Sightseeing Adventures

Today, we went sightseeing around Fujinomiya (the city in Japan that I am living in). We visited a Sengen Shrine, which was beautiful! We got to look around outside (we couldn't go inside) and fed the koi fish in the river. Fun fact: The water from the river is the melted snow from Mount Fuji!

The Sengen Shrine

Afterwards, we went to the White String Waterfalls. They were so beautiful! We got tons of pictures, that I will show Ms. Stannard for my Photography 11 class. I hope she likes them!

Pretty, right?

We looked around in some shops (including a 100¥ shop). I bought some permanent markers so that on the last day of school, people can sign my shoes, and a case for my laptop that is more durable than my Tinkerbell shoulder bag. We got takeout afterwards and ate at home. We checked two different sushi restaurants, but both were full, and we didn't want to wait. :)

When we got home, we relaxed. I showed Kenken how to make the bracelets I was showing Shion and Kanan earlier. She did really well for her first time, and she really liked it. :) I helped Shion with her English homework, because she had so much of it! Plus Math on top of that! I also finished "Skinned" and am moving onto "Suite Dreams" by Rachel Hawthorne. Sidney said it is good, so I'm sure I will like it. Plus, I've read two other books by her, and liked them, so...

Tonight, we played this game that was actually pretty fun. I lost every time though. :P

Fun fun fun!

My host family gave me a really nice gift today! A stamp with my name on it! It has my name in Hirigana, and Kanji. They had to get it custom made!

Isn't that so nice of them?!

That's all for today. Talk to you tomorrow!
xoxo Riley

Karaoke Awesomeness

This morning, I actually slept in... Well, if you consider 7:15 sleeping in. But that's pretty good considering I've been getting up for school by 5:00, so...

Church this morning was boring. Even worse when you can't understand a thing anyone is saying! And we were there for a full two and an half hours! Sigh. But oh well.

Afterwards, we went to the Karaoke Box. Basically, you pay to use a room (there are lots of rooms) that you go and do karaoke in. You sit on some sofas, and there is a table in the middle of the room with a TV on the wall. It's like a small room, by the way. Then there are these wireless touch screen things that you pick a song with and away you go! At the end of the song, it tells you how many calories you burned while singing it. Weird, but whatever works. I sang a lot of songs from Kool FM, as well as some others, like "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life" (which is one of the theme songs of this Japan trip) and "We Like to Party" by the Vengaboys. So all in all it was a good day.

Tomorrow, I'm making pancakes for breakfast. Wish me luck! We're also going sightseeing around town. We're going to the shrine near the house and to these waterfall things that is apparently nothing like Niagra Falls... We shall have to see. Then we'll probably just go shopping or something in the afternoon. Shion has tons of homework this weekend, and two tests on Tuesday, so she will be studying whenever she gets the chance!

Worked on the TV show for a while this morning before Church while Kanan and Shion were watching their Japanese Power Rangers show (no idea what it's called). So far, it's six minutes long, but we haven't even filmed a lot of it yet, so it will hopefully end up being about fifteen minutes long. That's pretty good, if you ask me. :)

Emmi, have an amazing time at Strathcona! I hope that you don't get rained on while on your tarp night. If it is raining, pick a spot in the middle and away from the sides. Trust me. :) And I love you too.

Meghan, I asked Meg to email or Facebook Krissy, so hopefully we will be able to be on the team. :) Doubt I will though, because I can't even do a cartwheel... Remember PE class this year when I attempted a backwards summersault? Heh heh.

Ms. Penner (or should I say, PenPen?), welcome to the blog. I don't think it's nosy that you're following it. Lots of people are following it. So many I can't even keep track! :) No idea why Mr. Campbell doesn't have a blog up and running. He should though. I miss everyone too, and I'm sure they miss me. :) If it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, could you email me the minutes from the Outreach meeting I'll be missing? I'll make sure Haddas gets a copy too.

