こんにちはエメリア

(If you haven’t noticed… I haven’t updated for a couple days… SORRY!! I’ve returned home, and have been very busy.) I never know how to start these posts, I usually start with “Well today I woke up at…”. It’s pretty boring. Well today I woke up around 11 AM (See? I changed it to “around”!!) because I was so tired from yesterday. After an early lunch my host sister and I walked to a near-by mall to look for a luggage bag. I didn’t find one there, they were really small… :( So we walked to another mall (the one attached to the train station) and I DID find one there. It has jungle animals on it. Oh yeah. 

We went to the Fukuyama Natural History Museum afterwards, which was pretty cool. They had a real-sized model of an old Japanese village that we walked through. They even had locus noises and food cooking on fire pits. :) Afterwards we stopped at the Art Museum right next door. (Now, keep in mind that I have a luggage bag rolling around with me this whole time.) But we could only go to the gallery that show-cased high school art. (The rest of the galleries we had to pay for.) The art was amazing though! There was a group of paintings showing burned pieces of a magazine, and another group of paintings showing daily life (but they were kinda gloomy…). It was nice. 

My host sister and I wanted to take the bus home, buuuut the bus stop was 20 minutes away (walking. It was either walk 20 minutes to the bus stop, or walk 40 minutes home. So we walked to the stop. It was hot. I was still lugging my luggage around. We got home and I worked on my videos for you guys! :) (I didn’t take any video today though… NOTHING TO TAPE!) Then we went out for dinner at a Korean-styled grill. I grilled my own shrimp! :) I watched it turn from grey to pink, it was cool. For dessert I had an apple sherbet inside an actual apple. COOL!  

Anonymous asked: エメリアちゃん、おはよう！ビーチパーティーもたのしそうで、よかった！　東京には、いつ行きますか？また、あたらしいビデオたのしみにしています。

南星先生（Nansei sensei)

南星先生！こんばんは！！ビーチパーテイーって何ですか。東京はほんとにむずかしかた。。。たくさん人！！私はちちゃいでした！：）ありがとう！ビデオはおもしろいですね？：）

WHOOO! ISLAND PARTY! Woke up at 8 AM after going to bed late… :( (My host brothers friends came over at night… 6 of them…) Well anyway, I woke up with 2 of his friends at my feet. I practically steps on their faces… oops. 

I left with my host sister, and her friend to the boat dock. There I got on her friend’s speed boat and sailed off to some island I forget the name of! We kept bouncing up and down!! :) When we got to the island her friend anchored the boat and we went to join the gathering of people already there. (Around 15… I think.) Everyone was really nice. We waited around and then our food came, we roasted our own BBQ (very popular here) and ate. When we were stuffed I went out with another friend and we went jet-skiing!! SO MUCH FUN. We went around 60-65 kl/h!! (Thats around 40 MPH.) But when you’re on a little jet-ski in the middle of the ocean… thats fast enough. 

Afterwards everyone got back on the speed boat and we all went wake-boarding! YEAH! CRAZY! It. is. hard. You should try it… and plomp your face into salty water every couple seconds. :( It started to rain hard so we headed back. Ate more food, and when the rain cleared, we went back again! More face-plomping! We headed back to where we came from, but stopped on the way to an area of old gasoline docks. (HUGE floating metal) We jumped off of them into the ocean, scary but fun! :) I would say they were only around 20-30 ft up. So it wouldn’t knock us out. 

On the way back I saw some sting ray and some fishes jump out of the water!! The sting ray went like 20 feet in the air! I thought it was a bird! AWESOME! 

I borrowed my host-brother’s bike this morning and rode it to the Train Station! I was planning on buying a ticket to Tokyo then and there, but my host sis and I decided to wait because plans might change. (And they did…) After we found out the estimated price we walked to the mall (attached to the station, yes, it was attached!) and I bought another luggage…

OK!! NOTE TO FUTURE TRAVELERS TO JAPAN! DON’T OVER PACK!! (Use me as a bad example…) I packed a LOT of stuff that I haven’t even touched yet!! I regret it SO BADLY. If I could have seen myself in this situation… I would have packed only a little suitcase. 

Alright. So I bought another luggage. A small bag, to put some junk in. (The weight limit is 2 bags, at 50 lbs each.) I am praying that my huge luggage will make it… 

So after I got another luggage bag (I had to carry it with my all day… yeah.) I ate a Belgian waffle. I just thought you should know… Then we took a shuttle bus to another mall (THERE ARE TONS HERE!) and got ice-cream. Mmm… Ice cream. We were waiting for it to cool down outside, because man was it hot. So we just sat inside at chatted, then around 4 PM we left for Fukuyama-jo. I think there was only around 8 or 10 people there… including workers. So we went up to the top (we could see our house!!) and looked around. A little girl popped her head out a window and was apparently calling her sister, but I thought she said “Hello” so I said “Hello!”… yup, embarrassing moment. 

