One month in Japan in one sitting get ready.

Okay, so I know I haven't written in a long while considering what I have been up to. I went through a patch where i was so frustrated with a situation i didn't want to portray that to anyone else and make them think i wasn't having a great time because it is quite the opposed. i am loving my trip and those simple things that were frustrating me are in the past and are still in Japan. it may sound like i didn't like Japan but that is not the case at all i love Japan and i love the people there i just needed freedom that i never was able to have. but that is a long story and for now i just want to tell you all about what i have been up to.
i guess i really left you all in China. a little in Japan but not too much. so where to begin in Japan... I suppose i will start in Ibaraki... I was lucky enough to be placed with the Ebata family from Shizu. this village of 10,000 people was about an hour and a half from the school by train. as many of you know i am not a morning person so for a month i acted and survived on very little sleep. i would wake up at about 5:15 every morning leave the house by 6:10 and would get home around 7-7:30 sometimes later, seldom earlier. at times i really wanted to do things with my family but really there was no time during the day to do anything. even though it was impossible to really do anything with my host family i got to experience more of the country life and the mountains that others didn't. My host grandma lived next door and had a strawberry crop, amazingly tasty and amazing strawberry jam. my room was a traditional rice paper on the windows and doors and i was sleeping on a tatami mat really it wasn't too bad but in the end i was really missing a bed. My family also had a set of dishes for each person and you never mixed the dishes or the chopsticks, really i never understood this and it was only in my family that this happened. oh well it was a family, cultural thing that i just adjusted to and actually learned the proper place for each dish the chopsticks i had down in one night hahaha. I have also learned that i under no circumstances like soy bean anything, and i mean anything. i don't like mizo soup, i don't like nato, i don't like tofu, i don't like Japanese sweets, nothing. for quite a long time i kept quiet about this but finally my mom saw me choke down a piece of tofu and asked and i broke down and told her i didn't like anything soybean. she felt bad for making me eat it for so long i felt bad that i made a face about it. but in the end we decided that it was funny and they would still jokingly offer any kind of soybean they could just to see my reaction. I suppose i should tell you about my family at this point... i had a Mom who wanted me to call her Haha (informal way of saying mom in Japanese), i had a grandma who always ate supper with us and i had three sisters Souri 20, Tomomi 19, and Chacki 14 (pronounced Jackie). my sisters all had different personalities that you just had to love. my grandma is an amazing woman who doesn't speak a work of English and i don't speak a word of Japanese so we of course could communicate just fine much to the disgust of my middle sister Tomomi who treated to stop speaking English because grandma and i could communicate better than her and me sometimes. but all i can really say is that i had an amazing family that i will cherish forever.
School... well that was interesting. we had classes really all day which of course that is what we should have right. well it was hard to be in class that long. i really wanted to just explore and experience Japan which wasn't quite happening to my liking. unlike China where we would have class in the morning and field trip it up all afternoon with an annoying tour guide we would be stuck on campus and not be able to go anywhere. we did have some fun though we learned about culture and language and we got to try our hand at haiku which i must say i mastered i won the first prize for mine which i wrote in chapel apparently it followed the proper Japanese style of Haiku, i really found this humorous. we got to play the Japanese Harp thingys that really no one remembers what they are called trust me i just asked, haha. it was interesting but it seemed really flat to me. we learned some of the different Japanese folktales, interesting but weird, it was by far our best class though. we had this class that dealt with mixing cultures which in my opinion and the opinions of my classmates was a complete waste of time, it may have helped the Japanese students that were in the class but for us it was horrible, they were just making us sit through what we already experienced through out our whole trip and with our families. it wasn't in anyway helpful. oh well what can we do. Japanese class was very overwhelming and difficult. our first day we walked in and she just started speaking Japanese to us, and was wanting us to read this hiriagana that we didn't know at all. and still don't to tell you the truth. she kind of dropped it after she saw how far behind we were from where she wanted us to be. but there is nothing really we could do about that.
now for our day trips... Niko, this was an amazing place. there is a beautiful waterfall then we went to this shrine area. it really sucked that we were so rushed because we missed a lot really it should have been a two day excursion. on our way up to the waterfall is this winding road that there is a Japanese poem that helps students learn the katakana sounds. This is one thing that my grandma and i really connected over and had a great conversation this road and my sister got mad we so understood each other that it was funny. we had to take our shoes off to see some of the shire stuff. that was weird. Nikko is the place that has the monkeys the see no evil hear no evil and speak no evil so that was cool.
we got to go to an elementary school and play with them it was so much fun we also spent time with some grade 7 and some grade 8ers so much fun. i loved spending time in the schools.
we went to the aquarium, and i pet a shark ya you read that right i pet a shark. and i saw a dolphin show and i saw penguins. so many things... i loved it. NOT as good as the Great Barrier Reef trust me i have seen it. haha
we are also the next OC chour. where ever we go it seems like we are asked to sing and we are getting better and better haha.
there are so many things to say about japan and i really love it i just had a hard time for a while so i refused to say anything and i kept it bottled up.

