Friday, June 27, 2008

Why is Hikari Crying???

Why is Hikari crying?? She's pretty upset downstairs, right now. Let me explain what JUST ended...

The kids were mouthing off to my host mom saying dirty things about fecal matter, not wanting to get in the bath, and so and and so forth... They were screaming and throwing their socks at each other and me, then eventually off of the first floor indoor-balcony thing into the living room. Eventually it led the mom having to take out her secret weapon. Chucky. She has a small stuffed animal version of chucky, the killer doll from the "Child's Play" movies. It scares the twins to the point that they will sprint up stairs, sneak into my room and hide in my closet.

She took him out and they both dove behind me peeking around my back. My host mom put chucky over her face and said (in english) "Hello! I'm chucky!" they started to get more scared "I'm chucky! I am hungry! Onaka ga suita yo!" Hikari started to realize she should not have thrown her socks. "I'm chucky! Fuck Bullshit!" It sounds bad that she cursed but they really had no idea what she was saying, I'm not sure she knew what she was saying. They both bolted upstairs and into the moms room. My room and the moms room have windows that open into the house. They both look down into the kitchen (where she was standing.) So she threw the chucky doll into her window and it landed in her room. Moments later the twins bolted out screaming at the top of their lungs. Then they went into my room, but the mom had already gotten upstairs and reclaimed chucky. She cornered Hikari who immediately began sobbing and saying (in Japanese) "I'm sorry Chucky! I'M SORRY CHUCKY~!!!!!"

This made my mom feel a little bad, even though it was pretty hilarious. So she said "who wants to go to Lucky Pierrot (the santa restaurant) for some ice cream or milkshakes?" That cheered them twins up real fast. We grabbed out stuff and got in the car. Hikari brought her recorded to serenade us in the car ride. She doesn't know how to play the recorder, she just knows how to blow into it as hard as she possibly can to create a vast jump in overtones so it kills your ear drums... this started the next game for my mom. "If you play your recorded at night snakes will come!!!!"...


Getting shakes with mom...

-Miiiiiiike

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

People Persons...

Hakodate is an interesting place, there aren't many young people that live here, but a lot of young people visit it. Middle Schools in Japan take class trips every year to various places. Some go to Hiroshima, some go to Nara, and as I've learned, some come to Hakodate. I got on the street car here to ride downtown and suddenly I was surrounded by 12 year olds who looked like 7 year olds. They were tiny. They were decked out in some serious clothing though. They were all whispering about the "Gaikokujin" on the bus. I'm the Gaikokujin (Person from a foreign country). On finally said "Hello." So I said "Hello." back and they all go "WHOA." It happens every time. It's hilarious.

One little girl wearing a blue denim cowboy hat and a shirt that said "PRETTY GIRL KISS" all over it finally started speaking to me in Japanese. All of the grammar you learn in first year Japanese suddenly became handy. Here is the conversation written... it was all in Japanese, this is the english version....

Girl 1: What country are you from?
Me: America
GIrl 2: Ooooh, America.
Me: Where are you all from?
Girl 2: We're from Aomori, it's south of here. We're on a middle school trip, are you also on a middle school trip?
Me:....well...no.
Girl 1: He's not on a middle school trip, he's at least 35 years old.
Me: I'm 22.
Girl 2: He's not 35 years old!
Girl 1: What time is it?
Me: It's 2:45
Girl 2: What is your favorite color?
Me: I like blue and green. What's YOUR favorite color?
Girl 1: MINE is Pink. And Blue. And Red. And White.
Me: White?
GIrl 1: Yeah, white. And Purple. And Grey.
Me: Grey? Do you like all colors?
Girl 1: NO! I like all colors except black.

I'm telling you, these kids are not very good conversationalists... Anyway, at this point one of the small children was touching my camera bag and said "What's in here??" Now, this is the closest I've gotten to getting myself in trouble in Japan. I said "It's my gun." She, and EVERYONE on the street car FREAAAAAAAAAAAAKKED out. I thought it was hilarious...

