Internationale uitwisseling!

Gegroet en welkom bij mijn anderhalfste post in het Nederlands (de vorige telde niet echt ;))!

Vandaag was een beetje een speciale dag op school. In de voormiddag hadden we Seitou Kenkyuu Happyoukai, wat zich laat vertalen als "Bijeenkomst voor voorstellingen over het onderzoek dat onze leerlingen doen" ofzo. Het kwam er zo goed als op neer dat ik de hele voormiddag naar een aantal saaie spreekbeurten waar ik bitter weinig van verstond moest komen luisteren. Er waren thans een aantal gewaagdere dingen ook :D bijvoorbeeld 2 jongens die alle twee drummer waren (en voor de rest niet echt iets van muziek konden) die een voorstelling deden over "jungle-achtige muziek". Wat er op neer komt dat de ene een aantal lage ritmes zat te drummen terwijl de andere als een bezetene op z'n hoog plastieken fluitje zat te blazen. Wij saluteren u, idioten met lef.

Er was ook iemand die een stop motion filmpje had gemaakt (jammer genoeg niet met mensen maar met tekeningen) en nog iemand die een star wars vechtscène-imitatie had gedaan en een beetje uitleg deed over het proces.

Al goed dat ik de eerste keer naar het meeste geluisterd heb want de meer technische presentaties heb ik de tweede keer moeten helpen met naar het Engels vertalen... Veel gokwerk, dat kan ik je wel vertellen... Wat wel goed uitviel omdat de mensen waar ik die vertaling voor deed zelf zo goed als geen woord Engels konden en de weinige toeschouwers die er waren toch niet geïnteresseerd waren.

Toeschouwers die Chinezen waren trouwens.

Anyway dus jullie zien het, we hadden vandaag Chineesjes bij ons op school. Het was best fun. We hebben er domme spelletjes mee gespeeld. Dingen als zonder spreken op volgorde van verjaardag gaan staan en zo. En dingen doorgeven tot de muziek stopt. Inderdaad.

Ik heb een stuk of 5,6 business cards gekregen, een stuk of 3 daarvan dubbel. Maar aan de positieve kant, ik heb wel cadeautjes van hun gekregen :D wel niet zo veel als sommige anderen... ik heb 2 dingetjes gekregen (een soort van gezichtje aan een speciaal geknoopt koordje, en een stenen schildpadje dat best mooi is =)). Tom (el Australito) heeft bijvoorbeeld een stuk of 5,6 geschenkjes gekregen. Hoe dan ook...

Hij is te groot en blond voor zijn eigen goed.

Nadat al die Chinezerij over was (hun Engels is goed :O random :P) hadden we een feestje.

Blijkbaar heeft het een goed halfuur geduurd ofzo. Ik ben zo goed als direct doorgegaan. Soms heeft goeie vrienden zijn met Sou-Yan (Hong Kong Lady) zijn negatieve kanten... Ze is bang in het donker dus zat aan mijn mouw te trekken om samen met haar een cd te gaan kopen en dan naar huis te gaan. Wat uiteindelijk betekent heeft dat ik niet heb kunnen toekijken terwijl die vraatzuchtigen van de Multicultural Exchange Club (Vanaf nu MES (de laatste letter staat voor Society... Waarom? U mij niet vragen, neen neen, vragen zeer slecht voor gezondheid.))

mijn lekkere Belgische pralinetjes oppeuzelden. Verdorie.

Soms heb ik echt iets tegen Yan... Ik hou soms ECHT niet van de manier waarop ze denkt. Ik denk ook soms als zij maar ik heb tenminste een beetje een idee van mijn plaats en wat ik wel en niet moet doen...

Ach ach. Morgen vakantie, jeej! Het is Cultuurdag :D Ik vind persoonlijk dat België meer van dat soort vakantiedagen nodig heeft. Ik ben van plan er een aantal mee te nemen in mijn valies.

Dit weekend heb ik me ook best geamuseerd =) Ik ben zaterdag een tas koffie (in de McDonalds. Ja.) gaan drinken met een Japanse Engelse leerkracht die zijn Frans wilt oefenen. Zijn Frans is zo geweldig :O Voor iemand die Frans studeert als hobby is hij verdorie goed... Blijkbaar is zijn Engels ook wonderbaarlijk (3 jaar Amerika) maar daar heb ik nog niks van gehoord). Wel goed dat ik ook een beetje mijn Frans kan onverliezen.

