Thanks everyone for the massive amount of food stuffs! I can live of granola bars for a year now! The chocolate was good, they can eat that, i was surprised accually, usually it is too sweet for Japanese to eat. I can't wait to find a way to make that pizza kit up so they can kind of taste real pizza! But Japanese dot have ovens... Have to use the toaster i think... ;P

meri kurisumamsu minasan!

Momo loves here new toy from fluffy(my dog in America)! She was afraid of it at first

we watched that grinch movie with Jim Carry 2 nights ago... In Japanese, that was great....

Wow you accually thought to come check on little ol' me on chistmas!!! And if its only chistmas eve then come back tomarow and think of me then...

AHH! you see my chistmas present to all of my readers! I put up a couple more pictures and changed the entire site so it all looks the same! It took 2 days of hard work getting this all to look just right... YOU BETTER ALL LIKE IT! but if you don't E-mail me, especialy if you old people out there can't read things. That is my only concern realy. and with a little elbow greese I can change them fonts.

As you see on the right side of the page is acess to all the post of past days. I ran a quick, 3 hours, spell check on the posts in December. I didn't reread them to make sure it was all good, but at least all my mistakes are spelled right!

Picture navigation is simple as pie, just click any of them pages one though 10 and you will see my pictures. Notic all the pages look the same and uniform! Isn't it great? I like CSS now that I understand what it is. Tables are my friend too! touch tyoeing is starting to speed up as well, that means less typos! We hope so at least. Also a new picture up today!

I also have that last little link box at the bottom there. I'll put links there from now on so when they are outdated I can remove them in a short time instead of letting them rot on dead pages. They smell bad after a while. hehehe

A big note of interest is that this page will be upsted constantly, but other pages may lag behide a few days or weeks depending on my LL(Lazyness Level)

Finally, I added a link to a site called LRNJ. It is a game that teaches you Kanji. I have 350 kanji and all of kana down thanks to that game. It's still alpha though ans looks like it will be great when, if, it is finished.

meri kurisumasu minasan!

I just found out that Japanese people don't get the day off work for Christmas... Even at my host parents company they have to work, but they get to eat cake! Cake is so much better than the day off right?

Tomorrow I have half a day of school. Then I have 2 weeks of school off!

Some time next week or the week after I change host families, should be fun. I thing what I see now is they have three dogs and a daughter. I will probaly have to walk them every morning.

I touch typed most of this and I still hate doing it. It’s easier with my eyes closed...

I just sent a 3.764 kilo box to America and it cost 6800 yen. Takai desu yo!

Winter break starts Wednesday, 2 weeks no school

We put UP the Christmas tree here, it is about 2 feet tall and but on top of the dresser thing. Nifty culture tidbit. Oh, in case I haven't told you or you don't know, Christmas is celebrates in Japan, but it's only a commercial holiday, like Halloween in America. Except that Halloween had a meaning a long time ago. But not everyone celebrates Christmas in Japan. There is no Easter.

http://www.kran.50megs.com/ is the site of someone from Thailand and there are a ton of pictures from Hiroshima, including a few of me, the first picture on the page. Hehehe. Also proof that I gave speeches on the 3rd page I think.

Ok did I say before you wake up, how about go to work? ALL of them picture, ALL 173 of them are up on the web now, and have fun on dial-up! I made them small(er) so they shouldn't be TOO bad... Make sure to tell me is there are any mistakes like pictures not loading and stuff.

I ended up using my JAVA skills I learned at school and wrote a program that made all the HTML for me ;P at least the repetitive stuff...

Look at picture Navigation box on your Right

Here is the picture page one more time for you all to bookmark. I'll make it pretty some other time, Oyasuminasai minasan!

Hehehehe ha haha ha... I think I just cracked....... I thought last time I did pictures I put them all up..... Nope..... Only half...... I have 150 pictures to put up on the web still!!!! ahhhhhhh, Well the good thing it that I got them all resized and formatted already now, I learned from last time what I need to do so it was quicker this time. I also see that I left the last page all messed up! Wow.... I'm working on that full force right now until the rotary party tonight for all you, there WILL I repeat WILL!!!! Be an update by the time normal people in America wake up.

