Me in Japan

Still active

2005-04-05T22:29:00.000-04:00

I have not forgotten the many events taht have occured in the trip to Japan, In fact I continue to use my experiances and share them even though I have been back from teh my exchange for quite a long time.

I have just recently been to a class at a local university and was given the opperunity to tell an interested class of students about my trip and observations. They were all very interested and attentive and I was surprised how well my memory is holding up to the test of time.

But I can tell my Japanese is slipping, I was able to recall how to write on teh board some phrases but they were very simple and it took some time to do. I have been talking to my friend who speeks japanese quite well and I couldn't remember some words off teh top of my head I had to look them up but tehn was able to recall saying them on whatever occation.

It is scary knowing that the Japanese i struggled with so long is slipping and all I need to do is pratice, and practice I plan on doing.

2004-12-02T22:12:00.000-05:00

I finaly got my transcripts from Kumakou, I had to take teh lead and do the talking myself with my Homeroom teacher in Japan but I finally got it settled and I will grtaduate this year with all my credits! ^__^

Yay for Transcripts! Now i am starting to writ letters to people in Japan telling them how I am doing and asking about what is goign on, I still talk to a friend, Harada Quite often though.

Transcript

2004-10-31T19:35:00.000-05:00

After starting school for my senior year in America I come to find out that Kumakou has not and will not send a transcript for my year! This means that without such a paper I can ot grauate on time! this is bad people, very bad.

I have not used all my resources but I am comming close, my school has taken over the search for the ilucive trancript. The school was told before I arrived in Japan that I will not recive a Transcript when I leave Japan and never told me! Lucky for me my school here in American is doing a really good job communicating with Kumako about this and they are slowly getting INformation out of them, I have no fear about getting my papers,the wuestoin is when... I wanted to have my collage apllications done last month... apply for early action and scholorships. without a transcript and my junior year, may places are not even leetting my file my application!

Poor stupid me. I thought Kumakou had already sent my transcript before I have even left Japan so I didn't worry about it, I should have had a copy of it in my hand on the plane while coming back to America! Now I have something to write about for a while at least!

Speaking of which, a person from http://www.japan-resources.com/ contacted me about me publishing an artical or two for their site. It appears to be a newer site that needs work, but it could come out good in the end. It dosn't have any content, but it does have ads comeing out every corner. Every site needs to start somewhere right? If only I had an e-mail to write directly back to this person that contacted me. I may have hidden my e-mail too well from the bots. It is my FIRST name(printed at the very top of the site on right) at gmail.com . I will have to think up something to write for them. I can't wait.

BOXXED!

2004-08-26T09:49:00.000-04:00

I got my second box in the mail today! it came via USPS this time though. I now hav emy kendo armor and 2 freinds that want to learn kendo!

SHIPping

2004-08-16T13:38:00.000-04:00

One of the 2 boxes I have coming from Japan has arrived today. It had all of my school work and books and other small stuff in it. That should tell you how long it takes to ship things via surface if you go to Japan and have to send things home in a box.

Job time.

2004-07-31T13:32:00.000-04:00

I got a job! and what a job it is, I will be using the Japanese skills I aquied in Japan to translate for a group of Japanese students coming to my city for 20 days. I will be helping them learn English and stuff and they are on their own for tours and such. It should be intersting and put a penny in my pocket untill I get a real job.

I just hope I know enough Japanese to earn my keep.

Been here a while

2004-07-18T23:46:00.000-04:00

So it has been about 3 weeks since I got in to the United States of America. I have been busy in the past 3 week, I have been on the computer for about a collective hour. I have relearned most of my English but I still have urges to speak Japanese.

In fact, I have a translating Job this summer in August. there is a group of Japanese students coming from a Japanese Univeristy to study the ecosystem around here and the teacher doesn't speak any Japanese and the students can't speak English. I hope I can come though for this week long job. It will look really good on a resume though.

I have a truck and I fill in all my free time working on it at the moment. Hopefully I will have a job of some sort coming up soon, It will take away from my truck but I need paint and gas. The truck if blue and has ample rust around the edges. A tipical northern Michigan truck. I have got 4 holes patched and primed for painting. That leaves about 35 ro so rust holes to go.

