Tokyo German Village, Sinterklaas!, AFS anniversary short update ect

yahooo~!

Yup, I am still alive.
Sorry for not posting that often , to be honest I totally forgot about my blog.
my last post is almost more than one month ago ... (whoops sorry....)
anyway lot of thinks happend.

hmm where should i start....

ok .... got it

The best season in Japan is autumn ( yhea... in The Netherlands EVERYONE HATES AUTUMN)
Well if you experience(d) japan in autumn you notice(d) that the sky is blue without any cloud, a bit chilly but it is not freezing. (not yet)
Autumn is also the best season to enjoy being outside , going to a park and enjoy nature.
A few weeks ago my host family and I went to a German Village park ( it is 'suppose' to look like a German village, super cute haha)

As you can see there is a big fielt , also there was a playground ,a big slide and many more 'random' thins.
next to the park there was a 'ramen noodle town' ( best to describe as a place with many ramen shops)
when it is becoming dark there was a illumination show
So after playing soccer in the park , we went to the big slide which is REALLY high

the big slide

Another activity that we did was minigolf well I lost haha, but for real,my little host brothers are EXPERTS in mini golf haha.

so wen it was getting dark we went to the ramen noodle town for some good ramen and yup... it was GOOD , after a good meal we went back to the german village for the illumination which was breathtaking.

(pictures below)

after seeing the illumination we went home, everyone was tired haha but it I had a lot of fun.

Another highlight of last month was the 60th year anniversary party of AFS Japan.

It was really nice to see everyone again ,and meet new people.

we had to represent our country on a culture market (best way how to describe ) 

which was first a bit confusing, because lots of us didn't have anything with them except their flag (or not even that haha) 

luckily and had some dutch candy ( pepernoten) and dutch licorice left , which both where all eaten (haha happy me it was so heavy in my bag ).

Also a family member of the Japanese empire came ( I thought it was his niece.... ) 

and on top of it the  talent show , i didn't expect to participate in it but apparently they had a lack of people so my chapter ( AFS students are separated in chapters al over japan for ex: Tokyo chapter, Keiyo chapter<--- my chapter , ect) was chosen to join a song , let it go in your first language special... ohh well I have to admit I never saw the movie Frozen , neither the song I know.

luckily I had to sing the Japanese part with the other Keiyo members ( which I was really happy with , the rest were singing solo )

After the talent show we had a dinner in a huge room ( which was necessary I think there were around 1000  people ) 

the dinner was pretty fancy but delicious on the end we sang a song (closer to you) and went home ,

I went home with a friend from canada ( for now on I will call her misses Canada and her host mother we stopped by a huge tower to see the view from a high level (literal ) which was absolutely beautiful.

 Something else to tell hmmm ???
Ohh yhea its the 9th of december already !! That means Sinterklaas has been in the Netherlands
( if you are not from The Netherlands you might not know it check this link out : http://www.utnieuws.nl/nieuws/59353/What_the_bleep_is_Sinterklaas__Zwarte_Piet )

He also came to Japan (1 month ago), He brought not only toys with him but also CHEESSEEE After 1 month you going to miss that stuff ALOT , my host family loves it to we are now on our last cheese haha( he gave us 3 cheeses)

well this is it for now , oh I forgot to mention , I am now in the tea ceremonie club as wel , a friend from school invited me , it is really interesting and the club members are soo nice <3 haha.

look below for mor pictures !!!

mataneeee

                                     

                                                 

                                                     

                                                 AFS party <3

speech contest!, Q&A

hello everyone , today a short update ,

yesterday I had a speech contest, I am not easily nervous but I was REALLY nervous.
I have only two months experience with the Japanese language and there were people participating who have been in japan for more than 5 years , so yhea i did not have  high expectations ,
but I did my best and I had a lot of fun.
my speech was about the differences between the Netherlands and Japan, a lot of people helped me with the speech(Japanese pronunciation is sometimes so hard -__-'') thank you guys !!

because i get a lot of questions about my exchange year and my Japanese live I will answer them now.

