Cheer!

Hello! So today was the first official day of school. I already went before for class photo (I don't remember if I said that..) and that was pretty fun.

Today I had a cell phone(bought it yesterday), so everyone was asking to exchange mail addresses and stuff. :) I switch classes a couple times... I was in the wrong math class (not my fault :P ) and I took notes and everything ;~; Oh well. XD

I like the English classes, they're fun lolol. I introduced myself in the Oral Communications class, in English and in Japanese.

Oh yeah, I'm in year 1, which is grade 10, but the year 2 students are all going to like Australia and stuff, so... but Takemi-sensei said that because I can speak Japanese well, I might be bumped up to year 2 or year 3. :)

There's another exchange student at my school, Oda-Victoria. Just Oda is fine. She's from Norway. o:


So, after school we went to see Takemi-sensei, and we got talked through some stuff (all in JP. ), and then we went to see the ESS (English) club, and introduced ourselves in English. Or.... Japanese.. Or both.. I don't remember. xp

After that, we went to see the Cheerleaders practicing. OMG THEY ARE WONDERFUL.
I joined the club.
I start going tomorrow.
Everyday. :D
I have to ask about weekends...

I became a bunny. I'm so happy. They're so cute. x3


Well, that's all for now~

It's been a while!

Hello!

It's been a while since I've updated...

On the 31st of March, Moe's friend Hii-chan came over and we made dinner and baked a cake. It looked like a delicious cake, but it was not a delicious cake ;~;

Then on the first of April, we went to a brass band concert. It was actually really cute. The second act was a play of Aladdin, and they sang "what time is it?" at the end, and made high school musical sound cute. Right after that we ran to the taxi and went to Kyoto Station, and got on the shinkansen heading for Tokyo. Mama, Shin, and Onee were already there (they went on the 29th). We got to papa's house around midnight, and fell asleep around 1, but we had to wake up at 6:30 to get ready and go to Disneyland. I was completely happy with the wizard hat I found.

Disneyland was exhausting. I had no idea what was going on at first but apparently we were getting fastpasses for rides, lol. We waited for like three hours to go on Splash Mountain, and then after that we ran to Space Mountain and got in like nothing (fast pass!). We went on more things like Pooh's Honey House thing, and It's a Small World... We watched the night parade, and after that papa went back home, Onee went to sit in the warm place, Moe and Mama went to Big Thunder Mountain, and me and Shin went back to Space mountain and waited in line for like two hours. It was fun though. xD

The next day we went to Shibuya, and we went to Forever 21 for like ever >.< But after that, Shin, mama, and Onee left and went back to Tokyo, so it was just me and Moe. We checked out a few other shops but the weather was getting pretty bad(Typhoon after all), and then Moe's umbrella broke, so we were going to head home, but then we accidentally found Shibuya 109 so we went in there for like, not even 20 minutes. But when we came out the weather was a lot worse so we ran to the train station and it's a good thing we got there when we did, because shortly after that all of the trains stopped running. The rest of the night, we just stayed at Papa's.  (Got home around 5:30.)

The day after that was the last day in Tokyo. In the morning we went to Akihabara, but nothing was open when we went so we just went to Mr. Donuts for a little bit and chatted. When we left, stores

were starting to open up so we went around and I found Morning Musume's DVD concert "Ai Believe". I was quite happy. x3 After that, for lunch we ate at a maid cafe(lolz), and then we went to Harajuku. It was PACKED with people ;; but we managed to get some pretty awesome clothes and deals. x3
After Harajuku, we went to Tokyo station and got on the train to go back to Kyoto. We arrived back at the house at around 8 or 9 at night.





It's now the 9th of April, and today I get to go to school for orientation (So I will probably post about it later today or tomorrow). I'm super nervous, because there's a new school ceremony for all of the first year students(Shin is going :3 ), and the school might be busy but.. I guess I can handle it. Haha, first day of school for everyone else is the 10th, and for me, it's the 12th... I'm super nervous. I wanna buy more clothes before then, because my school doesn't have a uniform(unfortunately). There will also be another exchange student, Victoria, at my school. Hmm. x3

That's all for now~!

Thanks for reading

Quick update.

Hi-lo.

I was at orientation until about 11:00 on the 24th. I made lots of friends, especially a girl from New Zealand and a girl from Australia. We laughed at our different ways to say things, like jaggers or.. something..
Then, we all went to the train station and caught a shinkansen, except for the people who flew and a few people took trains. A lot of people took the shinkansen to Kansai, including me. It was about 13:03 when the shinkansen left, and it was 16:03 when it arrived at Shin-Osaka station. I got off the station and said good-bye to everyone and met Moe and Keiko-neechan (aunt.)
We took some trains and got to the circus, where I met Yocchan(aunt), Otabechan(uncle), Onee(Rina), Obaasan(grandma) and Ojiisan(grandpa). Mama and Shin were at home because Shin wasn't feeling well.

After the circus, we dropped my stuff off at Yocchan's and went out to eat delicious, delicious ramen. I have pictures but I don't have a camera cord so I can't update them :(
Then we went to Keikoneechan's, after I got my stuff, and she had two cats. It was awesome. I had a bath for the first time, you go into the room and shower, then you enter the bathtub. It's awesome, baths feel so good. Haha. Yocchan and Otabechan went home and I went to bed right away and woke up around 6:00. I helped Keiko-neechan make tamagoyaki and cut strawberries, and obaasan made omiso soup and gave me two sweaters, and told me to come back anytime. I was so happy! :)

Took about an hour and a half taking trains and shinkansen to get to Kyoto, but Mama was waiting at the station for us. Shin didn't arrive til later at night.
I walked in to find a huge sign that said "Wellcome to Fujino Family" (welcome spelt wrong, so cute) and other stuff written all over it. :)

Yesterday, I helped make dinner and every morning I help Moe hang the laundry outside. It's pretty fun here. We went and took purikura yesterday.