I have gotten the 2 other people that want to try kendo their hakama and kendogi. That is the basic uniform for those not in the know. That means that we should have a Kendo Club in the Soo now. After the armor comes in the mail we can worry about where we will practice. I have personaly tryed to keep practicing a little footwork when ever I can. I have not broken any thing yet so I will have to keep trying.

I went to Calven Collage for a Youth Exchange Conferance. It was great to see a ton of friends that were also away in other countries for a year. It was really fast the whole time during that weekend, but a lot of them from this area will meet one more time in October for the first rebound meeting in District 6290 ever.

I can't wait to talk to a few people now that I have a computer that is working now. I will be doing a lot of emailing tonight.

Home is here?

2004-07-05T07:10:00.000-04:00

So lets see.. I have a new room and it is all new and stuff, and then my dog is huge!! And what else... I can drive and not die or kill other bystanders, I have no furniture, there is grass everywhere, my grampa will be going on a cruse(as in on a boat (as in on the watter(as in he didn't like boats before I left and now he and all of us will be going on a cruse.)))

Those are some of the things I noticed here so far. And also modems sould all be burned... and suffer a horable death .... I need to get a japanese keyboard too, I need my Japanese fix... e-mailing people in Japanese is a slight more painful without a Japanese keyboard.

I will get pictures flowing as soon as I can. this computer may need some work first... and the whole not having broadband thing is a pain too.

State-side

2004-07-03T08:30:00.000-04:00

Alright, I put it somewhere... It just wasn't in my suitcase....

Ah, the love of my American keyboard, it looks so weird and I can't type on it. The apostrophes is in the wrong place along with the @ sign.

I brother is in go-kart racing now.. and he has a portable DVD player too.

My parents did more work on the house and I have a new(smaller?) room. But it is Japanese theamed with CHINESE all over the place... Its not finished yet, and there are no doors and my bed isn't finished yet.

there was a lot of spyware on the computer.

My brother is big. Like big big.. And still chubby. Same face though.

My dog had cosmetic surgery. He looks a lot better now.

The grass needs to be cut, so I will have to get out of the house before they see me.

I will try driving today when people wake up, they don't trust me to remember how to turn on the car. Well truck now, I can't wait!

Last Day in Japan

2004-06-30T20:07:00.000-04:00

I'm going to go get a haircut, then see if all my stuff will fit in my bags again. Last night my bag gained .3 kilos and went over the limit.... I hope it dosn't eat anymore!!!

I have most things in the cases, and they are stuffed, ready to go. I didn't put some of the things in there that I still need yet. Like rechargers and a pair of clothes. so far it seam that I am in the weight limit window.... but I forgot to leave a pair of socks out... now I have to open that pack again, and that is an aminous task to preform.

YOSH! I'm going to get hair cut off my head.

The boxes from HELL

2004-06-30T04:30:00.000-04:00

Ok, I knew it was going to cost a lot to get all my [stuff] to America but this was just great...Not.

First of all, I had a chart to tell me what things would cost and I got everything loaded and checked the weight... I took the time to look though all my stuff and sort out the stuff I didn't want, mostly school work that I didn't want anymore. and socks.... :D

I got everything arranged just right at the moment, my allowance per bag is 32 Kilos per bag on the airplane. One of whitch is at 31.5 Kilos and the other is at 31.7 kilos. I hope that my bags don't eat anything from this time and friday.

I have my carry on and it is at 8.5 kilos and is packed... It has a lot of breakables in it that I didn't dare put in my other cases. I hope the guy that opens them 2 suitcases for inspection in America has fun.... I did when it took me 30 minutes to figure out how to zip the thing closed because things were piled so high in there... I took out the paper that I used for padding and used socks to save on weight. A nifty tip for everyone. I had no room for socks anywere else anyways. I have them both shut and I hope that I don't need to open them again for 3 days.