Look at the Picture Navigation or your right

Ok, I need to stop stalling and go cya there. I got 5 pages for you to read below too of my trip to Hiroshima. ;P

OK, now a little article about spammer tactics... You all know because everyone gets them, them e-mail Christmas cards. You really need to be careful about these, most of them are used to capture your e-mail and the e-mails of all your friends and family you send to. Lets say you go to a site on the web and it is a Christmas card and has a "send this card to a friend" button. You put in your e-mail and the e-mails of friends or family. They get this really nice card. And then they get 9 spam mails every day for the rest of there e-mail's life. But this is a really nice card and I want to send it to a friend without giving myself and that person a ton of spam! What to do. This is the easiest way to avoid spam; copy the address of that page you want to give to a friend and then e-mail that to them instead! That way the spammers can't have your or the other person's e-mail! YAY!

I went from 3 everyday to 9 everyday because of one e-card being sent to me. If you get a card in your e-mail and what to forward it, that is also safe too, because your not giving the spammers any e-mail addresses.(your all good grandma) So if your mad at someone you could send them a couple e-cards via the e-villa or send someone you love the e-mail way. ;) That is a catchy phrase there!

Yahoo is the cream of the crop of free e-mail hands down now. Yahoo junk filters managed to catch ALL of the spam that was created by the cards. THANK YOU YAHOO!!! That is almost worth paying for right there! Oh, they also use the Google database for their searches I think.... YAHOOOOOO00000ooooo

Ok, so I JUST got back from Hiroshima last night. It was so awesome. I took so many pictures, mostly of people who wanted there picture with me... :) yes I had a line going at one point, it was the best. I gave 5 speeches during the conference that problem made me really popular because everyone knew me the fist day the first night after the first meeting. I filled up my Palm with pictures and had to delete programs to make room for them. I'll update the picture site really soon with pictures, maybe even this week! IT takes a long time to make pictures small enough for everyone to see them, you have get them off the device, then you need to rename them to something other than a data and time, then you got to resize them to really small "thumbnails" for previewing, after that too must make another copy that is good quality and small for people who use a modem to see. Then the hard part is putting the website together, but last time I was smart and mad it really easy to update, still a lot of typing though. And you all know how good my typing are.　;P

Ok, at 7:40 on Wednesday I got on the train with 5 other students and a teacher from Kokako. I was the only exchange student. 2 hours on the train and we had to run to the next gate, the shinkansen. (Bullet train) we got on and sat down and it started to move, it wasn't the close, but it was closer than safe. The shinkansen is really cool, it is like a 747 except the seats have a LOT more room, I can fully strech out my legs and still have a little room. The windows are huge too, you can see everything really well when your not in a tunnel, we were going about 180 m/h 300 k/h is what I did in my head. After we got to Hiroshima we took a streetcar and had to stand for half an hour to get to the Hiroshima port. From there we took a boat to an island and that took 20 minutes. There were all kinds of exchange students and Japanese on the boat all students I suppose. After we got to the island me and Australian named Beven we talking quite a lot by now. we got on to separate busses and the one our group choose was already full so we had to stand, after a couple minutes I noticed there were seats that fold down in the isle so we could finally sit for the next half hour. I sat next to a guy named Ate from Holland; we talked the whole way there. The conference took place at an old Japanese military base that had been rebuilt and made into a conference center.

At the conference we paid and registered then headed of to our rooms. I called the bed in the cornor and just to make sure I put an American flag over it, more as a joke than anything, so than when others that were staying the same room came in they knew that there was an America there too. Turned out that Ate would stay in the same room at me and the rest were Japanese. The fist thing he said when he came in was "who just died"? The way my flag draped over the blankets in the center of the bed mad it look like a casket....

There was a speech and opening ceremony that wasn’t all to interesting except that it was all English and there was a British guy that spoke Japanese like a native and had a British accent. He has been in Japan for 10 years now.