Zondag ben ik met Kei-chan (een meisje van mijn klas (ter informatie, haar naam is Keiko, maar omdat 25369% van alle Japanse meisjesnamen eindigen met "ko" (=het teken voor kind) laten we dat maar weg, en die -chan is gewoon de manier die je gebruikt om een meisje van onder de 20 aan te spreken.) naar Ebina geweest. Er is in Ebina zo goed als niets te doen. Procentueel gezien. De omgeving rond het station is thans best fun :D We hebben samen Aisu Kureepu (Ice Crepes (Niet te verwarren met pannenkoeken, alhoewel ze voor Japanners volledig het zelfde zijn)) gegeten en in de arcade "Silent Hill: The arcade" gespeeld :D (Ze is blijkbaar fan van Silent Hill. Lichtjes verontrustend, niet?)

We zullen het hier maar bij laten zeker.

Geen foto's deze keer. Jullie zijn geen brave kindjes geweest. Ofzo... Ik moet toch een reden verzinnen.......

Joren, schrijfbaar als 夜恋、　世錬、　与連、　余漣、　。。。　(Nachtelijke liefde, de verandering van de wereld, keer op keer een geschenk (ik verkies op het moment deze manier, maar ik zal waarschijnlijk vanaf volgende week n° 2 beginnen schrijven), more than a ripple (ik ben er nu pas achter gekomen dat het Nederlands geen apart woord heeft voor een klein golfje. Schande.))

en ook als 酔連, keer op keer dronken... Nomen non est omen? :D

Foto update

I know it's been long... En omdat een aantal mensen het mij gevraagd hebben zal ik vanaf nu in het Nederlands schrijven, ik heb toch niet het idee dat er veel Engelstalige mensen zijn dit lezen :P

Alleszins, hier de link naar mijn foto's: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42370919@N07/ Ik heb ze nog niet in sets georganiseerd maar dat komt wel. Uitleg staat meestal onder de foto's. Ik publiceer nog wel eens het volle verhaal. Ofzo.

Anyway er zitten ook een aantal foto's tussen die niet in een set horen, maar gewoon spul dat ik getrokken heb hier thuis of op school of zo ook dus. Ach wel.

Joren out.

My former host family's house in Yamato

This will be a short post: my former host family's house is located at these coordinates: 35°27'45.04"N 139°27'57.66"O. It's the white one :P I had quite a lot of trouble locating it though... But then I realised I lived really close to the railway tracks so I just followed them until I saw a crossing I knew :)

Where my house is at!

Due to the fact that a few people have asked me to post this I've gone through the trouble of looking it up. The thing is the home adress of my host family here doesn't say anything at all about the location of their house because the postal system in Japan is so completely different from ours.

Grotere kaart weergeven

shows you my house. It's the one with the 2 garages. Normally you should scroll to the right to be able to see it. It's the only plainly visible red-brickish house in that shot. Using that tool you can also look at it from a different angle and take a little walk down my street. Also notice the huge Nissan factory across from my house. I live in a rather industrial area at the moment.

Bunkasai! (+Typhoon)

Yes, I know it's been a full week...

I've just been busy... uhm... resting...

UUUUUuhm ok to the point!

I have so much to say that I don't really know where to start. Except for the fact that I do!

In this episode of "A Wacko in Japan":

- Culture Festival!

- First classes! (In part 2)

- Typhoon! (Might be in this part... Because it was today...)

As you see, I actually háve been quite busy, I just sort of failed to notify you! Or something.

The thing is there are times when I'd rather spend my time bothering my sister than writing stuff on this page :D

So let's start with Culture Festival (hereafter referred to as Bunkasai, which literally means exactly the same thing)!

Bunkasai is an event held at the school where every class and club does something like a small food stall or a dance performance or something along those lines.

My class did Belgian waffles! :D They called themselves "Aressaffuru", Aressa- because our homeroom teacher's name is Alessandro (he's Brazilian, but I actually didn't notice, his accent is just too perfect). The -ffuru comes from the Japanese (Katakana english) way of writing waffles.