I have a box of Kendo Armor(12kilos) from my school that I am bringing home. I have a box of books, school stuff, and CDs and things.(15 kilos) and then I have the Hell Box, It contians my gift for dad and my brother and my shinais. It is 116CM long... the longest box that can go via boat is 100cm... so that extra fee was 6700 yen. about 67$.

I'm not sure if it will still go on the boat ir if that one will be going via Air... I filled out an EMS slip that makes it seem like it may go by air. But then agian.... It may just go by boat...

And this was just about as scary as it gets.... While typeing the above I looked at the recpits to look up somthing that I was going to type and realized that the street and number(an entire line) of the address was missing from the CC. I had written my name and city, state, zip only! I ran out the door forgeting to lock it and down the steps. I ran back up the steps and locked the door. then I walked very very fast to the post office, about 200 meters up the road from here. The place was locked and shut.... I rapped on the window for a good 30 seconds, or a minute, and started walking around to the back, I could see the lights on thought the top of the window but not in the building itself, the curtians block all the view except the lights. I knew that they were still in there. As I walked around the building a guy was coming out to see who was making the noise. He let me in the back door.

I told him about the mistake and he took my to a room with my boxes and let me change everything. SAFE! I hope. that was a really close one, guess what box it was, yes, it was the Hell Box...

Back to the last bit of my story now that I am back in the house and rechecked my CC's 39 times or so. The final cost of the shipping for the 3 boxes...28850 yen I better not get fined at the airport for anything, I have done a lot to get in that little window that airlines gives you...

Lastly, I had to get money form the ATM, 3 times, to pay for this. At fist I got an extra 10000 Yen to cover, then I needed 3000 yen to cover my miscalculations. Then the Hell box made me go get another 12000 yen... I machine ran out of 10000 bills so it gave me all this money in 1000's; that is 28000 yen in 1000's.... 28 1000's that was fun...

*scared voice*
I hope it all gets to my house in America

I did nothing but pack stuff and burn all my pictures and other documents to a cd. I'm ready for the day after tomarrow.

A friend's boyfriend left her last night... She has my cellphone e-mail... I did't get much sleep untill very late last night.... that was interesting though. To bad I'm leaving in only 2 days, she liked me. (^_^)

Last Day of School

2004-06-28T09:47:00.000-04:00

Today was my last day of school. I Have a lot of things that I may have to do this week so I thought I would take a week to relax and walk around and stuff. I need to get a ton of stuff in the mail to the USA as well. that means a many people will have to wait for their gifts because I cant get them on the plane. well 2 people at least.

My suitcase is 45 kiolos now and I am allowed 32.... a little over weight I would say.

This mornign was normal, I woke up eat slpet some more and went to school. I got to school and parked my bike in the, as usual, over-crowded bike parkign lot thing. I got to the calss room and nothing unusual. I was told to go see teh chemistry teachers today during the first class break and I stayed though the boring Math A Class.

That trip ot the chemistry teachers offic turned into going to all the teacher offices and saying gooodbye and stuff. That took 2 hours. After that was done I was told to go upstairs to the computer room and somthing about a video. I went up and see people playing with Lego mindstorms.... 3 minutes later a teacher called me over to teach a small group of peopel how to set up an FTP server in Linux. 5 minutes there and I had them set in the right place to get goign as they were following a book, I headed to the PC room.

I got interveiwed by a couple 3rd year students on camera for the end of the year project that will come up next febuary. I also seen a friend crying because her boyfriend will probly leave her. Oddly, she told me before any of her other closer friends... I suppose she liked me more than she let on. I knew it but whatever, no time left in Japan for a girlfriend.

After that I headed to English already half over and Did my little teachign thing that I do during English, I read things out of a phrase book and alter them and they say it back in Japanese. I have done that for a long time now. Todays class was only half an hour though

We had a surprise party for me in the seminar house, that means we had air conditioning for the extended, hour long, lunch time. There was soda and small snack foods and stufff plus most peopel bring their own lunch so that was it. I also got a gift, a book of pictures form the last week of school. It looks really nice but they took a ton of pictures of swimming just in spite of me saying that I REALLY didn't want any pictures of me in a swim suit.