Ok... Just kidding. I didn't really say that. But I really really wanted to because I knew they'd believe me. I told them it was my camera and they were like "Take our picture when we get off the cable car." But when I got off they ran away. It's ok. That girls denim cowboy hat didn't really gel with the rest of her get up. It wasn't picture worthy... or maybe it was, but just for a different reason.

If you ARE interested in seeing some of my photos feel free to browse at www.flickr.com/ohmalarkey

Other than that, there's no major news to report. I bought myself a cheap guitar. My host mom some how managed to sign me up to play at a concert at my two twin host-sisters elementary school... tonight. I'm going to play a chord melody of "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim for them. Should be an interesting gig, that's for darn sure! I'm looking forward to this "camping trip" this weekend. I'm sharing a room with two of my friends and then one guy who I don't know who always has a sweaty back. No hard feelings though, I don't judge. Although, on the first day he went up to my friend Dokken (who is also in the room) and was like "Are you actually Japanese?" Dokken said "no, I'm Thai, but I'm from America..." and before he could finish the guy was like "oh... " and pranced (not walked) away. He has some pep to his step, so it'll be an interesting weekend.

-Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Hikari...

A brief moment of Hikari...

In the car on the way home from the special olympics my host mom said "Were you sisters like this when you were younger?" I had to think so I thought back to what had happened at the olympics thing were at...

It was REALLY hot and we were all sweating and I got sunburned, Hikari yells out "Mom, my BUTT itches, will you scratch my butt?" The mom scratched the top of her butt for her a little, it was the bottom of her back. Hikari yells "Nooooo mom, IN my butt, on the inside." Needless to say, my host mom was so embarrassed but couldn't help but laugh at this ridiculous request. Hikari stuck her finger up her butt and pulled it out and smelled it. Then she threatened to touch everyone in the family with it. This girl is hilarious.


Back to the car ride "No, honestly, they werent." "haha, I didn't think so. Hikari, you'll never get a boyfriend if you make everyone smell the smell of your butt on your finger..."

I do make these kids out to sound bad, they are a little tough, but they are also really funny. They like putting their barrettes and clips in my hair I'll leave a little picture for you... Here's me and Nozomi with a little bit of Hikari.

Family Fun...

So today they had a big olympics day at the school where my host brother goes. He's 12 and has some developmental disabilities. He can't really talk, he can understand you and will nod in response, but he can't really speak. He also just functions on a slightly lower level than a normal 12 year old. He's a really sweet kid though and he's always running around smiling. He lives away from home at a school then comes home on the weekends and plays around the house and outside a lot.

So he lives at this big school with dorms and stuff, they have this crazy olympics obstacle course day at the school and we went to root Yumeto ( my host-bro) on. It was a scene that I never ever thought I'd ever see in Japan. It was just hundreds of people sitting around a big track in the middle of a field cheering on these kids. They divided them up by grade. The first few grades had relay races that looked a lot like what we imagine Japanese obstacle courses to look like, just this one is for kids so it's not suspended 80 feet in the air or anything.

There was first a section where they run across a balance beam, climb over a small wall, crawl through a little jungle of strings tied in various shapes and so on. Each student on the team had a block, when they got to the end they had to place their block on a stick and each student stacked theirs on the next. The last student finished the little totem pole of blocks and then used it to fight/knock down a giant picture of a monster. Crazy, right? This is for 7 year old disabled kids and I really wanted to jump in line and do it.

Eventually it all turned into a track and field thing with high jump, track relays and stuff. It was a really great thing to see so many supportive families and what not screaming for their kid. My host mom did a team one with my host brother where they put a ball at the end of a stick and the student would step on one end of the stick and launch the ball in the air and the parent would have to catch it in a basket. A catapult looking thing...

Afterwards we celebrated with Yumeto by bringing him out to a Kaitenzushi (the sushi-go-round) type of place. It was amazing. The seafood here is so good. The lack of anything to do in Kunebetsu and Hakodate is made up for by amazing seafood. I have another story involving Hikari at the olympics thing which I'll post later after dinner.

****a brief side note****
Hikari just scared me by sneaking into my room quietly with socks on her hands and then she screamed right behind me and rubbed her socks on my face... lovely.