After was Ice breaking we were divided into groups and played games ageist other groups, Ate also was in my group as well. (Pronounced AH Tay) we had this huge trivia game too we where asked questions about countries and had to run to the flag of that country, and I you got it wrong you have to sit out. Fun really. I and Beven hooked up for these games and I couldn't convince him that hippos are dangerous so we lost.

Then next day was the most interesting, we had a HUGE "eaaster egg" hunt, I can't think of the right words. We were again in groups but different small groups from the last time; I was the only guy and the only exchange student in the group. We were given a topographic map and had to copy down the points of another map. At these points were signs that had a Katakana sybol on them and we had to copy down the symbol. I was the only one who could read the topographic map so I took lead and made it to point 1 with ease. We were the first to start as well. After that we headed out and an hour later we turned around and went back. Not before ending up in and orchard and one of the girls pealed an orange and passed around the pieces. Very good! Mmmmmm, fresh orange. we got to point one and figured out that we missed a turn, it was really hard to see from were the paths came together, I had started going down that path earlier but after going little ways I thought it wasn’t a path.

Once on track the rest was easy...er. We had to climb a rain ditch type ting to get to the first point and it was really hard. later going down was even worse and i had to wait 10 minutes for the girls to catch up. Next were just lots of trying to run, noone else was genki and had given up after being so far behind. We... I climbed a "small" hill to get the next sign while they were catching up and when I returned everyone was gathered, the next sign was far way and it took a while to get to but it was in plain sight. The English teachers that are from other countries, (ALTS) (Daniel sensei at Kokako is an ALT too.), were hiding along the paths and had bonus questions that you can gain extra points for right answers. The fist one was what was the name of the holiday for opening of spring in English? I had my dictionary (PALM) with me and that was an easy answer.

We saw another par of ATLs so 4 people waited in line for the question and me and one other when for the next sign witch was really close. And coming back the question was hard, pop culture of Australia.... we got it though. Then we had to go for a ways more and find the next sign that was easy to see, aft that My group was goanna stay and wait in a long line for a bonus question as I when t up a really steep hill to get the next sign, but after I when a little ways the decided to follow, and we had to wait forever to get eh next bonus question witch was easy, I don't even know what we had to do. But I knew the answer to the question and we left. We had to do a small rock clime for the next sign and there was many groups waiting for the bonus question here. we skipped it for now and went for the next sign, We had to clime a lot bore rocks and it took them a long time to get up, I some how found a lot of energy in the competition and was running and climbing and thing at full speed. It was amazing, we mad it to the top of this hill and there was no sign, well, lets keep going, and we went up another bath and people were coming VEER YSLOWLY down this rock climbing thing. We had to go rock climbing to get the next sign. It was so awesome! I loved it but it took the rest of the group about 15 minutes to get up so I posed in a million pictures and talked with other groups to delay them for a while, I had the next sign already. We were on the top a mountain and could see other mountains and island sand stuff. But we had another sign to get and I was going fast, I went back to the bonus question n that we skipped and waiting, it was a puzzle and there was no time so we rushed and failed. The last sign was easy and I knew where to go it was near the building we started at.

We ended up with 120 points in the end. The last place was 30 and first was 180. I though \t that was good scince we had an hour delay beingin lost. I wish we had a compass, it would have been so easy with one....;P

In the afternoon we had 3 hours to come up with a skit to perform at the closing ceremony, I came up with the Idea people added to it. At fist it was funny we just had a brain storing session and I made a good idea but had problems ending it and kept ending everything with "and a samurai jumps out and cuts him in half." every time I said it there was more and more laughter too. When I can up with the good idea that we would use the ALT that was "in charge said, "no we aren’t cutting him in half" thinking that was what I was goanna said.

At the rotary conference before I to Japan we were told a story about the worst travel experience ever, so this it what we based the idea on. In the end the curtains didn't close and it was just another skit, but other groups had really good ones. One was a bank robbery and by far the best. They use the matrix and star wars and some other movie witch I don't know the name of in it. It was nifty.