After that was programming and we had a accuall programmign exercize that I finished in 20 minutes, surfed the web, read e-mail , helped others the last 40 minutes as usual.

Last class was helth and ther was a movie, I got out when it was half over to go talk to the principal with some rotartians. That lasted 10 minutes and I think it went over well. He had important school bisness to attend to so he had to cut out quickly. Although I went to teh class room to grab one of my bussness card because I forgot mine. And he was gone, left for home.

I left home with all my school stuff and took a few pictures with my cell phone. No one is alowed to have phones at school, including me, but I didn't see much danger in it being my last 4 minutes at school.

I came home, looked at my pictures and feel asleep. now I updat web sites and read my mail agian. THen I will go to sleep.

O watched the K-1 today too, K-1 is a fighting championship and there is this american called bubu(bob) sap and he hasn't lost all the time I have been here and he fell today. He was kneed in the balls though. That could have had somthign to do with it. Ouch.

Good bye Kendo, for now.

2004-06-24T05:07:00.000-04:00

It turns out taht last saturday wa the last Kendo practice taht I will have in Japan... Because everyone is studing for tests the is no practice this week.

They did have a pary for me and they all wrote on a wooden sword and gave it to me as a gift. and we ate food type stuff. ans drak drink type stuff too. I gave everyone a USA flag pin as going away presents.

I go tthe kote from the repair store but there is no time to go and pick up that gift today, have to wait untill tomarrow. I found a place that may sell the other gift taht I want to buy too.

In an hour is a rotary goodbye party. And then I am basicly free to do as I wish. almost. I have 2 more days of school that I decided to go to. and then I am really free.

Oh Time is almost up.......... I found "The Divici Code", I know I murdered that spelling, As an e-book and havn't been able to take my eyes off of it in any free time that I have(like during math and Crazy Japanese) I wore my batteries on my palm al the way down today. I havn't even used my palm scince January accually. Teh occasional Dicionary look up but that is it.

I home my boxers are dry now I't almost time to go! It rained REALY hard today.

Got my groove on.

2004-06-23T10:49:00.000-04:00

No, accually I didn't, but what ever.

I went out and did stuff with 2 girls in the class above me. They are senriorsbut really we are the same age. Did the usually stuff that girls like to do with forigners... Take pictures in picture booths at game centers.

I payed for more than my share and they bought me dounuts behind my back and snuck them in my bag.... I wouldn't let them buy them and they put a couple donuts in my bag while I went to the bathroom.

I went in teh bathroom and I seen a 3 or 4 year old girl standing there. I go back out and check to make sure I'm in the right room. I was in the right place. The fact there were uninals along the wal didn't tell me aythign I had to go out and read the sign on the door. She asked me where papa was after I walked back in. I just assume her dad is using the toilet stall and seid "I don't know but, just wait a second." I finished what I came to do and went to leave and nocticed there was noone in the the bathroom but me and that girl.. He "papa" wasn't in here. But she was gone too, and I washed my hands and shrugged it off.

I also had my last Aikido lesson today. I don't think I will be able to make it on Saturday so I seid goodbye.

There is too much goign on tomarrow. WAY to much. Let me count the things.

Wake up

school

get Kote from Kendo store that was being fixed

Go to Goodbye Party for Kendo club somewhere in the Electisity System building.

Kendo practice???

Maybe got and get Mom's gift today if it is done.

Rotary Boodbye Party thing.

Sleep

5 and 6 are in the same time slot, I can only do one or the other, SO I may have to go and pick up(and pay for) America mom's gift from Japan on the next day.... I need ot add cut my nails in there too somewhere.

jya..... mata ne.

A small speech

2004-06-21T06:05:00.000-04:00

Today I wake up and remember, "oh yea, I have a speech today infornt of the school." SO I do to school and realize what i wrote for a speech it 3 sentances long. At that point I go to the English Office for some Japanese help.

I spent all day working on it and it was fine by the end of the day. I got up and read my spech flawlessly infront of 1300 people. NO problem it was 15 minutes long and I demonstrated how to fold an American Flag properly.