Alrighty. Woke up at 7:30 AM this fine morning to get ready to leave with my host sister! Today was her Coming-of-Age-Day!! We left the house around 8-ish, grabbed breakfast at a little bakery, and headed for the beauty salon! My host sister got her make-up done, then her kimono put on for her. It was so beautiful. (The kimono.) 

After she was all made-up we went to a photography place so she can get her pictures done! First they took pictures of her alone, then with her whole family, then dad, etc. BUT… I actually was in a couple… yeah, I wasn’t expecting that either…. Oh well! 

We went to lunch after with my host sister and her mom. (We all kinda split up.) The restaurant we went to was “Italian” but the place looked like something out of the Jungle Story… I even had Pineapple Rice. INSIDE A PINEAPPLE! BOOYAH!! So we just hung out at the mall where the restaurant was and did purikura. :)

(We just went to an Udon Shop for dinner where I ate enough food for 3 people. Then came home and slept because I couldn’t move much… oops.) 

Today I spent the day exploring Okayama! It was so beautiful!! We headed out around 8 AM with some friends. (We were planning to go to a somen restaurant up in Tsuyama for lunch.) Stopped at a place that sold really good (and cheap!!) chicken, like yakitori and wings, etc. Then we drove a while and stopped again at a place that sold sweets made from bean paste. (Amazingly delicious.) When we finally got to the top of the mountain it was lunch time! 

Before we could take our place on the benches, we had to wait in a long line (because everyone wants somen! :]) for a while. There was a HUGE spider web over a stream that cooled drinks. Big spider web…. When we sat down somen (they are very thin noodles if you were wondering) started coming down a bamboo shoot! It was so fun! Everyone had to catch the somen with their chopsticks, then you put them inside a cup with sauce in it. And when your cup is full you eat! Then then somen comes down again!! Ah man, it was fun!! :)

After eating lunch (man was I stuffed…) we headed to a playground with AMAZING slides!! (watch the video!!!) They were so high up! And I could see mountains for miles!! I wanted to go on every slide (there were 4) but we left before I could go on the last one… :( 

Finally we went to see some beautiful rice fields (like the ones you see on T.V.) up in the mountains. And I mean, BEAUTIFUL. On the way back we got ice-cream from 31!! (They call Baskin Robbins “31”… it took me a while to get used to it.) And I just got ready to move to Fukayama after that! I got there around 11:30 PM. I was pooped. 

(I’m sorry I haven’t updated!! I’ve been so busy!!) I woke up pretty early today to get ready to leave Kumamoto. My family gave me omiagi (presents) so I opened up a couple. (ORIGAMI! BOOYAH!) Then we left a couple hours before my train; we wanted to stop at a huge department store (a.k.a. mall), and I’m talking 9 FLOORS OF JAPANESE AWESOMENESS. We stopped at a store called JUMP!. They sold Anime goods, so I bought a little coin purse (from Naruto, you know the one I’m talking about?) IT’S A FROG! :D

Then I went to the train station, me and my huge baggage… -___- I almost missed the train!! They blew the whistle and I couldn’t physically GET ON the train!! My luggage was SO heavy I couldn’t get it up the steps!! XD But I managed, because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be here, right? Well, actually I would… but anyway, I kinda had a nervous break-down. I was really stressed, there was so much going on… I had to switch trains in Hakata. (And Hakata was HUGE. And crowded.) Alright, this is a long story, but to make it short I found this awesome guy (he helped me ON the train too! :]), he was the train conductor actually. Basically I asked him where my platform was, it turned out to be 10 minutes away, yeah. He lead me all the way to my platform (well to the gate where you put your tickets) and he even gave me his phone number and email if I had problems! He was so unbelievably nice. I have never encountered such great service. Ever. (Well except in Japan, もちろんね？) He didn’t speak English if you were wondering. :) So I would have NEVER, NEVER, NEVER found my platform if he had not gone out of his way to help me. NEVER. So I’m pretty much amazingly indebted to that guy. I wish I could repay him. (I tried emailing a thank you… but for some reason his email rejects it… waaaah…)

Alrighty, after the crazyness I settled down in Okayama for the night. I was pretty happy, I had a great Korean dinner (KATIE!), it was kinda like a do-it-yourself barbecue. I actually forgot to take my shoes off (I was a bit tired at that point…) so the owner yelled at me and people stared, but I’m used to the staring now, and the owner just laughed and tried to speak English to me. It was all good. :) 

So when you think of Japan, what is the first thing that comes to mind? 

Anonymous asked: when are you going to tokyo?

When I have my flight.