046

Here I am, tomorrow is my last day in Hokkaido. Caaaan't believe how fast it's gone. やばい。

So it's late and I'm tired and I'm sure I'll have a big day ahead of me tomorrow, so I will briefly outline the contents of the past week.

5th January - My official Farewell Party at my Host Rotary Club.

I did my speech and presentation and got speeches done by a few people including the vice principal from my school and my Japanese teacher which were good. We talked and ate and had as much fun as you can at a Rotary event :P nah, I've always liked going to Rotary.

5th January - Final meeting with Mayor of Eniwa.

I went to the City Hall early (8:30am is early for me now lol) and chatted with the mayor, he gave me a Parker Pen with the kanji for Eniwa on the case. Then I got photographed and interviewed by a small group of reporters, and yeah. It was my third time seeing the mayor.

8th January - Dinner with Saitou-san and the dogs.

I went to my favourite Host Family's house for one last dinner with them, also so I could say goodbye to their dogs (Saburoku and Ganjiro). I'm going to miss them :( :( :( :( :(

We ate "shabu shabu" which is like boiled meat and vegetables that you do yourself, and dip in sauce. It's yum. Then we gorged ourselves on cake and yeah, it was a good night :)

The only other thing I've been doing this week is hanging out with the other Exchange kids while I still can. Tonight I went to Sapporo for the last hang-out :( and the last time I'll see Sapporo at night, at least until I come back to visit. But it hasn't sunk in at all that I'm leaving. Not at all.

Anyway... That's all, really. It's getting pretty cold here now, between -5 and -8 degrees usually. Tomorrow is my last day, as I said, and I'll have my last Rotary, last Japanese lesson, and last dinner. But seriously, NOTHING HAS SUNK IN!!! It's crazy. Just at the point where I'm feeling comfortable, it's time to come home. But I'm glad, because I feel like my time here is up. It's time to move onto more things :)

045

Holy crap! I'm going home next week! When I put it that way, it feels very very very close but it is not sinking in. What the hell is wrong with me. Argh.

I've been busy every day so far, and now that it's nearing the end, my schedule is filling up and up. I hope I don't run out of time to get everything done.

On the 2nd I hung out with my host sister Chiharu, and our friend Mayu. We went to Bikkuri Donkey (my favourite Japanese chain restaurant) and did Karaoke too. It was the last time I saw Mayu, because the period of time around my departure is when her main High School final tests are on. :( I hope I can see her again someday though.

On the 3rd, I spent the day in Sapporo to meet Jono, the guy who was here from my District last year. He'd come back to visit, so there was Jono, Rikiya (he went to Australia while Jono was here), Miyu (went to America last year), Minami (went to Australia year before last), and Sam (the other exchange girl from Australia at the moment).

It was a pretty good day, we just hung out and went to Karaoke, took Purikura, looked around shops, ate and went out for dinner at Taj Mahal.

Aaaand today, the 4th, my host dad took me, Chiharu, Josh and Matthew (the two sons of the Australian lady who's also staying at this house) out to the snowfields to do some skiing and snowboarding.

I hadn't snowboarded since March when I went to Niseko, so even though I was a tiiiiny bit better, it was still only my second time and I only went down the slope 3 times. So hard lol. But we had really good weather so it wasn't too bad.

And yeah... Just another update. I expect there'll be a lot of updates in this final week, as I have another Farewell party tomorrow night, then another meeting with the Eniwa Mayor, and a few more nights out with the Exchange kids. Busy busy busy.

044

明けましておめでとうございます！

Happy New Year!

Japanese New Year is a lot different to Australian New Year. It's a lot more quieter and family-oriented, and although I missed the atmosphere of the Australian summer and fireworks and going out with my friends, I liked the Japanese New Year.

On the 30th, I went to my Rotary Counsellor's house to join him and his family in "mochi-tsuki", which is the Japanese New Year tradition of making mochi (rice cake). It's made by thumping rice with this big wooden hammer until it turns into a sticky rice dough. Then it's broken up and moulded into balls, usually with "anko" (sweet bean paste) inside it. It's very tasty but filling too - one little ball of mochi is the equivalent of a bowl of rice, so you have to be careful!

Outside the mochi making room, there was a little snow slope that they'd built in my Counsellor's backyard, so I played with the kids and slid down that, as well as snowball fights and making snow men. It was really fun. Afterwards, I went to Miyu's house to join the other exchange students in more mochi-tsuki, but by the time I got there they'd finished, so we just hung out instead.

On New Years Eve, I didn't do anything during the day. For dinner we had a big feast of Japanese food, beer and sake. Then we all waited around - I skyped my parents because the Australian New Year was 2 hours before the Japanese New Year, so I wasn't quite sure when to call it a new year....

But anyway, at 11:30pm we got picked up by the mother of Chiharu's friend, and went to a shrine to ring the bell and stuff. It was a quiet occasion, and the bell was really loud - it echoed all around. It was cold, but no snow was falling and there was no wind, so it was pretty pleasant.

We also got free sake! Yeahhh! Nah, it's another tradition I think. We also went to a second shrine where we read our fortunes; I couldn't read all the kanji in mine, but I showed it to my host sister and she said I got some of the best things lol. So let's hope that 2011 reflects that.

This morning I skyped my family again, and I'm really excited to be going home in 2 weeks. I can't believe it's so soon. I'll miss it here but I can't wait to get back into my Australian life. I think 2011 is going to be a defining year for me.