Next day we left after I gave yet another speech. It was really bad, I did it on the spot. I also had a speech during the opening ceremony, I did small couple lined during the conference as well that totaled up to around 5 speeches. We took a ferry back to the main island I think that we missed our boat.
And had to take another one. The closing simony type thing took 30minutes too long.

Everyone split up after getting off the bus and our original group of 6 students and one teacher got on the tram. We went to a bus station and put our bags in some coin operated lockers and ate lunch also took 10 minutes longer than expected, we had to wait a long time for them to cook the food. So after that we didn't have time to go to the museum in Hiroshima for the A-bomb, but we did see the A-dome and a couple other small things. Also went into the remembrance hall on our way back to the station. I took many pictures after deleting some programs that were on my palm for space.

We got into the station and my and the other guy and the teacher went straight for the lockers, all the girls went straight for the stores to get gifts. After waiting for about 30 seconds I got all of there locker keys and grabbed there bags for them. We ran to the escalator and down to the street. The light just turned red to cross the street so we went under ground and came up in the middle of the street to wait for the tram. After getting to the train station we had 4 minutes to find out train. RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just held out all my tickets and the guard guy stamped them. My and the guy in our group were running to the gate, we knew what car and gate. Somewhere he got left behind and I was at the top looking at the empty shinkansen in bewilderment as everyone caught up. Another train pulled up on the opposite gate on the same platform. The teacher realized they mush have switched the gates from the time we bought the tickets. We started running to the opposite side of the platform, at some point they got on the train and started to walk though all the cars until they made it to the car 13. I just realized it was number 13.... That is funny. I ran all the way to car 13 and got in, sat down and waited fro them to walk though the cars. The Shinkansen doesn’t go to Kumamoto, so we have to switch trains. At this stop we had 10 minutes. We made that one with 1 minute before the train arrived. Gate 7 car 6.... But then a complication raised THERE IS ONLY 4 CARS!!!!!!! Everyone got on anyways, we had to stand for 1.5 hours until enough people got off to open seats. Many others were standing as well. The train was 20 minutes late getting to Kumamoto.... what an adventure.

As you can tell by how much I typed(and typed) I enjoyed this VERY much. Thank you mom for the cash to pay for it!

If you read this far... wow, I’ll have pictures up in a short time, I need to get them off my palm anyways. It may take a week at the most I think.

84 on my C programming test, YAY!!!! I was the 4th highest score! *dances* I mostly forgot to put & before my pointers... I hate pointers just deal with the variable itself and forget about pointers!!!!!!! Bah...

Tomorrow is Hiroshima trip....

Hehe, short post. I'm considering putting pictures up right after I get back.... maybe.... I do have a lot of them on my palm... and a kind of nice movie on my camera of the light display that is at these 2 buildings on my way home from school.....

Hehehe, there was just a ?drive by? Shooting at Shimatori not to long ago.... yakuza, the Japanese mafia equivalent was responsible. I wasn’t there actually but it was just on TV. I don't know is anyone died or not. The Big city is nifty!

If you think I was goanna get my Christmas gifts out on time, you should go see a psychiatrist... no way that box is goanna be filled up before tomorrow..... ARG! Christmas shopping sticks, I’ll go back to see if I can find anything around Shimatori again, Maybe Camitori as well, I never really looked to hard in that area before.

Wow... I got a 2 on my math test, 0 on social studies, and 45 on ego! That bites.

Mate!

Yesterday I went shopping and found one of the three items... ONE!!!!! And I forgot what I was looking for so I went into a computer store called Best, which is the best by the way. I went to almost every computer there looking for net and nothing, then I tried the laptops, BINGO! They have some nice 802.11 networks floating around and I got to check my e-mail and look at my list. Hehehe

And after than I found only on of the items I was looking for and once again forgot to get a pair of shoes...