>>> Nihon no Kotoba intermezzo: Katakana: The name for the "alphabet" Japanese people use to write English words in a way they know how to pronounce. Only it's never the right way. In japanese a consonant is always followed by a vowel. The only exeption to this rule is n. But the n in nani is different from the n in kenshin. They are pronounced differently. It is actually impossible to have a word begin with that specific n character. A few examples:

- Text: TeKiSuTo

- Smith: SuMiSu

- White: HoWaiTo

- Vietnam: BeToNaMu

- Horror: HaRaa

- ...

Sometimes they're so different that I only recognize them when they try to write them (the spelling sometimes going quite haywire of course :D)

Anyway surprisingly enough my class had gotten hold of actual imported Belgian waffles. When they asked me if we ate waffles hot or cold in Belgium I answered that both were ok, but because I thought at first that they were going to bake them themselves I said that hot was best. It seemed quite weird to me because in my experience such a thing as a waffle iron doesn't really exist in these parts.

What they did was take a small gas fire, put a pan on it and heat up the pre-baked (imported Belgian) waffles and pour stuff like chocolate sauce over them. I had quite a good laugh as you can imagine, but they did a good job :)

I also participated in a presentation. The international club (that I am a member of by default) gave a small presentation about a few "international culture items". I had to say 3 lines which were all weird laws they have in America. Stuff like "It is forbidden to play Dominoes on Sunday." Yeah, those Americans... My impression of them ain't improving :D

Ami-sensei (the teacher in charge of the international club) also did a dance performance with her first-year-students' "Daigo Crew" (Daigo is her last name).

It was really good :O They did it in 2 groups and the first one wasn't that good so I didn't bother, but the second one was good so I taped all of it :D I might be putting that up on Youtube one of these days...

Speaking of putting stuff on Youtube, I taped my way to school on Sunday (That's right folks, I had a full 7 days of school last week)! It's a bit big and stuff and it's still like splitted into 2 parts so I still have some work on that... I'm also going to put the stuff I taped at the matsuri up for your enjoyment (not mine, obviously, do you know how mendokusai it is to mix all that stuff?)

I might be doing vlogs in stead of blogs in the future, because it's such a pain to type these long messages :D

Anyway I had fun at Bunkasai! Watch the pictures on my Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42370919@N07/sets/72157622542110506/

Oh and I haven't told you the best part! I walked around on Saturday in traditional Japanese clothing the WHOLE DAY :D If that ain't cool :P Only thing is, my host dad doesn't really have that kind of stuff, so I had to borrow one of my host mother's yukata's :P (If you're wondering what it is, it looks like a kimono but isn't. Just watch the pictures! :D

As an extra, because I am kindness itself, I'll give you a little info about the big typhoon we had.

I had so much fun!!

Might sound a bit weird, but that's how it is :D In the area where I live we didn't have like the big storm stuff, so it did rain quite a bit but it was still ok. Actually even though today was the peak of the typhoon it was really sunny for most of the day. The wind was strong though. REALLY strong. I walked over the court with a plate in my hands and it was almost torn out of them by the wind. THAT strong. It really was quite unlike wind in Belgium. But because it was warm wind I had a lot of fun just standing there getting blown away :D

Hai, shuuryou!! (Let's put an end to this!)

Niban no bun ni o-tanoshimi ni kudasai! (Please look forward to part 2!)

BeSuPyuTo YoRen

Matsuri (part 2) + 20% free added value!

Gokigenyou! (btw it means "you look healthy today" or more accurately it's like "tu as bonne mine" in French :D)

