Orientation and Shinkansen

So once I arrived at Narita Airport I wasn't entirely sure what to do. Lucky for me, it turns out I was sitting near another exchange student that was also with Greenheart Travel. So we teamed up and somehow managed to find baggage claim. I also met a Japanese exchange student who had just studied abroad for three months. He was extremely kind and he was the first person I spoke Japanese to...in Japan anyway haha. Anyway, I've always been so afraid to speak Japanese. Chiefly because I'm afraid of making mistakes and sounding stupid. But his kindness reminded me I'm here to learn...and to learn one simply can not avoid mistakes.

After baggage claim I found someone with the sign JFIE: Japanese Foreign Intercultural Exchange...I think...Then we took a bus to Orientation.

 

Orientation lasted around 2 and a half days. It consisted of warnings and rules and...well to say the least, while I was IN Japan, it didn't really felt like it. I felt like I was in a classroom. The one fun thing about Orientation was a trip to the mall. The first 自動販売機 (vending machine) I spotted was here!

 The mall was in Chiba, Japan (near Tokyo) and was huge!

 Plenty of cute things to be had~!

 As far as fashion goes, it varies a lot. One fashion is the above: a sort of old, classic and very cute style filled with ribbons and frills....my favorite. I wanted to buy everything!

 Despite being in Japan, you see English everywhere. Everywhere. I repeat. Everywhere. It doesn't always make sense though....This shop is called Mister Donut haha!

 One method of ordering food in Japan. You put in coins (coins come in larger value in Japan. For example, 100Yen and 500Yen coins...roughly USD $1 and $6..I think..) It then prints out your ticket, and you hand the ticket to the 店員...shop assistant. Then you wait with one of those things that make noise when your food is ready.

 Yummy!

 Found and arcade :D

 An example of strange English....A children's clothing store...named STARVATIONS

 My Shinkansen ticket from Tokyo to Nagoya... It cost over USD $100 :O

It was raining a lot, so most of the pictures I took came out poorly.

Day No.1

My cat cheezeburger is trying to eat my luggage! What the lump :I

Korean Air!

 The inside of Korean Air planes is insane!! Seriously huge... There were three bathrooms, and a million middle seats to boot.

 In-flight entrainment was spectacular! I watched A Dangerous Method and Memoirs of a Geisha.

On top of that, the remote turns into a game controller!! Needless to say, Tetris was had :D

I also listened to J-pop

 The coke was tall and skinny and had Korean on it.

I could not beat the first guy. This game is HARD.

Famous Korean dish...too bad I can't remember it haha

After some 11 odd hours, in Japan at last!

 

The hotel even has Yukata. Awesome!

And random outside of hotel room! More to come :)

Departure

I'm leaving in a couple of days for Japan. A COUPLE OF DAYS. I'm incredibly nervous, and at the same time, obviously very excited! To be honest, I'm not even sure if I'll have time/be able to update this blog...but in the event that I can, you guys know where to find me :)

It's kind of hard to focus on Japan right now (what with all the college decisions that are coming out). Once again I find myself worrying about my college future, but some of the acceptance letters I've been receiving have been more relieving than anything else.

As for Japan, I'm very excited for the experience.

My school:
A small, private all girl's Catholic High School/Middle School

My family:
Parents and two sisters (15, 17)

My location:
Gifu, Japan

Most of all, I am ready to meet new people, shop, and learn!

Learning a Language

You never really think about it, but it's amazing how easy it is to express yourself in your home language. For me, English comes so naturally! But when you think about it....how can you possibly convey yourself to people who don't even speak your language? The concept is still so alien to me. I simply don't understand how you can visit or live in a place where they speak a language unfamiliar to you. If I could have one power in the world, it would probably be the ability to speak and understand all languages. The idea is just so mesmerizing.

I've been -attempting- to learn Japanese for the longest time with what feels like such little success. I know that studying abroad will improve my Japanese immeasurably: and even though I know I'm jumping the gun... I feel like I want to study abroad to many other places! Learning other languages... I don't know, I feel like it'd be better to be a master of one, than a jack of all trades...and yettttttt...

I can't wait till the day I'm better at Japanese. Japan has always seemed interesting to me. Perhaps because it seriously is on the other side of the world. The written language in particular always looked beautiful and intricate to me, and the way it is spoken has also always been attractive.