I did pick up a manga and a snoopy book to um.... practice my Japanese.... YEA! Practice my Japanese! I learned a lot while reading them already, the snoopy book is great because it has the original frames just with Japanese instead of English and then English on the side of the page, and I can check my translation! That’s why I got that, and its snoopy is a bonus... then mange is really hard to read...... I never heard of it before.

Nothing exciting, saw-wee

mate*

* Its sounds like ma-ta not mate, I know you all been messing this until now... :P

Ok, my next host family is Okamura family, a guy and his wife. No kids. No computer. No internet..... Few bogs....

I will be there for about 3 weeks probably. Then I come back to the Kawaguchi house.... no more host families lined up is what my host father told me.... :p

I have to give a speech in Japanese at my rotary club... in Japanese.... that’s NIHONGO! As in not EGO (English)... I had a teacher translate my speech for me, but he was lazy and put it off till the last minute and forgot that I couldn't read kanji... (I know he was lazy because another English teacher told me... they share an office) So I asked him to change it to hiragana please, and oh no problem, ok, I’m cutting it close now but it’s ok. Next day nothing, next day nothing. Trip to Hokkaido and I pray that is finished when I get back. I forgot and completely didn't touch it. I had another teacher in another department end up translate it and to try and add pressure to the situation I sat there wand watched him, pretending that I was just studying the kanji as he typed. He had no problem quickly taking that kanji down.

I now have a nice Japanese speech that I can KINDA read and oh let me see.... 4 days to practice! I should have had 3 weeks; I typed it up a month early and gave a week for translation.... GAHHHH! H!H!H!H!HH! Luckily its only 10 minutes. I hope.

This week I have my trip to Hiroshima for some conference thing and I have to give a speech there too, but in English. No sweat.

I hate Christmas shopping right now...... I found one thing for one friend that he said he wanted and nothing else. Looks like everyone is sharing a box of cookies at the moment, Hokkaido cookies at that though!

Well, there’s an English movie my host father just popped on... looks good, another war movie!

For the first time ever in recorded history, dereck uses a spell checker!!!!!!! I had to do a report on my trip for school, and since it was already done, why reinvent the wheel? I took out a paragraph or two and you should see what it looked like before too.... I spent I think a little less than an hour spell checking... enjoy!

First was all the fist year students met at the school and I was just in time. Everyone got on to ten charter buses! Ten of them! It was a train going down the road. Joho (my class) was of course the last buss. We get to the airport wait an hour and get on to a 747 and fill it almost to the max! There were maybe thirty other people on that flight with us. Not chartered, public flight. It was a Japanese 747 though and the seats were really small.... it kind of sucked, but it was decently fast. We arrive at Hokkaido and no snow, everyone was really cold, except me, I was just fine. We get on ten different busses, and off we go! The bus was really comfortable and it took a long time to get up to the "hotel", which was really a camp with extra facilities. The rooms slept 8 and there was a huge gym, a doujo, and a big cafeteria. Oh, no private baths, there was an onsen instead... that was indeed different...

Alright now the interesting part, skiing! Everyone was given the same snow pants, jacket, hat, gloves and goggles. Most of the boots were the same as well, but the bigger sizes were different colors, easy to find... lucky me! Orange jacket, black pants, white and purple hat, black or white boots, and black goggles; it was really comfortable and warm the whole time, but maybe because I’m used to the cold. The fist day had perfect weather, there was snow enough to keep the hill from tuning to ice, and most of the time you could see a hundred feet in front of you while skiing.

I was the first to get to ski in my group; the instructor was really interested in me I suppose, being the only American there. The fist lesson was stopping, a very important skill I think, and a hard one at that. I was going good…, good…, good…, oh shit! See you a couple minutes when I walk back up the hill. Didn’t hurt at all, just was scary the first time. The next attempt was ok. After a while we went on the lift to the top of the hill, and we were the first there, the photographer came up and took our pictures, he can ski very well. Ok, it was scary at first and I almost went down the advanced hill by mistake coming off the lift. No problem though. I got down the first little slope and didn’t fall, but then I could see the next part. It was steep, very steep, we started going, and being adventurous I was a little to fast, and I then tried to follow the teacher and turn to go the other way... I didn't make the full turn and skied halfway down the hill at 45 mph. I rolled the last half. it was really cool, no pain, just adrenalin. My skis were where I started rolling and I had to clime back up and put them back on. really great. I was able to make it the rest of the way down without falling, and after it leveled off a little, I managed the rest of the hill without any problem.