My most humble apologies, I told you guys that I would write more yesterday and I didn't...
I somehow ran out of time (and preferred spending what was left of it with my sister who was actually home yesterday but ok :P)
So yeah about the matsuri!
I ate takoyaki (balls of vegetable something with fried octopus in them), okonomiyaki (more veggies! But I can't really explain what it is exactly... And apparently the sauce they put on it has a very recognizable smell because my host mom instantly noticed I'd eaten it). Also had some mizu-ame... Apparently I had a bit of an unlucky streak because normally mizu-ame is a grape or small apple in liquid candy but I got an umeboshi-flavoured one (I don't like umeboshi, it's incredibly sour AND bitter AND salty. They make it by placing some kind of fruit in a lightly salted liquid for a certain time). I did have some luck though because due to winning against the stall owner with Rock Paper Scissors I got an extra no-fruit one so that was ok. And I drank Ramune Soda! I love Ramune Soda! I had it in Belgium as well but I only really appreciate how specific it's taste is over here. They even have Ramune Soda flavoured ice cream over here... It's yummy...
Anyway, back to the matsuri
After all that munching I watched a show at the primary school where they had invited some (locally) well-known enka (traditional japanese singing) performers.
I got quite bored after a while and walked around some more.
In the evening I watched the aomori nebuta parade.
>>> Nihon no bunka intermezzo: aomori nebuta: Movable lighted statues made out of rice paper and metal wire that are painted to depict traditional japanese themes. They are originally from Aomori prefecture so everyone calls them aomori nebuta.
Apparently they let Hadano's middle schools enter some simple square ones that they'd painted so that was quite interesting :) Some of them were really pretty :O (watch the pictures, they're worth it)
After that was finished the fireworks started. Because it was really dark by then the pictures I took then are quite worthless but they should give you an idea of what I'm about to describe. They started by lighting up piles of wood along the river and playing drums and stuff, and after that the real spectacle began: they lined the full length of the river with a rope filled with a kind of giant sparklers that rained down colourful sparkles for like 10 minutes or so.
Japanese people really turn fireworks into art.
In the regular air fireworks I saw some quite amazing stuff, like smileys with the outside and the eyes in different colours and things like that. Really pretty.

And now for some added value!

It's small, silent and pokes at your back in an attempt to get past you.
Old ladies at the matsuri.
It's large, loud and pokes at your back before pushing you aside.
3 Old ladies at the matsuri holding hands.
How do you recognize a drunk at the matsuri?
He's holding a paper cup with "KIRIN" on it and trying his very best not to fall into the river :D

Then something about yes and no.
Yes and no are very complicated over here... You have to listen very carefully to what they say. And on top of that it differs from person to person because some people know that it's different over here and adapt to our way of thinking, which only leads to misunderstandings.
When someone asks you "Aren't you going to eat?" in English you can answer "Yes, I'm going to now." In Japanese you'd have to answer "No, I'm going to now", because the other person said Aren't, which is a negative form.
The thing that bugs me the most is the fact that my family assumes that I'd say Yes and No in English instinctively. So every time I say iie, which means no in Japanese, they think I'm saying Yeah in English... Every time that happens I say "NI-HON-GO" (Japanese) quite expressively :P

Some more added value! (all to make up for the lack of content the past few days :D)
The water over here is completely crazy. For example it's full of air. Whenever I take a bath all the hair on my body fills up with bubbles and the bubbles start creeping up my back and irritating me :P
Aside from that it seems strangely more viscous than Belgian water... Strange.

An important note on the side: My class is making "Belgian Waffles" for the school culture festival tomorrow... LOL :P

Das Jorenness, over and out.

Update: Matsuri! (Part 1)

Hi everyone!

I know I've been a bit of a no-show the last few days but yeah... I had stuff to do.

I've been preparing for a speech I was supposed to do at our school's annual culture festival (which is this friday and saturday) but now got postponed to somewhere in november or something.

But the important news is: I went to a matsuri! A matsuri is like the Japanese version of what I would call a "kermis" in Dutch. Only it's filled with food stalls and street performers (and cute kids in traditional Japanese clothing (there is NOTHING on this earth that's cuter than grade school girls in kimono. Nothing). Besides that there are traditional Japanese dance performances and they go around with like stuff from local shrines and big statues and stuff!

For the pictures see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42370919@N07/sets/72157622479998980/

Yeah!

Anyway so saturday evening my sister comes up to me and says like "Hey, you wanted to go to a matsuri right? There's one in Hadano tomorrow!"

By pure divine luck my o-nee-chan found out about what I think was the last matsuri in our province. (I'm not even sure Hadano IS in our province though... It was quite far by train. It's on the Odawara line I think, about half an hour from Sagami-Oono or something, I don't quite remember. It's after Hon-Atsugi anyway so it is quite far).

The thing was: I had to go alone. My host sister had part-time job on sunday, my host father had football training and my host mother had something else that I don't quite understand to do. So I was completely alone.

But, despite that, I bravely stepped on the train on sunday morning and found my way quite easily to Hadano.

Arriving there the matsuri was noticeable from within the station. They were handing out flyers with maps and event time tables at the station exits. Outside the station I saw some wacked Japanese young'uns doing some serious breakdancing! (I think I taped it but by the time you get to see that video it'll be next week I think :P I'll put the mix of everything I taped on youtube soon enough).

The food smell was... everywhere. And not just meat or sweet stuff, anything.