Sometimes I think about other languages I want to take a stab at. Oddly enough, as much as I want to, I can't seem to even consider Chinese. It's frustrating. It's such a logical choice, as it is the NUMBER ONE spoken language in the WORLD. No big deal. But the way it sounds, the difficulty of pronunciation...and then you have the country itself and its politics. But then they have their architecture and their culture and their nature and their history... In many ways, it's beautiful.

I feel like if I learn a second "asian" language it'd be too much. As if I'd be narrowing my language learning experience too much. Even so, I must admit Korean seems rather appealing to me... The way it looks is just so beautiful and mysterious to me: kind of like when I see Japanese I don't understand (happens often enough!)

In fact it is not uncommon for people that learn Japanese to also pick up Korean. Still, I don't know. I feel like I'm getting way ahead of myself.

Also on this imaginary list are languages like French and German. French is a beautiful language and of course the land itself...German runs in my blood, and I'd like to visit someday. Who knows though?

Spanish also feels "necessary" but I find the only thing I like about them is their food. Their culture, in almost all other aspects, doesn't really interest me. 

I hope this all isn't coming off as offensive to people. I'm just tossing thoughts in my head. I guess if I had a bucketlist of languages to "dabble" in....it'd go something like this:

1.English....ACHIEVED

2.Japanese....WIP, yo

3.German....might learn just a bit to get by (a small chance of a semester in college)

4.Chinese....definitely want to check out at some point (maybe a semester in college? Might consider longer)

5.Korean.... might learn some on my own at some point

6.French....want to learn enough to FINALLY be able to pronounce things on menus xD 

7.Spanish...I still don't really want to learn this language!

Yup. 

Relaxing

I remember being bitterly disappointed when I was told high school under NO circumstances would support school credit earned abroad. I still don't quite understand why they don't support something colleges seem to encourage so much.

Of course now that I've graduated early, I spend the days sleeping in and doing what I want to do. It's really weird for me, because I've spent the last two summers working a lot. I still am working, of course, but its just so surreal and nice to never have to go to high school again.

Of course there were aspects of high school I loved, but I realize now it was simply things like meeting people and learning: things I have my whole life to do. 

Even with that, I find myself just relaxing these days. I do remember enjoying being busy. The stress of it pushed me to be a better performer. And yetttttttttt

This break is nice!

These days my thoughts are primarily on studying abroad and college. I wonder what I will miss most while I'm gone for so long? Definitely Mexican food. Oh yesss. I will miss that. Friends. Family. Josh...

But I can't wait to learn Japanese. That may sound odd coming from someone who took so many classes, but honestly I learned so little. And I can't even express how unhappy that makes me. I feel like they were such a wasted opportunity. If only I had listened and taken the classes at IVC, I would know so much more by now.

But no matter! Expressing my thoughts and comprehension will surely be a headache, but I have three months to get it down to a science. In the end, the trip is about me. What I'll learn, what I'll experience. It's also about meeting people and doing things differently.

To be honest, I find work is not so satisfying as before. In fact, sometimes I feel like it becomes so monotonous and useless. I may have worked over 1000 hours last year, but what if, with that time, I was developing a life skill? I could be soooo good at math if I used the time for that, etc. And so that is one of my reasons for studying abroad. BREAKING THE MONOTONY. Escape. Escaping from work, from life,  and just doing something entirely different. A fresh start for a little while.

Of course, college looms OMINOUSLY ahead... lol

The question remains permanently in my head, without answer: which colleges will accept me? And which will reject me?

It's nothing to take personally, but in the end rejection still hurts.

It's nice to know I have UCR as a back up though. That's something :)

But the more I think about it, the more I realize how nice UCI would be.

And then I get my hopes up for Berkeley and ALL the opportunities it would give me.

I really don't care for UCLA. They don't seem to have much going for undergraduate business (lame).

In any event, this is what has been on my mind... Too much, really!

Studying abroad, college....I feel like I'm in such a waiting period right now. 

P.S. The bear is a famous Japanese character, Rilakkuma (a combination of the Japanese words 'bear' (kuma) and relax (rilakkuzu) Or something like that!