After the speech The school ggave me a thing of flowers and someone read a small thing to me in English. Very good English I would have to say but taht may be slightly bais.

I in return gave Kumako an American Flag( that I Had just folded as part of a presentation.) I learned a bunch of Japanese for this speech today as well and that was fun. I will use the same speech on Thursday at Rotaray.

I am thinking of reading it to my American Rotary club too, I love this speech, I can't beleive how much better it was fromteh speech i gave only 2 monthes ago in Japanese at a conferance here. From the begining of my year, it is infinitly better.

ahhh 10 days left in Japan.... It is way to soon I think. Maybe it is Just right? I can't tell right now.

I have one speech at Rotarty this Thursday and then I have 2 more tings to do. Buy the last few people some gifts. 3 people I think, I know I will forget someone..... then Lastly I need ot make sure my badsare under the weight limit. And send the stuff hoMe via Ship that won't fit in the bags.

Getting my groove on.

2004-06-19T11:50:00.000-04:00

I tried, it didn't work. (today)

I also used up all my bus card and that makes me sad. I don't know why. I also didn't get anymore gifts today for anyone in the USA.

I seen the coolest PDA computer thing today! It is only 2000$ too, I think I left a pudle of drool on the floor infront of the display. it was running Win XP Home and it waas about the size of 2 normal PDAs but a screen worthy of mention. It did everything! Oh, and Best Denki put their Wi-Fi network back up, now I can surf the net from teh lapdop displays and PDAs.... fun stuff! no reall purpose though, My home connection is much faster.

I did eat chinese food for dinner.

Nothing much accomplished today.

Photoblogginｇ is back

2004-06-16T10:47:00.000-04:00

I got the whole I can't post pictures with hellos thing figured out. It apparently stoped working becasue I had a Blog with a title in another launge and that isn't somthign hello liked.... I t just takes me 4 minutes more to post pictures now.. But I can and will keep it up untill all 500 are up!

I wa late for aikido today and made it form here to the dojo{Place to practice fighting] in 14 minutes.... That is fast.... it usually takes 20 minutes to get there. now I need sleep. THere was a big ol' American there and after he got the point of what to do he almost broke my neck. It cracked about 3 times after going down once.... also managed to hurt my leg somehow too... It waws his 2nd time and he will be here for only a little while, he leaves next wensday.

RYE meeting

2004-06-15T07:33:00.000-04:00

Well, over the weekend ther was the last Exchange student meeting. 2 people have already gone back leaving 4 of us here. me and teh french girl leave on the same day but differant Airports and one american is here to the 7th of July. I seen them for the last time I suppose.

We also took a Japanese test. WeE had to write a thing on our stay in Japan in Japanese. and that was it. They saied (without reading them) they all looked good. Then we ate a couple cookies and left.

I seen troy after that, 2 friends had things come up and ditched at the last minute, I don't care, I wantted to see that movie, so I did. I liked it for the most part. And I even remember some of the mythology that explaines the story stuff.. like all the powers that certian people had and who people were and what their death causes down the road. Fun stuff.

Now I need to write a speech for my school and a letter to a friend. One in Japanese one in English, not to hard, I'll post later... Well If blogger dosn't break.... I can't photoblog right now, it is broke, and that makes me mad....

Gmail anyone?

2004-06-09T04:52:00.000-04:00

I have 3 invites for gmail. If you want a nice spam free[for a little while at least] 1000 MB e-mail account for free e-mail me. My mail is easy to remember, my first name(dereck) followed by @gmail.com .

Hurry I only have 3 and Gmail Swap is looking like it might be fun. :) If you want to trade I need a nice big FTP server account to put stuff on.

Gift buying

2004-06-09T04:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I have to admit i only have 25 Days left in Japan before going to America. That means I have to buy gifts. I thought leaving a month of time would be lot of good ol fun, but no... I should have started a month ago and left 2 monthes fo rbad things that always happen. I7m cutting it close but I have a frend of a freind that owns a store that was able to rush an order for me. Mom's gift is done, Little brother is done, Dad is done, One Grama is done. I'm half way on one friend... the million other people that are left I'm not sure what to get. I sent home Japanese Tea fo rchirstmas so I can't do that again.... I'm beat for ideas.