They were selling drinks and stuff down the stairs to the station. And giant Stitch teddies.

Anyway I had a rather good mental image of the town map in my head so I walked upstream (sort of quite literally) to the local primary school (that's where most of the events were being hosted).

There I bought myself a bag of strawberry icy lemonade (a bag, yes).

Though it was good and refreshing the guy at the stall selling it was a total creep. (Creep, not Creap. Creap is the stuff my host mom puts in her coffee. It's short for CREAmy Powder. It cracks me up every time).

Apparently I was there just in time to see the parade leave. Wasn't much of a parade. Some people in like traditional Japanese outfit but it was mostly parents of children from the local schools. Apparently I missed the awa-odori (traditional japanese dancing) because it was saturday. Zannen deshita (too bad), as Toyomu would say :D

That's all for today, I'll post more tomorrow!

O-tanoshimi-ni! (Look forward to it!)

A new family!

Minna-sama gokigenyou from Japan!

I've moved to my new family! From now on I'll live with the Sato family for the rest of my exchange. My host parents are called Yumiko and Tadao (1: names ending with ko are always female. 2: from now on they shall be called okaasan and otousan (mom and dad). To distinguish between my family here and my family in Belgium I shall always denominate the Japanese ones in Japanese.
I also have a brother and sister: Keisuke and Moeko. 21 and 18 (soon to be 19) years old respectively. Although I've already been here a full day I haven't seen any of them (though I've been told that Keisuke came and left while I was sleeping).

Besides that I have another quite important announcement to make: I bought a keitai!

Nihon no Kotoba intermezzo: Keitai: To distinguish between ordinary rest-of-the-world mobile phones and Japanese ones I shall use the word keitai. Japanese keitai can do a whole lot more than make phone calls! They send mails (real ones, no texts/sms, thus eliminating that concept from Japanese collective consciousness), browse the web, pay at the supermarket, exchange data with infrared, act as gps, can be used to watch television channels, ...
Now most of these functions cost money so you have to be careful while using them but still it's quite cool they have a nationwide 3G network that those phones use.

The whole discussion at the au store (a mobile phone provider, we went to softbank too but softbank suck) was done in really fast Japanese by okaasan with the really polite store clerk so I didn't get most of it... But in the end I think I got quite a good deal. I took the package where the phone itself was free and I only have to pay for my monthly fee. They calculated it at the store and it eventually amounts to just over 200 euros for the full year that I'm here (including 9000 yen cancellation fee because the shortest keitai contract over here is 2 years. bloodsuckers)
I think I made a good choice in which set to take, I have an "international" sony ericsson so I might be able to use it in Belgium as well...

Take care! I'll write more later.

Joren

REAL first day of school!

Minna-sama gokigenyou! Hi everyone!

Even though the post I wrote yesterday carried the title first day of school, my real first day of school was today! I was quite nervous going over there, because it was the first time that I went there by myself and I'd not yet gone there on foot yet so it was a bit of an orientational puzzle. I had to be there relatively early too so I didn't know if I was going to be on time.

Eventually everything turned out well, since I live so close to my school. It's ten minutes on foot from my house to the station, 10 minutes by train and 10 more minutes from the station to school. When I switch families this saturday I'll live even closer to school.

The walk over to my school from the station was quite weird though. I saw all kinds of kids in all kinds of uniforms but noone from my school (although my school has no uniform so sometimes it's quite hard to see who goes to my school and who doesn't (wèèh no uniform, me sad, me likes Japanese uniform!)). When I got there there weren't that many people either. It was like arriving at my Belgian school at 8:10, I only saw about 10 people. I waited for a few minutes inside the building and was joined by Tami-sensei, the teacher responsible for the foreign exchange students (I met her yesterday as well). She introduced me to my tannin sensei (homeroom teacher) and made me do a self-introduction in front of the full staff and my class. After that I had some Japanese language tutoring which was quite alright.

I ate lunch with the girls from my class (the only ones, mind you, there are about 5 of them (and they all wear uniforms because it's cute! :D)). Really friendly people! They told me I looked like Han Solo from Star Wars (Harrison Ford)(I knew there was something fishy about a high school girl asking me if I'd seen Star Wars...). And they too complimented me on the colour of my eyes :P Blueish greyish green rocks :P (They will probably never read this so I can say all of that without any shame :)

In the afternoon I did just about nothing.

