabara".
I'm taking a bunch of gifts, 5 sets of slide film and my digital camera. Expensive trip, but I'm sure it will be worth it. A great opportunity. And damn I hope my Japanese improves some...