I'll think of something ang then forget and end up buying somthign in the Tokyo Airport knowing me..

TAhts all fo r today, and I still havn't yet missed a day posting pictures! Keep checking that site every day!

Fishing!

2004-06-06T06:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday some of the Kumamoto Heisei Rotary[My host club] went up to a mountian when no one else goes and cut the meter high grass. With a real Japanese sicle! that was fun, I cleard you lots fo grass with that thing. after we finished we headed to a hotel/Onsen thing.

I soaked in an outdoor onsen full of old wrinkly people. I had a conversation with a rotarian or two as well. This was a real Onsen with volcanicly headed water taht was all white and sulfer-y. Is smelled horable. But then I took a shower in clean watter and soaked in a normal Onsen type thing. All of the rotary people stayed at the hotel for the next day.

Today there were 3 groups of people, On group when golfing. one group woke up at 4 AM and went fishing. the other group, me and the club presedent, woke up at 8am and went fishing in other pladces were we didn't have to walk 3 hours to get to the river.

The first two rivers had no fish. It must be their vacation day being that it is sunday. we go up a mountain and there was fish up there. lots of fish. NO there wasn't.... I cought 2 fish and one was about 4 inches the other was about 9. I didn't cast the one theat got teh 9 inch one. I just pulled in the line and got a bit on and stuff. Finally the fish came in and got tangled in a tree, I havn't a clue how that happened.

After getting fairly far down teh river we decided to take a "shortcut" and went up a hill to get to a road insead of climing back down the river... It was a 70 degree slope going up with wet mushy, slipery dirt. The fishign pole was a colaplable type so I used the handle of that as a pick to help me clime that 300 feet of slop. it was interesting and kinda scary. I think it may have been a little more than 300 feet. It was defently 100 meters from the river.Great short cut though, It was easier than trying the river.

After that was doen and my shoes were all mudy and brown form the mud on the hill we went up and saw an old stone arch bridge and ate some chicken before going home.

I'm tired and my fingers won't move.. Typing is hard. I'll see you all on the flip side. I did post pictures for today though. I havn't forgotten yet.

Jyaa ne.

Mifune

2004-06-04T20:28:00.000-04:00

I'm going to a mountian called mifune. I will be helping a rotary project and doing somthing or another, I'm not sure. Then we go fishing for trout. see you on the flip side.

There are 10 pictures posted on the picture blog because of me not being here tonight to post them.

Jyaa ne

Bye Bye 3rd years.

2004-05-31T06:21:00.000-04:00

I just found out that all the 3rd year students leave the kendo club so they can study after school. Today we foted a new captian of Kendo club and the winner was Yamada!!! should be interesting, He has a new routine set up for daiyly practice and he has included a new techniqu that I have been wanting to practice scince I seen it. I have tryed, unsuccessfuly to pull it off but now we will practice it everyday and that is a good thing.

He took control today and we start training under him tomarrow... not a lot of diffeance I suppose. Just a new routine.

I gave all the People that fought in the tounement CDs with video's of the game I took on my phone, They liked that... A lot more than I thought.

今からマールする・・・

Kendo shiai[tournament]

2004-05-29T04:44:00.000-04:00

I got to see my first official Kendo tournament today and yesterday. I didn't fight mind you, but I did watch. I also took about 20 movies of fights. I was looking for videos of Kendo matches on the internet and found about 5, I will put my own on the net and then people will be able to find them more easy. My gift to the internet, along with my Japan pictures.

I'll put of the movies when I get around to it, You know how that could end up. Its taken 2 month's for the pictures to start getting up on the net and over 8 months for descriptions...

any ways,the games were awesome! The teams were from all over Kumamoto prefecture. Kumako lost all 3 of the individual games on the first round but today..... Today we won one team battle! Yah Kumako!!! And in the next battle, the club captain won his match but the rest of the team lost there's so we didn't move on, no one expected a win during that round.

