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Now, I was extremely lazy with my blogs and also my personal journal so I'll try to remember as much as I can about the past two weeks, when my family came to visit. :3

Week 1 - Hokkaido

My family arrived on the 24th, and on the 25th we went to Shiraoi, which is a town south of Chitose, near Tomakomai, which has an Ainu village that we visited.

On the 26th, we spent the day in Otaru, just looking around and shopping.

The 27th was a Monday, and I showed my family around my school and then we went to a place called Rejaspo in Sapporo - sort of like a giant game arcade but better, because it had a mechanical bull, segways, obstacle courses, baseball, free arcade games and just so much more. That was fun.

We spent the 28th in Sapporo, but ended up spending most of the day shopping, because it was raining. We climbed the TV Tower and the JR Tower, my first time up the JR Tower at night. On Thursday 29th, it was our last day in Hokkaido. In the evening we all went to our Welcome Party held for us by Rotary.

We all did speeches and had introductions and then went to one of those private bars afterwards. The next morning, on the 30th, we packed up and said goodbye and flew out of New-Chitose airport, bound for Tokyo.

Week 2 - Tokyo to Hiroshima and back.

We arrived in Tokyo mid-afternoon on the 30th of September, and caught the monorail into the city. After walking and finding our hotel, we basically spent the rest of the afternoon resting and eating 7/11 dinner.

The next morning we made our way over to the Imperial Palace, which was nice but we weren't allowed inside or anything.

So after a bit more looking around, we walked up the road to Ginza, where we had lunch and also looked in the Sony Building (it showcases all the new, un-released models of cameras, laptops, TV's, etc etc.). Then we caught the subway to find Kaminari-mon (Thunder Gate) which was really cool. We also had a good view of that new Sky Tower they're building, the tallest in Japan.

After a bit more temple-looking, we walked back the long way and caught the subway to Shibuya. By then it was dark, and we managed to find the famous Shibuya Crossing, the one that's always in the movies that feature Japan. There were hundreds and hundreds of people, and we just stood there and watched for about 10 minutes before we actually crossed ourselves.

We walked up to Harajuku, which was a disappointment. I didn't see any of those crazy-dressed girls, and so after walking around for like half an hour trying to find something, we gave up and took the train back to Tokyo, where we climbed the Tokyo Tower. From that height, Tokyo is just crazy big. It was pretty amazing.

The next day was Saturday, the 2nd, and we went to DISNEYLAND!

Wooo. It wasn't quite what I expected - there were a lot less rides, and like no upside-down rides or things like that. It was aimed more at younger kids, I guess. We stayed there til night though, and watched the fireworks.

There were so many people, and the longest we waited was 2 hours for this ride, Splash Mountain, where you go down a drop and get water splashed on you. Just quietly, I think the Gold Coast Worlds are way better. But Disneyland was fun, and the parades were really well done.

On Sunday, the 3rd, we packed up and caught the shinkansen... well, the rapid express train to Nagano, which is north-west of Tokyo. We found a hotel to stay in and walked up the road towards their landmark temple, and there was a festival just wrapping up. We chatted to a few people (I translated) and once we got to the temple we looked around there a bit. It's one of the biggest wooden temples in Japan, and it was beautiful too. Once the sun started to go down we walked back to the hotel, and ended up eating dinner at the hotel restaurant.

The 4th, Monday, we took the hour-long train out of Nagano to go to a National Park where you could see monkeys in a hot spring (onsen). We got a taxi from the station to the park, up this extremely narrow, twisty road through a forest, and walked a track for 15 minutes in the rain, to arrive at the hut and be told "Oh... there are no monkeys here yet".

So we all sat down and waited for the rangers to try and call some monkeys down from the mountains. And soon enough they arrived so we walked down to the onsen, and there were loads of them, all just running around our legs!

It was awesome, there were about a dozen baby ones, and then mums and dads and grandpas. They played and fought and jumped in the onsen... It was definitely worth it, although on the return, we were told there were no taxis available at that time, so we took the other walking track to the bus stop, but it was pouring rain. So we all got saturated, and gave up about half-way, so I called the taxi man and he came and got us after all. Definitely an experience.

Later that afternoon we caught the train to Nagoya (after very nearly missing it),

and after getting a little lost, then finding our hotel, we all got dressed up and went out for dinner with a man called Fujii-san, who was a good friend of my grandfather, who I never met because he passed away before I was born. Anyway, we met this old friend of my grandfather's, along with his family, and we all talked and looked at photos and shared stories about my grandfather. It was special to my Dad too, because he hadn't seen him since he was my age.

It was a very rewarding night.

The next morning, the 5th, we headed into the main part of Nagoya and climbed up a tower (42nd floor) and looked out over Nagoya. We didn't go to the Nagoya Castle, but we saw it from there.