Here's Yumeto getting embarrassed when we were cheering him on. He quickly covered his face with his hat.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

So, I Did that Onsen Thing Again...

So, yesterday my host mom said "Tonight, we're going to the ONSEN!!!!!!" My host-mom cheered, Hikari cheered, Nozomi cheered... I fake-cheered. Don't get me wrong, those onsens sure are great... ish. They do feel nice and it's a key part of Japanese culture. It's still just hard to break my American mindset of "I don't want to be naked next to you." I'm not embarrassed to be naked next to all the Japanese guys. I don't even care that they stare at me hardcore. I got used to that. What I don't like is sitting in the same bath as other people naked. Those baths are hot as fuck and there's a lot of old fellas in there; I know there's no way a little pee doesn't sneak it's way into that bath.


I knew it was going to be awkward since my host dad wasn't going to be coming, I was going into the mens side alone. uuuuuuuugh. It's weird when you have no one to follow around. First I showed up with out any soap. All the onsens I went to in Nagoya had soap and shampoo and conditioner at the showering stations. The showering stations are all open and you sit down when you shower so everyone can see you. It's a big deal to clean off HARDCORE before you get in that bath. There's a true science to it. You can start with you hair, wash it put the conditioner in and let it sit. meanwhile, scrub the rest of your body until it's red. There's gotta be a layer of soap suds on you like you've never seen before. Scrub your feet, you legs, you ass, you chest, your back... the whole deal. Then you rinse off and THEN you're ready. I didn't have any soap. So I had to buy it at the vending machine in the locker room. Do you know fucking weird it is to use a vending machine when you're naked. I'd already undressed when I realized my problem. I also didn't have one of those mini cover-you-junk-towels that they usually give out at onsens. So I had to buy one of those. So I was totally stark naked using this machine. It was a true realization of a dream, that's for god damned sure.

So I get my stuff, i showed and rinse and scrub myself til I'm almost bleeding. Then I get in the least-hot bath. It was alright. I just sat there for a while. Then I got in the bath with jets in it. That's fine. Then I got in the bath where the water was extra-brown. I'm hoping this was because it was a "tea" bath and not because of some unfortunate accident in the bath from earlier. There was only one other person in it and they were old. Maybe there were even dead. I worked my way up to the "second to highest temperature bath" (there's gotta be a better way to phrase that.) It was really hot. 110 degrees F hot. Whatevs, I handled it. I went in at the same time as another dude and he was old. So we battled it out for who could last longer (I won, he got out after like 3 minutes, I lasted like 3 minutes and 45 seconds). Meanwhile this creepy guy with black teeth talked to me. He was like (in Japanese) "So rare! It's so rare to see a foreigner in here." "yeah." "Are you here for work or school?" "School?" "Homestay?" "yep." "Where?" "Kunebetsu." "I live in Kunebetsu!" "Oh great!" "Yeah we should get together some time." "heh. heh. Yeah (Never. Never. ever. ever, sir)" "What is your address?" "Ooooh, I don't know." "Are you here alone at the onsen?" "No, my host mom is in the ladies side." "Ooooh. Ok. Do you have a ride home?" "Yes. (Are you fuckin hitting on me while we're sitting naked next to each other in a giant bath of brown water?)" "Oooh ok, well I'm going in the sauna. come on in later if you want!" "Yeah! ok. (nooooooope.)"

I went to the outdoor baths. They were alright. They had one that was called the "Walking bath" where it's a small path that goes in a circle and it's deep. It's basically like walking in a pool, except it's hot." I decided to try this out. There were a few fold men making laps in there. It went up to their neck/shoulders. It went up to my waist. halfway through my first lap I realized I was probably in some disgusting jetstream/wake of two old mens sweaty bathwater and possibly urine. So I decided to get it really quickly. Unfortunately since it was a loop I had to finish my second loop to get to the exit stairs.

I finally made it out and made a brief appearance in the "HOTTEST BATH" which is about 115 degrees F. That didn't last long, I promise you. I just had to try it.