I have no clue why some people won and others lost, it was too fast for me o see anything. My camera on my phone is too low quality to really get any detail either, but I managed to figure out a few battles.

All the aikido people are in some special training thing and I didn't go because I didn't think there would be any time, That also means the normal practice was canceled. OH well, I didn't think I would make it back in time in any case.

tomorrow I will start to choreograph my speech to Kumako for my good bye farewell thing. Its so fast! I also have to do up a 3 page report for Rotary on the 16th of next month.. .I was thinking of printing out my blog and given that to them. Its about 97 pages more then they asked for, but whatever.

I Just did a count, I have 88 pages of posts since starting this blog. That is text only posts, no links, no pictures, no formatting, just the date and the then the post. I am afraid, very afraid... I have to spell check that at some point in time before printing it off... I best start spell checking posts as I post them then.

jya ne

Osaka International Convention 2004

2004-05-27T10:20:00.001-04:00

It was just me and my previous host family that went to Osaka. we took a flight out of Kumamoto at 8:00am and arrived in Osaka at 9:05. from there wee took a bus to a train station. After finding out the way to the train we took one train to somewhere. got on another buss that took us to the hotel taht RI was being held at.

I think the hotel's name was "the Royal Ryitz" or something Like that. we sign inand got our badges. We took a look around the convention center after getting lost in the guest room sectin. I was correct in saying that we should to teh next biulding over, but no.... they seid to go to the 3rd floor and implied that my host father knew that it was the other building. We get in the elevator press teh 3rd floor button and the elevator starts going, no minding the fact the light on the 3rd floor button wasn't on. after gettign to teh 6th floor we are puzzeled and other people get in with us. I do some translating for some people and tell them what floor we are on, I met an exchange student that seid there was a TON of people from michigan there. over 20 at least.

now we have tried the elevatores and various thing trying to get to the 3rd floor, my host father says we should go to the 4th floor, then use the stairs to go downa flight... the was nothgin on that floor at all, just more rooms. he greed that I was right in that is was the other biulding. The elevator would also not let us leave the 3rd floor eather so wee took the stiars back to th 4th floor and the elevator down.

We all are registered and all that fun stuff, I wanted to check out the RYE section on the 10th floor and we do so, I met a few exchange students and we left for Kyoto.

Kyoto was a short jump from Osaka, we got to the station and I remembered the place from my previous trip to Japan. IN the year 2000 I came to Japan and we seen the station and Kyoto Tower, then went home. But this time we got on a bus and went down to a famous river. It is on TV all the time and in many movies. I don't knwo about it but Okamura was enjoying seeing it. then we waled down some famous road that was way too narrow and linned with expenceive bars and resturants. Then after a long walk and I took a movie of walking down the road, we headed kyosuido... I think taht was the name of the place, IT is a big tourist attcaction for the waterfall that is there and a large temple there.

The accuall palace was up a long road lined with gift shops and I found a shop that sold swords taht kyoto and Osaka are famouse for... cheap, nice looking, aluminum swords!!! I knew that I would find one while on my trip and that completedd one of my goals for coming to the reigon. I was looking at the one ai wanted 7000yen, 70$ abouts, and another american that knows nothgina bout swords walks in and pretends he does, he "strenth tested" the aluminum sword..... Baka.... aluminum sowrds are for looking at only and have no real function, you CAN use then to start practicing sword fighting, but the ceap ones are never the right length, they are just set to whatever looks good, the blade is also about as dull as a table counter, It wont slice even the air correctly whiel swinging it. The swords that are fit for such training are about 300$ and up in Kumamoto. I suspect Kyoto and Osaka will have a much larger selection of price. Kendo shinai's are 1400yen for just the bamboo and 25 for a full shinai. the prices will go up a little soon though, the cheap ones will be discontinued.

Back we seen it did it enjoyed it and left, we picked up my sword as we left the temple, I didn't want to carry it and left it at the shop I bought it at. We walked down to the main street for shopping in that particular area and then a bus to the kyoto station and headed back to Osaka. After getting to Osaka and asking for directions we go to the Bussiness Hotel. THe room was smaller then anythign I ever seen and te beds we so close together I thought they were one bed. Becasue of teh convention there was no rooms left when my host family reserved the hotel... I told them to do it in december but no one lisened to me, every hotel was booked for this weekend by febuary. 58000 people in one city will tend to do that though.