The only thing I did was look at the subjects I can choose (SO MANY!). I'm choosing Fine Arts, Calligraphy, Judo, Engineering Basics, Mathematics, Applied Programming, Programming Skills, some other IT subject, 3D computer graphics (I'm reallllly looking forward to that one!), English conversation (I was asked to be a teacher's aide, sounds fun, teaching english to weird Japanese kids who call it Ingurishi :P) and I might take robotic engineering but I heard from the German exchange student that it was only lecture so I might not do that one, because it might be a little bit too hard with my mere basic knowledge of Japanese. Tami-sensei recommended that I take Car Tech, because it's really practically oriented mechanics, like actually working with machines and stuff, but I have no interest whatsoever in learning how to fix cars so...

I'll talk to her about it more tomorrow and I'll let you know when I have my schedule.

I might join some clubs too. I am, by default, a member of the International Club, being exchange student, but I'd like to join the art club or the music club in addition to perhaps the karate club. Tami-sensei told me it wasn't that strict so it might be good. I also heard something about an electricity club but Tami-sensei hadn't heard of it so it might not have any members this year.

I'll keep you posted,

Joren (Night love in Japanese ;P 夜恋　(don't I have a wonderful name? :D I showed the other people from the international club and the girls from my class and they all liked it :D Tami-sensei: "Nanka eroi yo!" = "Kind of perverted, no?". I forgive you, Tami-sensei. :P))

First day of school! sort of...

Hi again! A very warm gokigenyou from Japan!

>>> Nihon no bunka intermezzo: Gokigenyou: Good day (but rather... old... but also a proof of good education! Absolutely my favorite greeting!)

In this episode:

-School!

-Meeting the parents!

-Japanese food!

Today was my first day of school! But not really. I just went over there to speak with the teacher who's in charge of handling the foreign exchange students. I have to be there at 8.25 tomorrow to do a speach in front of the class I'll be going to and after that I have Japanese lessons. The other 3 exchange students at my school have been having these for 2 or 3 weeks already but as WYS told my homeroom teacher (titularis voor de Nederlandstaligen :) that one of the conditions for entering their program was 2 years of education in Japanese language they didn't think it was necessary for me to have even more lessons at school instead of getting some practical experience by having conversations with my family.

Speaking of family, I saw my second host family for the first time today!!! I met with Yumiko Sato (my host mother to be) and Moeko Sato (my host sister to be) ((someone correct me if that expression is wrong, my english is degrading rapidly here :P (only correct me if you're certain though :)))) Moeko is 19, university student, kind and Really pretty! (on top of that she complimented me on the colour of my eyes! (they don't have green here ;) *dumb birdbrain "I-got-a-compliment-from-a-pretty-girl" grin* (Moeko-sama if you ever read this... well uhm... I have rather nothing to say for myself... :D))

After that plethora of () I must add that Yumiko-san seems like an incredibly kind person. The kind of which you didn't know they existed. That kind. And polite too! Almost too much so.

Anyway I thought I'd add some fun stuff too:

Until now I have eaten: - Natto ((fermented soy beans) is ok... about the same degree of un-yumminess as some french cheeses... I don't really get why people would want to eat it for breakfast though) - Ayu (A river fish that has such a soft head you can eat it... and I did. That was a weird feeling alright... fish brains being mashed in my mouth. I'd rather not but in principle there's nothing really gross about it. ) - Yamaemo (GROSS! The vegetable is called yam in english by the way. If you ever get the chance to eat it... don't) - Red beans for desert - Melon-shaped pears - REAL sushi (homemade) - Tofu (I don't get why I'm putting this up here, I guess because some people really don't like tofu :P I do :D) - Tenpura! (fish (or vegetables) baked in a kind of dough. not what I expected but good anyway) - Devil's Tongue (Good stuff :D It's a kind of seaweed, I just put it up here because it has a funny name :)

Japan, the country where you can pay with both your train card and your cell phone.

Japan, the country where bathtubs speak after playing music.

Japan, the country where once men now women can become celebrities.

Yeah

Ijou! That was all!