After attempting and failing at shopping in the station, we caught a train over to the Toyota Factory, which was really cool.

There was all the original textile machines that Toyota was first known for, then the car part, with a model of their first car built and then some old models, like the Corona and Celica and that.

There was also a prototype one-person seat car thing, it looks all futuristic and stuff, but it only has a top speed of 20kph and has a lot of flaws (like no shelter from the elements for the driver, tiny tyres, etc etc) but it was still cool. And they had the robot machines that you could watch and stuff. That afternoon we caught the train to Kyoto, checked in, and basically just went to bed.

On Wednesday 6th, we got up early-ish (I got up first because I bought my Big Day Out ticket), and went temple-hunting. First we went to the Fushimi Inari Taisha - if anyone has seen Memoirs of a Geisha (the movie), you'll recognise it from that scene where she's a little girl running through that tunnel of red shrines. It was amazing there, we didn't do the full walk, but we still saw so much.

After that we went to the Palace, which was over-run with primary school kids on their school trip. It was still an amazing place though, the artwork and the special floorboards that were built specially to squeak to alert intruders lol. For dinner we headed into Gion. We all hoped to see some geisha or something, because like... that's supposed to be the Gion thing, but we saw nothing. Ah well. We walked around for an hour looking for a yaki-niku restaurant and finally found somewhere down an alleyway.

The 7th... We left Kyoto for a day trip to Nara, where we went to the park with all the deer. It was so funny, they nipped your clothes and demanded snacks and followed you and tried to eat pamphlets.

We got interviewed by more primary school kids on their excursion, looked at a temple (which held a giant buddha made largely out of gold - and it's celebrating its 1300th birthday), walked around and that's about it. We caught the train back to Kyoto then took the shinkansen to Hiroshima that afternoon. We didn't arrive in Hiroshima until late, and all the information

centres were closed, and we hadn't booked a hotel. We looked up a hotel in mum's lonely planet guide and luckily they had rooms available. Yay!

In the morning we took a streetcar to the A-Bomb dome. It was smaller than I imagined, but still pretty moving to look at. To think that just 65 years ago the city was flattened with a handful of buildings half-standing, and today it's there, just as well off as any other city. It's amazing.

We walked in the rain and looked at the Peace Park, made paper cranes for the shrines, and spent a good hour or two in the museum. It definitely brought you back down to earth.

For lunch we found a floor of Okonomi-yaki restaurants and had, yes, Okonomi-yaki. It was very tasty, and we didn't even eat dinner that night because we were still so full haha. After that we caught the train all the way back to Yokohama (just south of Tokyo). We wanted to leave earlier but the train tickets were sold out, so we got the next available train, which got us there around 9 or 10pm. We'd booked a hotel earlier in the afternoon and stayed at this really nice hotel next to the station. They had a bar on the top floor and my family and I sat up there to look at the view, which was good even if it was a bit cloudy.

The next day was the last day. We had breakfast at the station (pancakes) and caught a taxi to Cosmo World, where there was one of the worlds biggest ferris wheels. It took 15 minutes to go round a full circle, and even though it was raining and overcast, we could still see a lot (but not Mr Fuji). Hanna and I rode 2 rollercoasters, one which like dove straight down and into a hole in a pool. It was pretty fun haha.

After that we caught the taxi back, then got the Rapid Airport train to Narita Airport... I checked my bags in and we had ramen for lunch. Then mum, dad and hanna checked their baggage in for their Qantas flight. I was starting to feel sad then - all these Australian families heading back to Sydney (it was actually the most Australians I'd seen in one place for 8 months) so I was feeling a bit home-sick.

Soon it was time for me to go to my gate, and mum dad and hanna weren't allowed to come any further after the security check. So we had to say our goodbyes there. I hate goodbyes. I cried when Dad said to have a good birthday and christmas, because then it really sunk in that I'll be without them for those. I spent most of the flight home in tears, it wasn't very pleasant.

On a sidenote though, I did get put in the business class type seats for some reason. I have a feeling its because, when I went and checked in, I did it alone and spoke all in Japanese and understood everything. The girl who served me looked really relieved that she didn't have to speak english so maybe it was a favour from her lol. Either way, it was cool, even if I didn't know how to work the stupid fancy tray that came out of the arm rest haha :P

But yeah. So that's my past two weeks. It's a lot to read, and I congratulate you if you've read this far. It was a fantastic 2 weeks, and it's been only a few days since I saw my family but I already miss them like hell. I have 3 months left in Japan now, and I know it should go fast, but it doesn't stop me from missing them.

In other things, I've moved to my final host family and started school again, and next month is my school excursion to Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo. My birthday is next week and it should start snowing in just over a month.

And.. I think that's it for now.