keyboard troubles 2

oh and find yourself lucky that the post is in english because for the first little bit i didn:t know how to change the language it is a little button that is where the escape key is and the way to change it to another asian language is next to the space bar that is tiny. ok i am done ranting about my keyboard (I think)

just a side note

okay so in my blogs you may have noticed that i never use apostrophes instead i use colons. i do have a reason for that. I DON:T KNOW WHERE THE APOSTROPHE SIGN IS!!! i have looked and looked and i can:t find it so the colon is where the apostrophe is suppose to be so that is why i use it. hope you are all having a great day and not having any keyboard confusion good news though i did find the @ sign. love you all, andrea

i just don:t know

So i have been trying to write this for about a week, and i am finding it really hard to put into words what i am feeling. i think it is full overwhelmization. i love my host family though they laugh at me a lot. and i love japan though i don:t, even a little bit, understand the culture. i wake up at 5-5:30 every morning because i live an hour and a half away from the school and my sister has class at 8:40 and if we left any later than 6:10 we would miss our train and as it only runs once an hour that time in the morning it she would be late. this morning on the train she struggled with the sentence I am sorry you have to wake up so early, and yes i am tired but i feel that it is worth it to get up and go. not like i have a choice but even if i did i think i would choose to go with her. Oh the reason i don:t have a choice is because it is a 10 min car ride before i get on the train, so not walking distance.
one of the first things my family did when i got to their house was to give me a gift. my family chose a practical gift that is much appreciated. they gave me a set of chopsticks that are very nice. and then they showed me my dishes. each member of the family has their own set of dishes that they use every meal. i will admit at first it was a little weird, not gonna lie. but now it is just getting to be familiar and i think i may be ok with it.
there are so many things that are different about japan and i don:t think that i can justly tell you everything that i have observed. besides observations are unique to each person so you may have to observe it for yourself.
even as i sit here i am so overwhelmed with so many things to write and not knowing how to say it. this week has been jampacked with so many things classes new people everything. my japanese language class is so overwhelming that i want to cry, and i am not the only one. i want to be able to communicate but i can:t due to my lack of words and the fact that to me everything sounds the same. i want to be able to join in on conversations with my family but only one really speaks english and even hers is poor. i want to know if i offended them. i want to leave my bed out. yes make it but i don:t want to fold it up and put it away every morning. i want to know how to use the shower properly. this one is difficult for me. and i know this trip is not all about me though that is what it seems like after that paragraph so lets try and sound optimistic. my family is amazing. i try a lot of new foods that are interesting. i live in a village that is in the foothills it is beautiful. my room is the old fashion type with rice paper walls and straw mat floors. i have got to go into a jr high class that was a lot of fun.
like i said before i really don:t know what to write but i want to tell you everything at the same time. i just don:t know where to start or what to write. the best way for me to tell you things is for you to ask questions you can do it here or in an email. andrea.sanders@oc.edu. i will do my best to answer.
love you all,
andrea

another thought on the toilets

so on top of the toilet there is usually a tap with a basin under it. yes, you are suppose to wash your hands in this water. the tap fills the toilet tank so when you wash your hands you are actually putting your germs into the toilet water for the next person. just a disgussting　thought to make your day a little brighter.
more to come on this topic i am sure.

bathrooms part 2

JAPAN
so there is one major thing that i must share with the world... I hate heated toilet seats!!! i am trying to figure out their purpose, but alas i have found none that would actually work for Japan. While i was on one of these toilets i was trying to figure out what they were for and i have come up with one explanation. I have decided that the toilets are heated so that when you go outside in the middle of winter and freeze your butt, you know the kind that freezes you to the bone and you just feel the cold radiating off you your butt, that is what the toilets are for, thought i don:t know why they are on in the summer or fall.
ok i will have to find get a picture of one and show it to you, but these toilets are scary. there are buttons and knobs and many things i am too afraid to touch because i don:t know what it will do to me. i am scared of the toilet not gonna lie.
did you know that you have toilet slippers. i am surprised there isn:t an epidemic of athletes foot. these slippers you put on just to go pee. and everyone shares them. it is rather bazaar.
half the time there is no soap in the bathroom it is weird
ok so the shower is kinda weird too... there is a shower room. you have a huge tub in it too. but i think you are suppose to just take a shower in the room and not worry about the floor there is no curtain again it is just weird it is another picture thing.
good news there is toilet paper.
haha
i think that is all i have for now but i am sure there will be another Japan bathroom blog.
love you all.

an over view of China

I spent a grand total of three weeks in China, and loved, every moment if it. From the people to my group to my classes to just everything in general, except maybe the smell, and never having clean clothes. It was the longest shortest three weeks of my life and i cant believe it is over. We toured Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. We traveled to each of these places via train, the first ride was 12 hours and the second was 22 hours. We experianced China sleeping cars. it really makes the travel time fly when you can sleep. you know when you are sure you have learned many life lessons in an area but when you go to write it you just cant put it into words. that is where i am right now. China was an amazing experiance and i would love to be able to say everything that it has taught me but i dont know if i can. i can say it has taught me patience but i don:t know how, and it has taught me that i am stronger than i know, but i cant tell you why. it is really just a jumble in my mind and i can:t get it out. but i want to be able to share what i know and what i have learned. so lets just try and tell some of my expericances that may have contributed.