We went back up and I fell one more time at the same place, but I didn’t roll and my skis stayed on. At the bottom of the hill is a small bump, maybe 2 feet in height, I jumped of that twice. It was great, and almost lost it the second time.

The next day was sunny and beautiful; you could see mountains in the distance and everything. We went up the mountain again and skied down before going on the real hill... it took 5 minutes by the high-speed lift to get to the top, we were so high, it was 4 times the length of the bunny hill and 7 times as high or more. That was scary. I was all right for half way down and then WOOOOSH! I only hope I wasn’t going 50 miles an hour... I didn’t fall until after I got down the hill which was a good thing and I was slowed down a lot, which was even better. I was going strait for deep snow, my skis went in and I thought, “ok, I haven fallen yet, I made it” and then my skies stopped, I kept going... about 5 feet and a face full of snow. It was perfect; I wish I could have a video, a nice soft high-speed crash and a face full of snow. I sat up and what was this? My wallet? Nope, my wallet was still in my pocket. Where my face has stopped was someone else’s wallet and identification, I wasn’t the first person to do that exact same thing that made me happy. The rest of the hill was ok, and I ditched once because though I was going to go off a cliff, but that was all, It was really fun.

We didn’t go all the way down this hill, the rest was way advanced. We took a small lift back to the top. There we had a photo shoot and took the high-speed lift back down. We got one more bunny hill in before time was up and I didn’t fall once.

The last day we got back on the bus and went to a small town and went shopping where we were released upon the city. My group went to a sushi place and I had some things that were really good. After that were decided to take a shortcut and got lost. Eventually we got out thanks to my spotting a big tower that I recognized and we saw other Kumakou students.

We went into one store and everyone but I and Kekei bought something, little glass music box type thingy, I couldn't think of the song I wanted until after, oh well. Sakura, sakura MMMmmmmmM.... yea, that one. We got back on the bus and off we went to Sapporo.

Sapporo is the largest city on Hokkaido, and the capital of the prefecture. The is a small saying... Hokkaido daikkido. Dai is the prefix for big. Meaning all of Japan in small except for Hokkaido which is huge, and if you turn it upside-down it looks like Texas. I got all kinds of sweets and chocolate for my host family and stuff, it is custom to bring back sweets after going on a trip somewhere.

The flight back home was a chartered flight, a chartered 747... Kumakou reserved an entire 747!!! And almost filled it to the max too! The seats were comfortable on this flight too; it was about the same type that I flew on across to Japan. Maybe the same type. 747 SR is what it saw I think... We stopped half way for a small break and I sleep though it. I slept though landing and a take off and woke up 15 minutes before flying over Kyushu! That was amazing; then again I sleep though serious turbulence the fist time I went to Japan. I only knew about it because Masushima sensei told me about it.

I was going up the escalator at the airport and turning my cell phone back on, and who is at the top of the escalator with his hand outstretched, the principal of the school! I didn't get my PIN entered and it was in my pocket in half a second. :P He asked me a couple of questions like, did you enjoy it, do you like skiing and one more I didn't understand. That was a close one...

well that was Hokkaido and I enjoyed it very much, thank you Kumamoto Heisei Rotary club for paying my way, and Kumakou teachers for all your hard work to get 400 students on that airplane.

Well, I think everyone knew I wouldn't post before I left, simply because I said I would... Sorry!

Hokkido was great! Mom, dad, when I get back, you guys are learning to ski during the winter, it is so fun! And hard.