All in all. It was awkward. It can be relaxing at times, sure. But it can also be a very awkward and not-welcoming experience. This time it was a little bit-o-both. I'll be sure to keep everyone updates on my next trip there since it's bound to happen again soon.

-Mike

Monday, June 16, 2008

Dinner Tonight...

Today I had some of my favorite conversations/encounters with my host family yet...

My host mom called me down for dinner and the conversation went roughly like this (I'm honestly doing my best to not exaggerate any of the language here at all.)

Mama: The twins aren't home from school yet, I'm starting to get worried.
Me: Yeah, it's almost six thirty, when do they usually get home?
Mama: Just around six. I hope they weren't kidnapped.
Me:I hope so too.
Mama: Do they have that in America?
Me: Of course! But it's a little more rare now.
Mama: In Asia, recently they have been kidnapping kids and stealing their organs to sell. Oh my god. What if they stole the twins because they wanted their organs!?! Do you think they did??? When it starts to get dark around here weird people come out! Should I look for them??
Me: I'm sure they're fine, do you want me to go walk down to the corner and see if I see them?
Mama: What if they're kidnapped? We don't have anything to fulfill the ransom!! There's literally nothing in the house! Do you think I could trade myself for them? I'm not as cute as them, but do you think I could trade myself? We have a lot of baked goods... that's about it. I'm going to look for them on my bike
------ five minutes later-------
The twins and the mom return
Mama: You should have heard Mike, he was SO worried about you two!

The second happening was at the dinner table...
For dinner we had chilled Ramen with veggies and eggs. Then my host mom made two giant plates of french fries (I guess kids love the same food all around the world)

Hikari:POTATOES!!!! Mike, don't eat ANY of them, please. These are all are mine.
Hikari begins to wolf down french fries
Nozomi:HIKARI! DON'T EAT ALL OF THEM THIS TIME!!!
Mama: Hikari! Eat some of your Ramen. That's gross, you're eating like an animal. Mike will think we live in a zoo.
Hikari stops eating for a brief moment to open her mouth and show her chewed food to her mom, then her sister.
Nozomi: HIKARI! That's GROSS! Now I don't want to eat...
Hikari: Good, all the potatoes are mine.
Nozomi slaps Hikari's hands and steals some potatoes and laughs. She enjoys a mouthful of ramen.
Hikari leans to one side and farts on Nozomi, she laughs as she has successfully disgusted her sister.
Nozomi stops chewing and lets the food fall from her mouth and quietly says "I am no longer hungry."
Mama laughs at them both.
Hikari continues to eat with both hands stuffing french fries in her face, only stopping to drink some tea.
Mama:You eat like a boy! Eat some Ramen! You haven't had any! you're being rude!
Hikari slams her empty cup down in front of her mom as if to say "Fill this cup up NOW!"
Mama: Say, "Please fill this cup."
Hikari slams the cup again.
Mama: Say Please fill this cup! Don't be rude! You are a little boy! Be polite!
Hikari slams the cup again.
Mama: You'll never get a boyfriend!
Nozomi: Mom, will I ever get a boyfriend?
Mama: Yes, it will be Kenichi.
Nozomi shyly smiles to herself and then quickly steals more french fries.
Hikari farts on Nozomi again and again smiles in her success in disgusting her sister.
Mama:HIKARI! Disgusting! Check between your legs and see if a penis has grown.
Hikari stops chewing and looks down between her legs.
Nozomi steals more french fries.
Nozomi shoots me a look saying "get em while you can!" I steal a handful of french fries as well.
Hikari creates a barricade around her food, including the french fries. This barricade consists o a bottle of water, cups, a pitcher of tea, and a box of tissues. She eats all but one last french fry.
I give Nozomi "the cue" I reach for the fry and Hikari quickly grabs my hand with both of hers laughing at my pity attempt to steal her gold. Nozomi goes in for the kill and steals it while Hikari is busy with me. Hikari screams. Nozomi splits the fry in half with me. We celebrate our victory with ketchup. Hikari farts on Nozomi.

I can't make this stuff up. I swear it happened and tears were streaming down my face when it was over.