Beijing was totally amazing i saw and expericanced so much in 10 days i took classes so i learned from the Chinese people what they think that americans should know (they didn:t know that they were talking to a canadian too). we had a tour guide that was a pain in the royal butt. she liked to take us to tourist traps that we couldn:t afford. In the end we ended up with gifts from the travel agency as an apology for having to deal with these situations. I love walking in the rain and got to experiance that a few times in a unfamiliar city it was amazing. i went to lunch with these Chinese girls that wanted to practice their english and make new friends, i didn:t notice the smell as much in Beijing as much as Xian but i am leaning that it is not the smell that makes it different it is the cleanliness that goes with it or lack there of. i found that street vendors make really good breakfast even if you don:t know what you are ordering. Ordering is a completley different thing than North America. we all noticed that as soon as you walk into a restraunt youd better know what you want to eat because they will linger over you until you are ready to order. sometimes pointing is not the best option especially with the drink menu because you can end up with things you don:t want to drink. same with ordering supper though because you will end up with different things that you dont know what are like cows tongue. very chewy. you will sometimes end up with things that you didn:t know that you ever wanted to try and it isn:t too bad. Beijing was a good place for us to start because it offered us some time to get use to the difference in　culture.

by the time we got to Xian we were somewhat used to China, well as use to it as you can get. we were accepting of our tour guide but it also helped that she was like 100 times better than the last, and didn:t sink into her seat and cry every other day, NOTE we didn:t to anything to make her cry. we were so tired that we just wanted to sleep but we had full days of activities that we had to just keep going and not worry about what we really wanted. we went around the city wall on bicycles, we saw the warriors we went to the wild goose pagoda. and to this place that had alot of water things. funny story acutally, we were suppose to be watching this water show where the fountains would dance to the music and well we couldn:t see the water so one of the guys in my group started to do interperative dancing he drew a crowd of 250plus people and this was just the way we deal with things. xian was also alot dirtier than beijing and acutally it was more what i expected to see when i thought of China. it is one of those places you loved and hated all at the same time. from xian　we also went to a farming villiage (not a village) and we stayed with families there. my roommates and i didn:t get to really know our family because of the language barrier but we really enjoyed our stay. we got to go to a school and spend half an hour with the little grade one students, this was by far my favorite part of my trip so far. i think people really started to understand why my major is what it is. and that night we were invited to the villiage dance, where i met Hamama, a seven year old angel. i had so much fun with her. when we got back to xian we sent some mail and picked up our laundry that we had done and well i don:t think the laundry place believed in a dryer so they put our wet clothes in bags and by the time we opened each bag our laundry stunk. so taht was a waste of money booo.

We left for Shaghai, this is the largest city in the world and i feel like i could wander it and not really get lost or if i do i could find where i am fairly quickly. this is the place where everyone started to really get sick. there were a few cases before hand but over all shanghai was the worst to start getting sick. our sponser Ryan ended up getting a feavor that lasted 5 days and he still doesn:t look the greatest. and another guy Skyler, developed a pancreatic attack once we got on the plane to kyoto he is still in the hopsital in kyoto while the rest of us have gone on to toyko. Keep him in your prayers.

All in all i loved China but i am sick of the food and i am glad to be gone. i think that we are just too tired to really respond greatly to china right now but when we look back later it will be an awesome part of our overall trip. i think that i am one of the most optomistic people in the group regarding the overall feel of china. i am glad i went and i want to go back but i think i need to do some exploring of the places myself, i need to really get to know the people, this is what our group really feels was lacking in our time in china, we all would have really liked to be able to communicate with the people and get to know them. i also think i need to see more of the world to fully appreciate what i have seen there. i need to know that every place is different and i need to feel like i have made a difference. i really want to do that. making a difference in one persons life would have been great but if i didn:t get a chance to really talk to any one than how can i make a difference. maybe i can change that in the future and since i know that i want to change that then maybe the rest of my trip will be more fruitful. i would not trade the time i had in china for anything on earth and i think that is why i have become a stronger person i know what i want to get out of the rest of my trip, relationships with the people of the countries i visit. WOW!!! i didn:t know that is what i wanted until i wrote it.