First was I the fist year students met at the school and I was just in time. Everyone go on to 10 charter buses! 10 of them! It was a a train going down the road. Joho (my class) was of course trhe last buss.. We get to the airdport wait an hour and get on to a 747 and fill it almost to the max! there were maybey 30 other peopl on thet flight with us. not chartered, public flight. It was a japanese 747 though and the seat were really really small.... it kinda sucked, but it was decently fast. We arrive at hokkido and no snow, everyone was really cold, except me, I was just fine. we get on 10 different busses, and off we goes! teh buss was really comfortable and I ttook a long time to get up to the "hotel" it was really a camp with extra facilities. the rooms slept 8 and there was a huge gym, a doujo, and a big cafeteria. oh, no private baths, there was a onsen insted... that was indeed different....

alright no th einteresting part, skiing! everyone was given the same snowpants, jaket, hat, gloves and googles. most of the boots were the same as well, but the bigger sizes were differnt colors, easy to find... luckey me! orange jaket, black pants, white and putple hat, black or white boots, depending on size. and black googgles, it was reaaly comfortable and warm the hole time, but maybey becasuse i'm used to the cold it wasn't very cold. THe fist day had perfict weather, ther was snow enoth to keep the hil from tuning to ice, and most of the time you could see 100 feet infront of you while skiiing.

I was the fist to get to skii, the instructor was really interesting in my I suppose, beinging th eonly american there. The fist lesson was stopping, a very important skill I think, and a hard one at that. I was goiing good, good good, oh sh*t. there I go, see you a a couple minutes when I walk back up the hill. didn't hurt at all just was scary the first time. the next attempt was ok. after a while we went on the lift to the top of the hill, and we were the fist, the photographer can up and took our pictures, he can skii.... very well. Ok, it was scarry at fist and I almost went down the advanced hill by mistake coming off th lift. no problem though. I got dow the fist litty l slope and didn'yt fall and then I could see the next part.. that was steep, very steep, we started going, an being adventurious I was a little to fast, and I then tryed to follow the teacher and turn to go the other way... I didn't make th efull turn and skiied halfway down the hill at 45 mph... the I rolled the last half.it was really cool, no pain, just adrenallan. my skiis were were I started rolling and I had to clime back up and put them back on. really great. I was able to make it the rest of the way down without falling, and after it leveld off alittle manage without any problem.

We went back up andi fel one more tiem at the same place, but I didn'T roll and my skiis stayed on. at teh bttom of the hill is a small bump, maybey 2 feet in hieght, I jumped of that 2ce. it was great, andi almost lost it the secondd time.

THe next day was sunny and butifuall you could see mountains in the distance and everything. We whent up the mountian agian and skiid down befor going on the really hill... it took 5 minutes but the highspeed lift to get to the top, we were so high, it was 4 times the lenth of the bunny hill and 7 times as high or more. that was scarry. I was all right for half teh way down and then WOOOOSH! I onloy hope I wasn'T goting 50 miles an hour... I didn'T fall untill after I got down the hill witch was a good thing and I was slowd down a lot and that was even better and I was going striat for deep snow, my skiis when in and I thought, ok, I haveny fallen yet, I made it and my skiis stoped, I kept going... about 5 feet and a face ful of snow. is was perfict, I with I could have a video, a nice soft highspeed crash and a face full of snoww. I sat up and what was this? my wallt? nope, may wallet was still there, were my face has stoped was someone elses wallet and identification, I wanting the fist person to do that exact same thing, that made me happy. the rest of the hill was ok, and I ditched once becausei thoughi I was gonna go off a cliff, but that was all, I t was really fun.

We didn'T go all the way down he hill the rest was way advanced, and we took a small lift back to teh top. there wi had a photo shoot and toot eh highspeed lift back down. we got one more bunny hill in before time was up and I didn'T fall once. I didn't　bring my cameras,(woI, i have a good digital camera, my PDA and my cell phone..... ;P never noticed thatI.)i thought that would be a little dangerious, bIt i think in a little while we will get our pictuere that the photographer took. justy like the sports festival.