Life in Hakodate and Kunebetsu

Every morning I wake up, and just look out my window. It's so strange living here. I've never lived in farm land let alone farm land surrounded by mountains and ocean. It's such a 'The grass is always greener' situation when living in a city/suburb. Growing up in Evanston was such a win-win. We had a pretty decent set up for having fun in downtown Evanston but we had the beach and downtown right next to us. There was the whole lake front and space to play. It was such a great place (Until recently when someone dumped that giant building in the middle, sorry Dad, I know you live there. But Evanston kind of sucks now because of it.) Living here it's like, surrounded by beautiful sounds, gorgeous mountains, the air feels clean and smells clean (It's kind of crazy actually, it always smells good around here and the air literally feels clean.) Then when I take the train into the city, or I'm in Chicago, there are great stores, great restaurants, and it's so easy to get around. I live in an area called Kunebetsu. There is literally nothing to do around here. There's a grocery store and some other stuff. But nothing fun really. I totally get when people live here and raise families though. It's freakin gorgeous and it's a safe and healthy place to live. Especially since if/when there's an earthquake there's space between you and your neighbor so their house won't fall on yours...

I started school today. There are three levels of Japanese you can test into. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. Within each level there are two levels. (Beginner A and Beginner b, Intermediate A and Intermediate B...you get the idea) I was placed in Intermediate A. But I quickly decided that it wasn't going to cut it. It was really easy. I took it easy in Nagoya and I learned a TON anyway but this is a way shorter trip I gotta step it up. My host family said I should be in Advanced A. Yeah right, I don't want to work THAT hard. I talked to the teacher and out of the 3 people in my Intermediate A class who wanted to test up... only I did. MUAH HAHAHA. I think I had a good connection with the teacher because I recognized him as a teacher from Nanzan in Nagoya while I was there. I was like "OOOH! My friends were all in your class!" and then we just chatted and he gave me the homework. So... now I'm in intermediate B and I'm darn happy.

One quick story... the other day we went to lunch at a restaurant called "Lucky Pierrot" Its a hamburger/curry/omelet restaurant. Each one has a theme to it, one's animals, one is flowers, one is jungle themed... and so on. The one we went to was Santa Clause themed. Talk about the creepiest meal I've EVER. HAD. I felt disgusting. As if we don't get enough Christmas music in the month of November-December, I had to sit through weird Christmas B-Sides from folks like Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow for an hour while I ate. There were also literally thousands of Santa Clause toys on the walls. Santa signs. Mind you this wasn't a CHRISTMAS themed restaurant, it was a SANTA themed restaurant. It was so gross and uncomfortable. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me to take a picture of this horror show. I'm not sure if I want to endure another meal there just for a photo, thousands of little imaginary fat red and white men grinning at me while I eat really makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I can do it once for a picture, it's pretty worthy of a picture.

MAN! My room smells so good. I'll do my best to end these posts with a picture. Here's a funny picture I took of where I ate lunch today (not the santa place.) There's no way around this picture, the drawing of the Chinese man is just racist... I don't know what they are thinking...or maybe I'm racist for thinking it's a Chinese person, maybe it's supposed to be a latino person in old oriental clothing...

Sunday, June 15, 2008

A Quiet Quiet Sunday...

I don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore or not... either way, I'm writing on it so... lets begin shall we?

My host family was taking the day off to go to Aomori to see a concert. I wasn't invited so I stayed home. They left at 9:00am and let's see, it's currently about 8:30pm. I've had this house to myself for a while! I haven't slept past 6:30 am so I'm getting a little run down but let me recap what I did today.

I played piano for 29012908532 hours by myself and sang as loud as I wanted. Take that.

I played on my computer. ( I learned that "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence. Don't believe me? Highlight that and google it, it's a grammatically correct sentence.)

I played more piano.

I went for a long ass walk only to find that the farther I walk from my house the less cool it looks. That's ok though, I went to the ocean and checked that out, it was cool. The stores in my area aren't very cool though. That's ok, it'll help me focus when I have work to do.