Sidney, I will try my very hardest to be there on Housewarming. I will be extremely tired though, so I can't promise anything. I may come, but not be able to participate in the events. But I should be able to help get things organized and represent my house and grade! Do you think you could fill me in on everything that they said I would have to do? Thanks bud. And shaved legs? That should be interesting... :)

Almost done my third book of the trip. Read two Gossip Girls so far and am finishing "Skinned" by Robin Wasserman. Pretty good, but kinda strange... Just like me. :)

Looking forward to school on Tuesday. No idea why. Probably because I want to work on the TV show some more. Hopefully everyone is still up to it and doesn't say they don't want to anymore, because I put a lot of effort into the beginning of it! Especially the intro video. :)

That's all folks!
xoxoxo Riley

A Super Day!

Today was amazing! First off, I'd just like to say that the photo I took of Mina, Meg and Olivia was put onto the Lakehill Soccer blog (thanks Manjit!). Click here to see it.

Mum, I think I'm addicted to Purikura (finally figured out correct spelling!). Thank goodness we don't have them in Victoria, because I would be in big trouble! We're trying to raise $30, 000 US so that we can get one for the school... Just a though. We did some more tonight, of me, Shion and Kanan.

Aren't we cute?

We had a half day today, since it is Sunday. We ended up only having one class though, because all the others were breaks. Don't understand how that all worked out, but oh well. During our breaks, we practiced our cheerleading skills so that we will be excellent on the school cheerleading team (BTW, Meg, Mina, Olivia and I are joining it. I should probably email the school...).

Goooooooo team!

We also started our new project, a TV show called... Well, you're just gonna have to wait and see! We will probably be presenting it to the Grade Nine classes, so now you have something to look forward to!

After school, the four of us did flower arranging. It was pretty fun.

The final products! That took an hour, by the way...

We went out for dinner as a family tonight to celebrate Baba's 70th birthday. We went to a Korean restaurant was was so yummy! I ate so much!

Aren't we adorable?

That's all for now. Going to work on the TV show!

xoxoxo
Riley

*Insert Creative Title*

Double Art. Triple English. Tempura for dinner. Not much else to say.

English = Ah-mazing!

English class today was so much fun! Ms. Hayashi, the teacher who is looking after us while we are here, was teaching it. It was with 4C, so the girls were two years older than us, but that's okay. We got into four groups, wrote questions on pieces of paper and randomly picked them out of a pile to talk about. Our table was so loud! We were having a blast. Questions were like, "What do you want to do while you are in Japan?", "What is your favourite music?", "Do you have a boyfriend?", "What is your school in Canada like?", and, my personal favourite, "Do you like Afternoon Tea?", which was the drink I was sipping on during class. :) We were laughing so hard at some things! Sigh. I think I will go back there and give them each a pin or something. They were so nice!!

During our break, Mina, Claudia and I made our own version of "Potter Puppet Pals: Mysterious Ticking Noise". Going to work on that tonight. I also told Claudia I'd put the pictures from her camera on her blog for her since she didn't bring a computer to Japan and doesn't want to upload her photos to her homestay family's computer.

We did Pukura after school today. So much fun!! Here are the results:

Numero Uno

Number Twoooooo

Here is also an awesome picture from yesterday that I took outside a castle we were looking at.

Perfect timing!

That's all for now.
xoxo Riley

Same Old

Basically the same thing today. We had another English class with this teacher named Sara from Indiana. Can't remember exactly what we did, but I remember it being alright. :)

We also had Music today. I didn't understand any of the songs, so I couldn't sing along. :( Oh well.

Claudia, I will get your pictures up for tomorrow. I just need you to bring the cord for me. Is that okay? No pictures for today. I'm too lazy to get my camera.

Victoria, Magical Animal Juice is a juice named by Claudia that none of the Japanese girls buy, but us Canadian girls love. Is is honey lemon flavoured. Doesn't sound good, but it is amazing! I also like Milk Tea. Again, is delicious but sounds gross.

I'm very tired today from waking up so early (4:20!!), so I'll just leave it at that.