Das Jorenness

Engekibu

>>> Nihon no bunka antemezzo: engeki-bu = drama club

I went to my host family nephew's drama club yesterday! Superfun :D It's quite the different experience though, improvisation in a language in which you only understand half of what they're saying =) Even though they're a drama club they start with physical exercise :O First we did pronunciation exercises (a i u e o i u e o a u e o i a .... ka ki ku ke ko ki ku ke ko ka ku ke ko ka ki ...) and after that we did 45 push-ups, 40 sit-ups and 3 minutes of ankle exercises... interesting :P I was interested in entering the karate club at my school (that I'm going to for the first time tomorrow) but after seeing even the drama club doing push-ups and things like that I'm a little bit scared :P

Anyway it was a good chance for me to have some conversation exercise with people who aren't 40 years older than me...

No pictures this time, I brought my camera but forgot to take pictures...

I also went to a newly opened book off with my host nephew (he's 13 by the way so he's into stuff they call "Janpu" (Jump) here)

>>> Nihon no bunka intermezzo: Janpu, after Shounen Janpu (Boy's Jump, a popular magazine) is the term used for all media that young boys are into, like series about fighting people and giant shooting space robots and stuff.

I'm not very janpu-inclined so that's one thing we can't really have conversations about but whatever.

It was fun anyway!

Joren

Akihabara!

Absolutely and without doubt the best paradise on Earth...

Hai, Verspeurt Joren desu, back with more info on my exchange student stay in Japan! If you're reading this and haven't read my first post, be ashamed and read it.

Today I visited Akihabara! (It's the reason I can write this to you, I didn't know I had to bring a switchplug Europe-Japan to plug my laptop in so I haven't been able to use it until now, I bought one of those plugs today). It's about an hour and something away from where I live, on a very busy line, but it's absolutely worth it.

For pictures, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42370919@N07/sets/72157622205516555/

First thing I had to do in Akiba was buy a plug adaptor thing for my laptop (you can see it on the picture with the stuff I bought (all those manga's you see there are for studying purposes y'all! or something.. :P I would've taken more pictures but I was so excited I forgot. I wanted to take a picture with one of those maid uniform girls handing out publicity but the only girl I got a chance to ask said she hated pictures so yeah... )

That was kind of easy, I just stepped out of the station and went into the first electric store I saw and they had it there so that was quickly settled. After that I walked into Onoden. Just to have been there. It's quite well-known. And because it's thursday today (well technically while I'm writing this friday) it was empty. And I understand that because the prices aren't that wonderful. Onoden sells electrical appliances by the way. Everything.

After that I ran as fast as I could to the nearest Gamers. Gamers is the summit of Otaku culture. Only downside: they only have recent stuff. It said on one of the shelves they had t-shirts of my favorite series, but I asked the store clerk and he said that they were all sold out (and he pulled a face like "That old stuff ain't coming back no more sonny"). Me sad.

After that I began my courageous crusade and walked into every store that seemed somewhat interesting. Weird thing about stores in Akiba is that they have multiple floors where they sell different stuff. And each floor is completely independent of the other (different cashier, security stuff at every staircase, ...). Something nice they have here is something called doujinshi. It's people drawing manga or even making computer games but don't have an editor. Doujinshi people are free to parody anything they like as long as they don't mention the actual title of the series they're making a parody of. I didn't buy any because all the series they make doujinshi of are completely unknown to me.

What I didn't like was the fact that most of the stuff I looked at had prices that were hard to find (the store sells at the price printed on the item (in tiny print) + tax (a percentage I don't know)) so I actually bought one of those 2 cd's without actually knowing what it was going to cost...

After a long and hard exploration I suddenly noticed it was dark outside and rushed home.

I guess this is the end of this post. I'm sorry if it wasn't as interesting but to me this was a very interesting (and exhausting) day so...

Mata ne!

yo-ren ùesupyuto

First post from Japan!

Like you people obviously have noticed, this is my first post from the most wonderful country in the world, in the most understood language in the world, by the most wonderful person in the world (joudan desu, it's a joke ^^).

I have chosen English as the language for my blog so everyone I know can read it (even the Japanese people! Or so I hope...)

Anyway I'll tell you a bit of the story of how I got here.

Japan being the most awesome country in the universe of course I wanted to go there, so first I contacted the organisation AFS. I went on weekends with them and everything but because they have a lottery system that decides which country you go to I couldn't go with them because they picked out China for me and I thought like hmmm... China me no like, so I did some more searching and found WEP (short for World Education Program (or, more likely, We Eat People)), and they said I could go, so I went. After leaving some of my luggage (oh and my parents of course ^^) at Brussels Midi Station I took the TGV (Biggo Speedo Trainness) to Paris Charles de Gaulles airport, where I found out that actually I should've left EVEN MORE baggage in Belgium because We Eat People failed to notify me of the fact that I could only take 20 kg's (they told me 23).