I made dinner for myself. My host mom left me lunch (two giant Onigiri... if you don't know what onigiri is google it. Then find some for yourself because it's GOOD.) For dinner she left me microwavable curry. It might not be any class curry, but it did the job, that's for sure.

I don't have any interesting news to report other than I stopped to take a picture of some boxes this afternoon and an old lady yelled at me. I'm not sure what she said because old people are hard to understand. American old people talk slow and are easy to understand, usually. Japanese ones talk fast and don't make any sense. I was just down on one knee snapping an picture and she wanted to ride her bike by. I didn't see her waiting then she was like "BLAH BLAH BLAH!" and I was scared so I pushed her, I felt she was attacking me. She picked her bike up over her head and waved it in the air to threaten me some more. This didn't sit well with me, as we all know, I don't like to be threatened with bikes so I used... what the hell am I writing?

Here are some of my favorite quotes from my host family thus far...

We just picked up the two twins from school...
Host Mom: I'd love to live by myself now. Getting married isn't worth it.
Host Sister: Mom! But wouldn't you be lonely without dad?
Host Mom: Nah. I could do whatever I wanted to do. I wouldn't be bored. Maybe in my next life I won't get married and I'll do whatever I want...
Host Sister: You'll get lonely!
Host Mom: ... or maybe your dad and I will just get divorced when I turn 60, that's still young enough to have fun.

The twins didn't think that was funny. I did.

I was woken by one of my 8 year old host sisters yelling "お母さん!スゴイうんちだよ!” which translates to about "MOM! Oh my god! look at my huge poop!"

The two twins are such a pleasure to be around. They couldn't be more different too. One is a really girly girl and loves school and learning. The other is an artsy tomboy who likes to make mean faces at me. When my host mom said "Zip up your fly!" she said "NO! Besides, it's easier to go to the bathroom when it's down, I'd have to unzip it to take my pants off anyway." It'll be interesting to see the differences in 10 years.

Tomorrow I start school. Thank god. Anything that keeps me busy will be great.

By the way, here's the picture of the boxes the old lady got mad about...



-Mike

Friday, June 13, 2008

The Host Fam...

I'm bored this afternoon so I figure I'll update everyone on my awesome host family...

The members are the mom, dad, brother (12 years) and twin girls (8 years.) The son has some developmental disabilities and lives at a special school during the week but comes home to play on the weekends. He's a really cool kid and certainly a pleasure to around.

The mom is a really funny woman, she's very young at heart and isn't very "Japanese" in a traditional sense. She's very out going, sarcastic, and jokes a lot. When we were driving around the other day doing errands the twins were in the back seat screaming away ands he kept going "quite please, i'm driving." They'd get louder so she finally slapped on the breaks and goes "Okay! Out of the car please!!! OUT!!! OF!! THE CAR!!!" They certainly shaped up. I had a flashback to my childhood and playing "I'm not touching you." in the back seat. It's great seeing her interact with the son, I'd never experienced a person with disabilities in Japan and assumed it was a rather sensitive subject. My host mom just runs around and plays along with the song, Yumeto. (His name means Dream Person, which I think is so perfect.)

The twins, are quite a handful. I met them at the orientation party the first day. There were lots of tables full of food for all the students and host families to eat. It was a big buffet. The girls, Hikari and Nozomi ate a ton of pizza, donuts, fried chicken, watermelon, oranges, and so on. WHen they finished they both pulled out giant plastic cups from their purses and a roll of saran wrap that they stole from the kitchen. They stole 9 more donuts, oranges, tomatoes, fried chicken, and 7 pudding cups. They filled their purses with food. We got home and they poured the food out of the cups that they had filled with food. There was a lot of donuts covered in chicken grease and watermelon and orange juices. They ate all of it.

The girls also stole a bunch of paper cups and gave them to me in the car because they said they weren't sure if they had enough "normal" cups for me. Then they asked if they had to speak Japanese to me with an American accent so that I could understand it. They also told me about how they recently saw on TV that there are a lot of problems in America regarding Zombies. They were dead serious. (No pun intended) Their favorite game to play with me is "Fart on Mike." I'm gonna see if they can change that though... if not they are in for some serious revenge.