Love, hugs, and pogo sticks!
xoxo Riley

First Day of School!

School today was actually pretty fun! Shion woke me up at 4:50 this morning so we could get ready for school. I told her to wake me up if I wasn’t already up. I didn’t realize that her version of waking me up was to bang once very loudly on my headboard! It scared me so much! But I was up and moving in no time, so it worked really well. :)

We left the house around six, got to the train station, dropped off Shota, then went back to the house because Shion forgot her train pass! It is only the second time in three years though, so I don’t blame her for this one time. After we had picked up the pass, we drove back to the train station and rode the train to the second train station. There, we met Mina and Migiwa and rode the train with them. We got off the train and met up with Meg and Mihoko, her host sister, and walked to school. Doesn’t actually take too long. Only about half an hour or so.

We had homeroom first thing in the morning, then a period (each period being 45 minutes with a 10 minute break between each class) of no school work so that Ms. Hayashi could show us around the school. I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were going though, so I got lost many, many, many times today. :) I then had English with 3B, where we worked on combining sentences, English with 4B, where we read a story about a girl with cancer who wrote an inspiring poem, PE with 5A, where I got to see all my friends who came to SMS this year. I was so happy to see them all! We did this dance warm up thing (Mina and Claudia couldn’t get it, but I picked it up quickly), threw bean bags into a hoop 15 feet in the air, skipped rope (ha ha Claudia!) and watched them do something called “Rabbit”, where someone runs on everyone else’s backs! So scary to watch! If we did it at our school, there would be looooooong risk assessment forms to fill out, and permission slips. Sigh. But it looked like fun, so that is all that matters!

Lunch was next, which was dee-lish! The rice Kenken made for me was amazing! I could eat so much of it! After lunch, Mina, Claudia and I (who are in Group B) had a break, where we sat in our classroom and played school, where Miss Illis (Claudia) taught Willis (me) and Phillis (Mina) how to draw sloths and hippies and stuff on the chalkboard. After a while we ended up just taking photos of each other’s eyes. Some pictures are so pretty!

We then had Calligraphy with 1B, where we learned to draw... Wait for it... Straight lines. Honestly. That’s all we did.

I tried my first “Magical Animal Juice” today. It was superb!

Yummy!

So all in all, it was a great first day! I can’t wait until tomorrow. Everyone in the school is so nice. They wave at you in the halls, and smile. Too bad SMS isn’t like that. :’(

Thank you all so, so, so, so, SO much for voting me your Grade Rep to Council. If you don’t mind me asking, who was I running against? Or was I the only one who wanted to do it? Probably the latter.

Silvina, I’m sure once Victoria gets into the swing of things, getting up in the morning will be a ton easier!

Vicky, we are 16 hours ahead. When you posted your comment at 7:36 am, here it was 11:36 pm. Close though! I hope that I will be able to take more pictures with Shion. It was so much fun!! I wish we had one in Canada too! Or maybe fifteen or sixteen... :P

Tracy, I will be sure to show Elianna any Tinkerbell things I buy in Japan. So far, I’ve only bought the one. I will probably add a few more to the pile, though. :)

Jean, I’m looking forward to trading stories with the girls from SALTS. Sounds like they will have quite the adventure too! And I’m glad you like the blog.

Rheanna, I will be sure to tell everyone you say hi. And I’m glad you also like the blog. It is actually really fun to write!

Meghan, we didn’t end up going to Karaoke, because we ran out of time. Probably this weekend. We have Monday off again, as it is a National Holiday. I would post more of Mount Fuji, but usually it is surrounded by fog and clouds. I was lucky I took that picture when I did! And I plan to do more Pukura, believe me! Miss you too, buddy! xoxoxo

Maureen, I spoke with Claudia at school today. She said that she doesn't use the computer often because it is hard. Everything is in Japanese! I will let you know how it is working out for her, okay?

That’s all for now, folks! Catch ya on the flip side.

xoxo Riley

PS: This is for Phillis and Dillis - “Three pounds lighter my bag will be.” HAHAHAHA!