Fourteenth and Fifteenth Weeks - Dec. 2 - 15 Dec. 2: The whole family went to an Onsen again this afternoon. It’s the same one that we went to last week. It was a lot of fun. It was also snowing today and is supposed to snow all week long. I’m excited for it. Some of my friends are going skiing on Sunday. I decided not to since I’ve only skied twice and don’t want to risk breaking something three weeks before I fly home. For those of you who don’t know, I will be leaving Japan and arriving at home [View Full Entry]

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Twelfth and Thirteenth Weeks - Nov. 18 - Dec. 1 Nov. 19: Mama, her cousin, and I went to an Onsen close to our house. I love them; they make me really relaxed it’s nice. The best part about this Onsen was the three individual tubs that reminded me of old fashioned wash basins (they were cast iron). Nov. 22: I went to another elementary school and this time the 6th graders showed us their talents. They showed us several traditional games of Japan. It was a lot of fun. There is also a marble game, but the interesting thing is [View Full Entry]

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Tenth and Eleventh Weeks Nov. 4-17 Nov. 4: Loreli, Kelsey, Rowena and I watched a movie and made Chocolate Chip Banana Bread at my house. I think I may be the only exchange student whose host family has an actually oven to bake in. Everyone else only has a fish oven, which is only big enough to fit about two fish. That’s something to note, most of the baked goods that people eat come from one of the several bakeries around the city. Nov. 6: Mama and her cousin and I went to the Ishiya Chocolate Factory, and Hokkaido University. At [View Full Entry]

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Eighth and Ninth Weeks - Where has the time gone? I can’t believe that my last entry was a month ago already. It seems like I just wrote it. Oct. 28: I went to the Sapporo Dome. Mama and I went there to see the architecture of it. It’s awesome! It’s the only one in the world that has a movable soccer field that comes in, over the baseball field. We were able to get inside the dome for free since the Nippon Ham Fighters won the Championship. (Nippon is Japanese for Japan, they are Sapporo’s baseball team. They haven’t won [View Full Entry]

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Sept. 25: I learned how to do Ikebana, Japanese flower arranging. It took about half an hour to complete the arrangement. It was fun to learn. Oct 1: Mama, Grandma, Mama’s Aunt and I went to Okurayama. It is the Olympic ski jump for the Sapporo winter games in 2007. We got to go to the top of the jump and watch skiers as they practiced for the upcoming winter games. There isn’t any snow there yet so it was very interesting watching them practice. At the bottom of the jump is a museum with every winter Olympic game that there [View Full Entry]

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As part of the foreign exchange program the elementary schools ask for exchange students to come and teach the children about their country. This semester there were two schools that asked for foreign students to come twice to their school. I chose to go to the school that wanted two people per classroom for a total of eight people. We needed to think of a song and game that we could teach the children (3rd graders). My partner, Kelli, and I decided to teach the children “I’m a Little Tea Pot” and “Red Light, Green Light”. We went to the school [View Full Entry]

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I haven't had time to write since I've been so busy with my Japanese Class and hanging out with my host family. I'll try to cover everything, so it might take a couple postings. I'll start with last Saturday Sept. 9 when I met my host family. My host mom (Mama) and host father (Papa) took me to the store after picking me up from the Kirari; which is where international students stay for a short period of time on campus. At the store I got to pick out my very own set of chopsticks, a miso soup bowl and a [View Full Entry]

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I did start school on Monday Sept. 11 but it was only my Japanese Language class for that first week. Ifm in Level 2, and we have class from 9:00 to 12:00 with a ten minute break around 10:30. There are four class levels with about six exchange students in each. Most of the exchange students are from America (USA) except for three. They come from London, China, and Canada. I made friends with a girl from Lewis and Clark College the very first day of orientation and we hung out a lot. So now every one thinks Ifm with Lewis [View Full Entry]

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The Second Week in Japan Sep. 11-17 I have so much stuff to catch you all up on. I’ll post entries according to the weeks I’ve been in Japan. Unless there is something special that requires it to have its own post. Enjoy the following postings. (This is the same week that my last two posts were about.) On September 13 Mama took me to Moerenuma Park to see the big fountain. However when we arrived it had just finished displaying. Even though I did not get to see that I did get to see the Glass Pyramid. I can’t remember [View Full Entry]

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I have now officially arrived in Japan. I arrived on Sept. 2 at approximately 9:00pm. Naoko picked me up at the airport and we took a taxi to her home. My flights went well. I got layed over in Chicago for two hours but was still able to make my connecting flight in Japan by about twenty minutes. It was close but I made it, and so did my luggage. I'm enjoying staying with Naoko. She's taken me to Sapporo station and we went shopping. I was able to get an electronic dictionary so that I can understand what words mean [View Full Entry]

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