I can't believe that I've been in Japan for more than a week, with the Sayonara Party tomorrow and the second part of our trip about to begin it:s time to accept that this adventure is almost over.

Yesterday I was finally able to go to Shibuya and see the scramble crossing in person. Although I had a great time, my wallet returned empty.

Today we made glass wind chimes, visited a museum and also the Sky Tree. The elevator to the top went so fast that you could feel your ears pop because of the pressure. Although it was cloudy today, the view was still amazing.

holiday with host family

Well it is my turn to post again.
I finally found WiFi somewhere in a restaurant. Right now I am eating pizza with my host family as we are very hungry right now. Today I brought a totoro soft toy for my sister. We are currently in odaiba shopping and eating.

Hopefully everyong is having a good time.

Day 9: School Visit to Shingawa Girls College

Table tennis in PE Class

Breathing exercises in music class

Tea Ceremony

Disneyland - highlights from the Dream Lights Parade

Dusk

Day: 10

Entry: 2

Dusk,

It is around 9 o clock at night while I am publishing this, I'm not tired and it seems the city isn't tired either. In Japan it is hot, but nice in a way. I'm woken up by the sounds of the crows in the morning, and its warm and cosy. For breakfast I usually have cereal and Japanese bread/toast. Oh the bread, New Zealanders, you don't know what your missing out, nice and big, thick slices, so soft, aaaaaaghhh my god so good! We went to Disneyland yesterday, most people think that will be their highlight of their trip, for me, not really much of a big deal :P. I'm in love with the food here, has any of you had melon soda, ohh so good... Also my new favorite flavour of ice cream, mocha (Japanese green tea) flavor, oh its so good, I have had the best ice cream, best ramen (noodles), best drink, best bread, best chocolate (oh yeah did I mention that their chocolate is amazing!) And best time of my life here in Japan! Ahh I don't want to leave. In Japan, they have these awesome hot pools where there is inside and outside pools, and also everyone is naked... It felt weird at first, but it was a lot easier as time went on, also its gender separated (of course). I have worn a Japanese yukata (its an all cotton kimono) and I have gone camping and gone to a huge shopping mall, visited 3 schools, a temple, 2 restaurants and some other stuff I can't remember (lol). Oh I nearly forgot, the barbeque here, ohohoho if you thought nz BBQ was good, you know nothing yet. To them, our BBQ would be a dry, tasteless lump of meat. Oh it was so juicy and delicious and soft and tasty and just amazing! I also had purokoge (Korean BBQ) it was like a saucy and amazingly tasty BBQ. Anyways , enough rambling, I am having a great time here, but we are halfway through the trip, then back to boring old nz :( my host family here accepts me as one of their own. They are so nice and thought full, already I have become great and lifelong friends with each and every one of them. Anyways guys, its dark, I've typed for 10 minutes straight, and I'm tiring out, good bye guys, I miss you all, yes YOU, reading this right now while standing/sitting/lying down. Thank you for reading, this is Rahul, signing off.

DFTBA! (Don't Forget To Be Awesome!)

Half way through our trip - Disneyland

Monday 29th September, a day all of us were looking forward too because we were going to Disneyland! Most of us were going for the first time and we were all so excited for this new experience!
It was a early start today, just so we could make the most of Disneyland! 9 am we reached Disneyland and all around us were people, lots of them!!! We went in and went with our groups!! The lines were really long for the rides and there were so many people there too! Thw first ride was amazing - the splash mountain! Then we went to the space mountain and we had the fast pass for this ride so we were on the ride in no time!! By the time we finished these rides we all went for a feed and then off to the next ride which was the pirates and the carribean one! Then we went shopping inside the castle and Payal and I got a glass heel with our name engraved on it! After this we did more shopping in the other souvenir shops and we bought a lot!! The shops were so amazing!!  We then saw the electronic Cinderella parade!!! Around 8:30 pm the fireworks 🎆 started and it was beautiful!  Following that we watched the castle show which was brilliant!! Finally after a long, fun and tiring 12 hours it was time to head back!!
This Disneyland trip more than an experience for an individual, it was a form of bonding with one another and spending time to get to know one another!!
I really loved today and I can't believe that we are half way to our trip, the experience so far has been fabulous and I'm looking forward to the upcoming days and to share my experiences with my family and friends back home!!!

The images below show us all showing off cool engraved bracelets we got from the woods and craft shop and also of fire from the scene of the castle show
The second image is of us having fun outside the castle!

 Niki Chawla

Having such a great time in Japan

Today we (my host family and i) took the train to Shibuya and pretty much wandered around for a bit . Saw the Hachiko statue as well as the scramble crossing, there was so many people there its nothing like New Zealand . While in Shibuya, we took a stroll through harajuku where there were many people there cosplaying as maids and other characters.
After that we went up this tower and got an amazing view of the city, it is pretty much a concrete jungle out here in Japan, in most cities anyways.
Finally we made our way home by train and bought sushi for dinner, it was delicious.

Last night we lit off some fireworks ( the small sparkling ones ) and had such a blast. So far the experience in Japan is just amazing. I wish i could stay here forever but yeah, gonna be back in New Zealand sooner or later :( There are things here that you will probably never find in New Zealand which is what makes Japan special to me.