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Time for another update! I can't believe it's already nearly the end of September. I've said it before but I'll say it again, it's going EXTREMELY fast. I have less than 4 months left in Japan, and soon I'll be back in Australia juggling friends, family, music concerts, new housing arrangements and University. Eep.

On the 11th of September, the Canadian exchange student, Kaela, was having a belated welcome party thrown by her host family, so all of us Exchange Students made our way to her house (after meeting at a really nice park first), and we spent the afternoon eating, chatting (in a mixture of Japanese and English), playing with hamsters (I'd never seen a hamster before that haha) and later, when the sun was setting, we played with hanabi (fireworks) - sort of like cooler versions of the average sparkler.

From left to right: Dylan (AUS), Kaela (CAN), Rikiya (JAP - went to AUS on exchange last year), myself, Dakota (USA), Sam (AUS), Yodai (JAP - wants to go on exchange) and Kimber (USA).

Last friday after school, Sam, Dakota and myself met up in Kitahiroshima (a town between Eniwa and Sapporo, close to where I go to school). None of us had been there properly before so we went exploring, soon to discover that there really is not much to see haha. So we went down to a creek that has the train tracks run above it, on a big overpass.

It was quite nice there, one of the quietest places I've been in Japan. For once, all I could hear was the water running and the breeze rustling the leaves. It sounds all poetic and lame but it's true :P lol. BUT the absolute highlight was when Sam, attempting to cross the creek on some stepping-stones, slipped on the bank and fell in. It was hilarious; luckily none of her bag contents got wet, but her shoes and clothes were soaked :P Good stuff.

On Sunday, I got dragged along to yet another Rotary commitment, this time watching a kid's sumo tournament at the local shrine festival. It went for a really long time, but I gotta admit that watching kids wrestle is pretty good entertainment.

There was also an abundance of fearless dragonflies... This one just kept coming back to chill out on my mobile phone (keitai).

So then on Monday, yesterday, the shrine festival was still going, but this time the main event was this shrine thing (omikoshi). I got my kit on and took some photos and soon we were all marching down the roads with this thing on our shoulders... and it was FREAKING HEAVY!! I can't estimate how heavy it was, but there were a LOT of people carrying it, and it still gave me large bruises on my shoulders where it rested. It's extremely painful to lift my arms up above my head now :(

So that's all that's happened this month really. Today was my last day at school until October 12th, because my family arrive on Friday :D :D :D I can't wait! I think I've said it before, but we're staying in Hokkaido for a week, then travelling down to Tokyo (Disneyland!), then on to Nagano, Nagoya, Hiroshima, and Kyoto and Hakone, before flying back to Australia (and back to Hokkaido for me).

After I return I'll be moving to my next host family... my last family! They live nice and close to the train station so I'm looking forward to maybe getting an extra 5 minutes sleep in. I'm also looking forward to the snow :D Bring it on!! (I'll be taking that back in mid-December, I'll bet).

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Alriiiight! 2 weeks until the family arrive :D I can't wait.

So last weekend, all us exchange students met up in Sapporo - us old kids showed the newbies around a bit. We went up JR Tower, walked around the shops, walked down the city streets, went to Karaoke, did purikura as always, and had dinner at Mos Burger. 'Twas a good night :)

On Monday I got the day off school to go with my host mum on a bus tour, with the other ladies from the Parent Teacher Association (from my host sisters school). So that was good, I was pretty tired all day and everything seemed to annoy me unfortunately, but still. I got to make soba, and a clay plate (i made little eucalyptus leaves to decorate it) and we had lunch at an Italian restaurant (I avoided the raw lamb salad) and yeah. It was an all-day thing, and I was buggered by the end.

And I'm so happy... it's starting to cool off, the sun is beginning to go down earlier, the wind is carrying a cool breeze now. The other evening when I hung out in Sapporo with Sam, I actually got goose-bumps on my arms. I can't wait until I need to wear a jumper. I felt so excited seeing all the winter boots and jackets in the shops :P Ahhhh winter, how I look forward to it.

P.S I got my hair cut. It's the shortest I've had it since the start of High School haha. It's just too hot and humid lately to have long hair. Bleh. I miss Australia :\

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I am now a good(er) person! On the 1st of September, a Wednesday, I went with my Rotary club to visit the Red Cross Blood Donation bus. It was my first time giving blood - pretty cool that my first time is in Japan. They took 400ml of my blood, and I felt fine and it didn't hurt at all. When I go back to Australia I'm going to keep giving blood - my town in Australia doesn't have a blood donation clinic, but I'm moving to a city for University, so I can give blood more easily there :)

So that's all I really wanted to update on lol. If you're applicable, I highly recommend you give blood! It isn't scary and it helps others in need.

Oh, and... my pet puffer-fish died this morning :( I buried him in the little garden downstairs. RIP, Yuusuke.