School life and festival in Nagoya

Greetings to you all!

Just finished my lunch consisting af curry-noodles, liquid banana and a pizza bun.

Well other than that school has started and I should actually be doing my homework now, but I'm sacrifising my time to write this stuff for you! I've gotten into a really nice class, there's five people from taiwan; one australian; a lady from New Zealand; a girl from Mexico; another from the Philippines and an american girl. The teachers are nice and the school looks okay. We're encouraged to speak japanese at all times, and this is sometimes the only option since not everyone speaks english.

Apart from school, I went along with some classmates and other people from School to Nagoya. Nagoya is the largest city and capital in Aichi prefecture (where I'm now). There's a big festival currently taking place in Nagoya. We went for some sight-seeing and to look at the parade. The parade was a mixture between school, brassbands and such, and historical persons (shoguns and emperors i guess), samurais, ninjas and princesses.

On a more personal note, I've learned a lot these two and a half weeks I've been here. Constantly hearing new stuff and trying to memorize it as best I can. But still there is o'so lot to learn!

Today's interesting japanese fact: In Japan you never bring your umbrellah into your house, as this is seen as bad luck (i guess). I made this mistake and the host daughter looked at me like I was total idiot. So I promptly went out and put it in the umbrellah holder.

Well, until next time peeps,
Lasse

6th Oct.

Hi!

Kind of a late update, but better late than never!

It's bedtime and I'm finishing this post which I've been writing on all day..

I arrived in Japan around midday, and then i sat on a train for 8 hours before I arrievd in Okazaki (actually more like 7 trains since I had to change so many times). Well spent the first night in a hotel close to the railway and was picked up the next morning and driven to the school. After fixing some papers and a bit of sight-seeing i was picked up by a friend of the family. The candy shop is actually more of a cake/cafè shop thingy. Then we went to see the host family's apartment.

I think I got the best host family there is! They help me with every possible thing. They try their best at talking to me, even though my japanese is really bad. And the home is constantly filled with friends of the family, so there is always people around. At the same time only some of them know english, the rest not so much, thus I learn alot.

I've eaten a lot of new kinds of food, and most of it is really good! And eating with chopsticks isn't really that hard, you get used to it pretty fast.

Oh, and I was at Karaoke with family and friends (around 13-14 people). I'm not BSing when i say that all japanese have a nice singing voice, I was really stunned by some of the singing talents there! I think the fact that i sang english songs saved me from total embarassment (japanese thinks people who know english are really cool)

Edit (i forgot): Today's interesting fact: The japanese drink a lot of cold tea (without sugar or milk or anything). They just boil some tea, then put it in the fridge. Isn't that bad actually.

















I bought a camera today, so expect some photoes in the next posts!
Lasse