That night ichiko was called my one of the teachers and he seid nanya as he turnd around... Everyone that was already in the rooms got to hear what ichiko got. 10 minute fo srceamin gin his ear... there was some one in our room that was in th eroom across the hall and he just waited for it to stop befor leaving... the teacher seams to be a 5$ cop to me. a person with power and nothing to do with it. During the final cerimony after arriving back at kumamoto he made everyone in strict formation and yelled at the top of his voice to stand p, at ease bow, sit...... the principal even gave him weird looks for this, the kind of look that is, shut up already. maybe hejust rubs me the wrong way...even the disiplinarany isn't as loud when hed disiplining students. (yes, kumakou has a person just for disciplin.

the last day we got back on the bus and whent to a small town and whent shopping and were released upon the city. my group whent to a sushi place aId i had some things that iwere realy good,and that was great, after taht wer decided to take a shortcut and got lost. eventually we got out thanks to my spoting a big tower tath I recongnized and we saw other kumakou students.

we went into one store and everyone but me and kakei bought somthing, little glass musice box type thingI, i couldn't think of the soIg i wanted untill after, oh well.. sakura, sakura MMMmmmmmM.... yea, that one.. we got back on the bus and off we whent to sapporo.

sapporo is the largest citie on hokkido, and the capital of the preficture. the is a small saying... hokkido daikkido. dai is the prefix for big. mening all of japa in small except for hokkido witch is huge,and if you turn it upsidedown it looks like texas. I got all kindsd of sweets and chocolate for my host family and stuff, it is custom to bring back sweets after going on a trip somware.

the flight back home was achartered flight, a charters 747... Kumakou reserved an entire 747!!! and almost filled it to the max too! th eseats wer comfortable on this flight too, it was about the same type thIt i flew on across to japan. maybe the same type. 747 SR is what it sIw i think... We stoped half way for a small breake aId i slep though it. I slept though landing and a take off and woke up 15 minutes before flying over kyushu! that was amazing, then agiIn i slep though seriuos turbualance the fist tiIe i whent to japan.I only knew about it becasue masushima sensei told me about it.

I was going up the escalator at the airport and turning my cell phoine back on, and who is at the top of the escalatar with his hand outstrached, the principal of the school! I didn't get my PIN entered and it was in my pocket in half a second.... :P He asked me a couple of questions , like did you enjoy it, do you like skiing and one moIe i didn't understand. Taht was a close one...

well that was hokkido, thank you Kumamoto Heisei Rotary club for paying my way!

sayonara!

wow, Saturday I leave for Hokkaido, then after that I get 2 days and leave for Hiroshima, then the day after I get back I have a speech and Christmas party type thing at rotary. then on week later is Christmas and more important winter vacation n, that starts the day before Christmas and lasts 2 weeks, after witch I become a second year student.( Japanese school year starts in January. this should be interesting, so I have 6 days of school in December excluding the test this week which are 2 hours long Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, no school Thursday, maybe Friday>>>

I have to have my bag inspected tomorrow.... hum, that is new....

My host Rotary had to take out an insurance policy on me for me to travel, apparently I have to have a specific piece of paper or something....... Don't know, but it was done before I knew it.

Oh, my phone e-mail changed. Apparently spammers in Japan like to brute force all the new e-mails out of the system and because mine was so short every spammer in Japan seamed to have my e-mail in 2 days. I had 10 spams and never even gave it out anywhere. My e-mail is nice and long now,

derecks-cellphone-in-nippon

I don't want to type out my e-mail completely in one spot because programs called spiders crawl the net and save and e-mails they find and then spam them, I learned from other sites I have done.

@docomo.ne.jp

Had more tests today and they wasn't good. Chemistry and social studies.

Sent a small box of stuff home after say I was going to since almost September I think. Um.... I've been really bissy..... Yea that's it, I wasn't forgetting or being lazy nothing, honest!!!! ^_~
40$! And it was a small little thing too!!! geeeeezzzzzz I think I'll have my host mom come next time, just to make sure they weren't pulling a bag over my head. It was 1.83 kilos ok, I just did the math... 4 lbs... *Shiver*

ja mate! I'll post before Hokkaido I think, if I can.