From PCDG we (1 more Flanders dude and 4 Wallonia-inhabitants) took the direct non-stop airplane to Tokyo Narita. There we waited. And waited. And then someone from the even more wonderful organisation WYS (World Youth Service Society (methinks), more likely short for Whoah You're Stupid for choosing us).

Then we took a limousine bus (weird name isn't it, cause it has nothing to do with limousines, here in Japan that's what they call a coach) to the Olympic Center near Yoyogi Park (which is really nice!).

And there we waited.

And waited.

And after being awake for like 40 hours we finally got some rest. But not until after having had my first experience with a combini.

>>> Nihon no Bunka Intermezzo:

>>> Nihon no Bunka Intermezzo: Nihon no Bunka = Japanese culture

>>> a combini is a small supermarket where you can buy mostly food.

>>> derived from convenience store

We did a lot of stuff at the Olympic Center, like having the rules explained to us (every hyphon and comma) but that's not really interesting now is it... Anyway we went to Harajuku (with exchange student Japanese guides (Mizuho and Miria arigatou :D)) where we went karaoke-ing and did 2 rounds of purikura.

>>> Nihon no Bunka Intermezzo: Harajuku: If you're in Tokyo and want some clothes, Harajuku is the place to be. It's street after street of clothes shops, food shops and apparently karaoke places as well :D

>>> purikura: crazy Japanese machine that turns visiting a photo booth into a sport. You go into one of the machines in the hall and have pictures taken of yourself and friends, which you can then edit and take home. Quite the hype with girls who wear too much make-up it seems (and other girls too, ofcourse, sorry :P))

Anyway it was crazy.

After all that fun it was time to go to our families. I'd been appointed the Aoyama family, residents of Yamato, Kanagawa as a welcome family. And they were indeed very welcoming! My current host parents' names are Koyu and Mieko. Koyu-san is a professional artist and university professor and loves art deco among other things. Mieko-san loves chanson/canzone and singing in general. They both love Italy. Mieko-san has a special bond with Belgium because it was the first country she ever travelled to (or so I understand). Koyu-san has a special bond with Belgium because he has studied there and likes Flemish painters.

After staying here for two weeks I will move to my second family, more info about them will follow.

I was planning to make a video blog and I will post something here as soon as I do but in the meantime I have some other stuff for you: pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42370919@N07/sets/72157622329671538/

and my version of Only In Japan!:

- Stuff with 10,000 buttons. Everything here has buttons with kanji on them. Some toilets (the one we have here does). The bath (it's irritating! only handy function is the fact that you can set it to keep the bath warm for you). Even the desk lamp I have beside me in this room has 6 different buttons with Japanese text on them.

- Cute girls in even cuter school uniforms!! I'm so sad my school doesn't have a uniform. My school is the coolest though. I can pick robotics and astronomy as subjects! It is after all Sagamihara Science and Technology High school... :D

- Book Off! The best store ever: every manga you can imagine for less than a euro :D

- The worlds most wonderful water! Sounds weird but it's true. I'd pick Japan's water over Evian or whatever any day. I'd probably even pick it over some soft drinks :P

- Akihabara! The world's biggest paradise for lovers of electrical appliances and digital media (It's in Tokyo, of course it's the biggest in something)! If it's electric or digital it exists in Akihabara :D (more about that later)

- Uber-crowded trains... not so positive.

- Weird sweets... with red bean paste and mashed rice... all of them... it's a conspiracy...

More to follow as I explore more I guess.

I have currently visited: Yamato (of course :P), Harajuku, Yoyogi Park (and in it the Meiji Jingu), Akihabara, and Kamakura! Kamakura is nice, I visited some temples and shrines. To get to the big jingu (shrine) they have there you pass through half a mile of walkway bordered by sakura trees. Can't wait to go back there in spring.

Well as it is currently almost 2 in the morning I guess I'll finish this post with:

Mata ne!

See you later!

Joren El Sugoi In Japan Habitant Flandrien Super-Deluxe Otaku Verspeurt

>>> Nihon no Bunka Postscripto: Otaku: person who is into Japanese entertainment culture