1)Q:you are here for two months , how do you feel ? , are you still so excited as you were in the beginning?
 
A:(wow two months, the time is going to fast T__T) yes I still enjoy my Japanese live,
of course I am still excited a lot of things are still new for me ,but of course the 'being new in all this ' feeling is gone I guess, But it is in a good way , I feel more comfortable with the language and other stuff (like trains....)

2)Q: Is your live like a Japanese anime ( I get this question ALOT)
  A: .. ehh I don't think so? , wel to be honest if you watch anime , some things in anime never          happen in real live, ( I am not talking about the magic stuff-__-'')
 like i've never seen people eating on a roof of the school ( sorry if I break your imagination about Japan...)

3)Q: do you've been already homesick?
   A: to be honest not really of course sometimes i feel lonely ( last less than 5 sec)
but no I am not  home sick or have been homesick.

4)Q: can you descripe a daily day in your Japanese live ?
   A: I normaly wake up around 6:15am (after 2 alarm clocks.... )
        around 7:00am  I will go with my host dad to the train station
        ( he is going with the same train but steps out a few stations earlier)
        I will arrive around 8.00 at my school, i the classes are to hard for me (like politics)
        i will study in  the library , on monday and friday i have club until 18.00
       otherwise i will be home at 16.00

well that was it for today , I hope you enjoyed this short update bye!
p.s iknow reading this page is really weird i have no idea why it is like that or how to fix , so sorry >.<

                                                           speech contest souvenirs :p

Hiroshima trip ! (lots of pictures )

Hello everyone !
yesterday I came back from my schooltrip to Hiroshima.

note:
schooltrips in Japan are very different than dutch schooltrips , the students make teams and with your team you plan your trip by yourself , like EVERYTHING by yourself (exempt diner and sleeping )
even transport you plan by yourself.

day 1
I had to wake up 5 am to take the train to Tokyo station to meet my team, after that we took the shinkansen(yhea that famous train with the speed of 270 km/h) to Hiroshima
it took around 5 hours so we played card games ( i learned some new one xD)
after the shinkansen we took another train and then a ferry to miyajima island
it is famous for the itsukushi schrine which  lies in the water in high tide but in low tide you can walk around the schrine
also we went to the koyodani park which has a lot of deers and lot of beautiful nature
after that we went shopping and i bought some momiji which is a famous local snack
you can describe it like an small maple leave shaped cake filled with mashed sweet beans ,chocolate or cheese cream.
we planned to go bag to the hotel around 16.00 but we took the wrong train , but we found out in the last station so we traveled for another hour our sensei (teacher) was not very happy with it but they where happy we were safe.
also we were late for dinner so we ate in another room (private room yeey :p )
the dinner was quiet big so i couldn't  eat al haha

day 2

today i went to a submarine museum which had ofcours ALOT of boats.

their was also a huge exhibition about the war in the Pacific sea.

after that we took the bus to a navy academy were you can get a tour for  free , 

the navy academy was really big and had a beautiful view over the sea.

the tour self was really interesting , although i couldn't understand everything the parts which i did understood where fascinating ,the guide told us how live was at the academy in old times which was amezing to hear about.

as lunch I eat okonomiyaki , a famous Japanese dish it is hard to describe but it is really tasty 

it is like a pancake à la Japanese style i guess..

day 3

this was my last day in Hiroshima 

i went to the atomic bomb peace memorial.

I saw this memorial in my history book ,

but when i saw it in real live I release how bad the atomic bomb was .

also we went to the Hiroshima peace memorial museum

which gives you a good view how atomic bombs can have an impact on people nowadays.

I have respect for  those people who experienced the atomic bomb

this was my last day in Hiroshima I want to thank my team , classmates ,friends for this amazing experience I had lots of fun <3