Today I'm going to the movies and probably just studying. I don't start school until April 12th.

Thanks for reading!

I have arrived!

Hello all!

Daniel and I arrived about 20 minutes earlier than our scheduled time, so we only had to sit on the plane for 11 hours. Only...

But I'm here! We arrived at the hotel and met some other exchange students, and then went to our rooms. We were given packets by JFIE, as well as meal coupons and a t-shirt. I went to bed around 20 after 10 after taking a shower and doing the homework. It's currently 4:55 and I've been awake for roughly 40 minutes, not tired at all. Today we have breakfast at 7:00 and I am going to tell them I am not a beginner at Japanese, because I looked over the things... hiragana charts, telling time, greetings, introducing yourself.... uh huh... lol. xD

My roommate is a girl from Saskatchewan, we're province neighbours! There is a lot of exchange students from Australia here.

I'll update in a bit!

Almost There...

Hey guys!

Where I am it is currently 7:19PM as I am writing this. Where am I, you ask? Los Angeles, of course!
I left for Winnipeg on Monday morning and spent the day there, then woke up at 3:00AM local time to get ready, left for the airport at 4, and caught a plane to Denver, Colorado at 6:00AM. We had a 2 1/2 hour layover in Denver, but at 10:03 local time the plane took off for Los Angeles. We arrived a bit early, too :)
LAX was kind of confusing(getting a free shuttle thing), but we found our way and all is well :)

I got to touch the ocean, ya~y! We went on a bus tour that went around LA. We went to this marketplace, and then drove to Hollywood and we got off for 45 minutes at Hollywood Blvd., and then we drove through Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, and we got off again for 40 minutes at Venice Beach and I got to play in the ocean, woot ! Haha, I like the ocean. Although it's rather cold :(


I leave tomorrow at 3:15pm LA time, but I'm going to be at the airport meeting Daniel, another exchange student(American) from ASSE, at some... gateway place? My mom's still going to talk to his dad. And we're meeting at 11:30AM. So about four hours after meeting Daniel, our plane will take off and almost 11 hours later we will be in Narita, Japan! :)

I hope the plane ride goes fast... 11 hours is horrible >.< I hope I can sleep for like, 9. :) Maybe 10... hehehe.

I'm super nervous and all of this is coming so quickly... but I'm really excited, too.

Just General-ness.

Hello :3

First off, here are the two photos I got of my host family from the last post that I was too lazy to edit in.

Just the five of them~ :)

Everyone!!

I also recieved an e-mail address so I sent an e-mail, and apparently on the 24th we're going to the circus! (Everyone, like grandma and all! :D ) I'm so excited!! This is my first host family, until the end of April. Although, Myrna(area rep) said that she was going to take a look into it, because she thought I would only have one host family. Also, there's no orientation, but I go to my host family on the 24th, but they're supposed to pick me up at the airport apparently..? But I arrive on the 22nd... lol... I have no idea what's going on. Okay, scratch that, there is a 3-day orientation, but I don't have to go for the first day apparently because I arrive like at the very end of the first day, lol

On another note, I've started packing! I have my one suitcase with a few things in it, a few things in my carry-on bag from ASSE... I'll take my purse on, and my laptop in a laptop bag, too. Also, I'm probably bringing one more piece of luggage, although my second-biggest one is too big, so I'll just bring the smaller one... can probably fit a lot of clothes in there! :) When I come back, anyways~. I also bought a lot of the stuff that I'll need to take for the first few days, and lots of socks haha. Couple new shirts, and capris. I need new shoes. I just have one pair of boots here, which is good... for Canada, haha.

I only have two weeks left until I leave my city... I still need my visa, they should be processing that this week, and it should arrive next week.. I need to book my flight to LA still, should be done.. soonish. I only have two more Saturday late nights dealing with drunk people! o.O It's going to be weird, haha. I'll probably cry on my last day of work. >~< Time is going by really fast. It feels like I have so much to do but I can't do a lot yet, but I still don't have enough time.. if that makes sense.

I have been slacking on Japanese lately, been so crazy at work and trying to hang out with friends as much as possible (o^^o) oops. Well, I'll be okay. x3 I hope ><;;

Thanks for reading!
~Ashley

More Information!

Hello~

Recently, I've been getting more information about my host family from Moe, and I received a form from my area rep.

So, turns out the family I have is only hosting me for a month :( So sad. They seem like such nice people!! Makes bringing gifts harder, lol.
I also found out that school starts on the 9th of April, and it starts at 8:45AM and goes until 4:10PM, and then club activities. There's no classes on Saturday, only if I have club would I have to go to school then. I will go to school by bicycle, and it takes about 20~30 minutes.

In my first host family's house, I have my own bedroom. I got a picture with all of the 5 family members, then another picture with all of them plus grandma, grandpa, uncle, and two aunts. :)
Maybe I'll edit them in later...

I sent an e-mail to the e-mail listed in the form, since the only person I've been communicating with is Moe... It's 10:20PM here now, and like, 1:20PM in Japan so... hopefully I'll get a reply soon. :)

I think that's all for now~

Thanks for reading!

Ashley.