It's a very different family from my previous, which I'm glad. I wouldn't want something the same because the other one was so perfect for that. This is the polar opposite, a fast paced suburban, young household. We live totally in the burbs. It's just farm land, no stores, just houses. I'm about an hour outside of the city by train, it's interesting. The geography of the area is very interesting. If you face one direction it looks like an east coast beach town with the ocean. If you look the other way it looks like Colorado. Here are some pictures...

Hokkaido Sunset

and the twins at the dinner table... (Yumeto, the brother let one rip...it was hilarious)
双子達

Arrival...

Let me briefly explain the trip over to Japan before I explain anything else...

I woke up on the morning of the 10th at 7:45, we left for the airport around 9:00 so I could be at the airport at 10:00 for my twelve o'clock flight. I'm terrified of airplanes, more than anyone should be. I waited around for a while, met my friends who are also on the trip (but they were taking a plane one hour after me) and we hung out until I left.

I got some anti-anxiety meds so I wouldn't freak on the airplane. These don't work for me, they never do. I'd tried them one time before. The problem is, I take it and then I get curious if it's working so I imagine the scariest things ever (airplane crashes) and see if I stay scared. I got scared, oh well, I survived.

I arrived in Tokyo at 3:00 in the afternoon I was out of customs by 3:45. On the way out of the plane I met two people. A Taiwanese high school student who had been studying in America and was now meeting his family in Japan for a vacation. His name was Chein, but he told me his name was Jim. I'm pretty sure he was a criminal. Then I met a girl who was going on the Hokkaido Program. She seemed nice, a little weird. She stopped and told all of the flight attendants how much she loved the food, then told them all of the problems she had on the airplane and how they should improve flights for the future... I guess the world does need folks like these to keep things interesting.

Being a Type-B personality, I had no idea where I was meeting the HIF (Hokkaido Internation Foundation) group. The had emailed it to me, but I'm pretty sure I deleted it before I even read it. The flight-attendent-bugging-girl knew where to go though, so I was following/chatting with her. Jim/Chein had disappeared at this point, I'm guessing they busted him at customs. The girl told me she was going to exchange some money then we'll go meet the group together, so I waited for her and then she had suddenly disappeared. I had no idea where she went. So... I looked at the arrival times and saw my friends would be arriving in one hour. I wandered for an hour, I bought some food. I found Jim/Chein who had apparently made it through customs without getting busted, probably had a fake passport, hence the "Jim" pseudonym... Then HIF freaked out and made an announcement over the loud speaker and had like 8 people looking for me. They found me and said "WE WERE LOOKING FOR YOU! WE ARE HAPPY TO FIND YOU! The next bus leaves in 3 hours so you can walk around." So I went back and met my two buddies from Chicago. We made it to the hotel at about 8. We ate dinner an then passed out around 11:00.

Breakfast started at 4:30 so I woke up at 4:00 to shower. Well, I should say I was woken at 4:00. Everyone got a free wake up call at 4:00... except it wasn't really a wake up call, the TV just turned out and started beeping really really loud and a screen flashed saying (in Japanese) "GOOD MORNING! IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP!!!!!!" We took an hour bus ride to the airport, and flew to Hokkaido in a horrible horrible horrible horrible storm. I didn't get scared. I'm so proud. We landed at 8:00 and went straight to HIF and took 6 hours of placement tests then we met our host families at 5:00. I'll update you on my host family situation a little later but lets just say that the two eight-year-old twin girls are some of the most energetic people in this world. They are also hilarious.

-Mike

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Here We Go. Again.

Just over a year ago I got back from Japan and now I'm heading back to the airport for another 13 hour flight. I'm going to be living with a host family consisting of...

A mother who likes to sing, bake, and do arts and crafts
Two 8 year old twin girls named after the two different bullet trains whose hobbies include "wind instruments"
A twelve year old son
A dad

All are musicians, I can't wait to meet all of them.

In the mean time I have to worry about my plane not crashing... my greatest irrational fear.

-MIKE