27th September - with host families

Went to Akihabara with derek which was very fun but unfortunately no picture to show that but we went to a few shops that sold figures and to sega that had arcade games and claw machines which I tried and failed so many times hahahaha.......

That was pretty annoying but still quite fun. We went to quite a few places but unfortunately  no pokemon center lol.

Me and derek found arian and his host family which was pretty interesting because we made a huge group between my host family and his. Sadly enough we had to part each other and me and derek went back home but instead arrived at a station where we waited for the murakami family which was derek's homestay and we went to a festival called oirandou.

I had a ton of fun and I even saw payal nikki and melissa In kimonos which were pretty cute. Unfortunately my night came to an end afterwards and I went home.

Well until next time. Bye

Steven

Day 5: School Visit to Ono Gakuen

Japanese Activities with Ono Gakuen Students

Lunch with Ono Gakuen Students

Saturday 27th of September 2014

Waking up in the morning to go to the sports day/festival hosted by my homestay's daughter's school.

There are two teams and its
RED VERSUS WHITE
There were many events in this day and that included:

Running

Throwing balls into the hoop before it's time up

Meeting the mascot(the left supports red and the one on the right supports white)

Seeing a tug of war using sticks and dragging the stick to the teams side.

Relays
Red won the first one and then white won the next.

And much more events that I missed due to me going late.

Within this day there were many many people supporting the teams and their children.

After all this I went back home to chill and relax until that moment
Of
Making
T A K O Y A K I
that's right making it and eating it!

Just with my homestay and no one else.

Overall I can gladly say that I've had an enjoyable time watching sports and making Takoyaki.

Extras:

A somewhat view while outside

Day 5: snapshots

Rahul fully engrossed in the first activity at Ono Gakuen

One of the girls at Ono Gakuen was not like the others!

How many can you get in a selfie?

We were all sad to leave but happy to have made so many new friends 

Arian getting a little help from the ikibana expert at SIFA. 

26 September

Today was the school visit to ono gakuen in shinagawa, its a private, girls school and only made about two years ago. The girls waved us in and after a brief explanation we ate lunch in the cafeteria. At first it was a bit awkward as these kinda of meetups go but after the ice was broken everyone got along, language barriers didint hold anything back today as everyone was smiling. After lunch they made alot of things for us but everyone got something a little different, i got paper fans woth kanji and really cool origami, then it was our turn to give them our candles made from beeswax in shapes of sheep and hearts. After they were all nicely wrapped we proceeded to the hall where they sang the japanese version of let it go and we preformed our haka.


We went back to SIFA after a bunch   Of photos, goodbyes and facebook name sharing, there we got To have a crack at flower arranging and the ladies who taught us came to each of us and helped out thoroughly which was really nice, thanks to them they came out well.

Trip to Yokohama - Steven, Derek and Mark

Hi!!!

Today I, Mark and Steven went to Yokohama at 8:00am this was still rush hour so it was amazing to see everyone cope in the cooped up stations, and trains luckily I was in a less crowded train :P

Yokohama was spectacular with the weather we had I couldn’t ask for more. While looking at the great sights we also searched for some カルピス(a Japanese drink) for mark.

with all the great sights we saw I don’t think I couuld fit all the pictures I took J

We could not stay for too long as we had to head to the SIFA building to meet up with everyone so we could go have more fun.

Today we spent most of our time at ona gakuen an all-girls school it was an amazing school (looked really high class) and had lots of kind people we had lunch and did origami, made candles (which sadly they did not turn out as well as we hoped but It was still fun) and went to say goodbye by saying a few speeches and doing our school haka which everyone slightly regretted because we all thought that we could do better and the school sand let it go which was very fun, After that we all started taking pictures (I didn’t use my phone :P) and said our farewells which lasted until we left the schools street.

After that we returned to the SIFA building to do some flower arranging which was fun too.

i have many more photos but now i have to go and eat a delicous meal my homestay has prepared :)

25th of September. Shinagawa Gakuen visit.

Today the entire group visited the shinagawa gakuen. It is a primary school and a junior highschool (intermediate) merged together. We were then put into groups and then went to the classes according to the group ; i was put in the hard materials class. Once in side we practiced ruling straight lines down a piece of wood and cutting it. We were then given the challenge of cutting a perfect cut down two lines with a 3mm distance separate the lines and the see if the pieces would stand on their own. After one failure i managed to complete the challenge and make the pieces stand on their own. After that we headed to the firstyears class and made some origami. I quite enjoyed this as they were very happy and energectic and made it fun to be around them. We then had lunch with some of the students. Immediately after lunch we were told we had to sing our song pokarekare ana and so we did. But then we wanted to do the haka and so with michael leading us we delivered an awesome performance. While both the song and the haka was good i think we got a louder clap and more cheers for the great haka performance we did. We then visited a shrine. At the shrine we prayed and also got our fortune sadly i only got a small luck fortune. We then had free time at a massive mall complex where i ate the delicious kurobaagaa or black burger. I then headed to james's homestay's house (as my homestay mum had to work late) where we ate some delicious ramen. Yum.

Day 4: photo highlights

 

Niki and Alan make some adoring fans

 

Joining in Art and Hard Tech classes at Shinagawa Gakuen

Mark - famous in Shinagawa!