THat night we just walked the streets of the shopping district witch was really close and ate some taco-yaki [Literaly means baked octopus; don't let the name fool you, octopus is really good!!! cooked or not. If you can eat a McDonald's chicken nugets, you can eat octopus. don't let the suckered stick to the roof of your mouth...]

For dinner we ate yaki-nikku[ cooked meat! isn't that a hard one to swallow] I suppose Osaka is famus for it of somthing, the sause is realy diffent, slightly sour compared to Kumamoto. we had to try 4 differnt resteraunts before finding any open tables. It was good stuff.

After taht we went to the hotel and slept. tath was pritty much it for the day. we did small pointless things and stuff and seem street proformers and a canadian or american sellign knock-off watches and other stuff get bused buy the police and he had to pack up his table. We seen another guy, the next day, get busted for the same thing in the same place.

The next day we got up and went to the conferance. we get there and eat breakfast, it was lunch type food, for breakfast. we stood at a table with no chairs out in a loby food center type place becaseu all the tables we taken in the dining hall already. during this time I talked to numerous people that were walkign by and convinced them to eat some things they never whoudl have if I didn't tell them it was good. One old lady shivered at the thought of tryign to eat taco-yaki... I wondered If I was ever like that and how you could have such a closed mind to other cultures... I must have adjusted to all of the things I see by now but I think I would eat snake or somthign like taht if I went to Veitnam or something. She wouldn't even eat Japanese food.

Whiole at this table a canadian came by and I got him to eat some chinese thing that was nearby, It waws rice and chicken wraped and steamed a bamboo leaf. while talking and reading his face at the surprise taht it accually tasted good, I translated a conversation between my Mr. Okamura and him. He gave Mr. Okamura a banner from his rotary club, Swan City Rotary Club. I thought that was cool taht I could do that, I had been doing it all the time at the conferance, helping people talk to eath other, I had been there about 4 hours between the 2 short days of being there.

After eating, we left for the Osaka Dome, where the opening Cerimony was to be held. We walk to the shuttle bus stop and the tell us we have to wait for 40 minutes before the first bus leaves for the Dome. Also they say that is is 1000 yen for Japanese and Forginers are free.... I would have a free ride but the lot of peopel I was with waiting were all Japanese! I was a little mad at that little fact, and they were too, I didn't think taht was fair. I also seen a lot of special deals that were for non-japanese people only, like all you can eat buffet that is normaly 60$ was 30$ for non-Japanese. there were numorus other things as well. Later I fugured out the resoning behind this. Japanese can figure out the way to get there withought the bus, Forigneres will likely get lost trying when the most of them don't speak ANY Japanese. It makes sence, but still isn't fair. They had over 30000 people to get form the hotel to the dome, You have to ensure the safty of the foringers that don't knwo what they are doing walking into the FRONT[You get on a bus in the center of the bus in Japan, not the front like Europe and other places] of a public bus.

We decide to use the free Kansai Pass taht was given to use from the conferance. Whith all registrations all regitrants get a pass that grants free public transportation use. Busses, subways, trains, trams. TAht stuff. We go and take a subway and get lost with this other Japanese couple. They were really nice and funny, we traded cards right before seperateing at teh dome. dduring the trip on the subway we were told to get off at the wrong stop and had to talk to the station maaster to get on the right track again. we needed to go one more stop and transpher.

When we arive at teh Dome finaly it was the same time that if we took the bus we would have arrived. The dely at the wrong station really set us back, we got to the Dome an hour before the gates opened to admit people in any case. We walked around teh perimiter looking for a place to get a drint or somthign but every table in ever resteranunt and every bar was paced with people. We finally JUST found a seat at Mcdanolds and grabed it like starved pigs..... Seats were hard to come by. Mr.Okamura went and bought drinks, He thought it woul be funny to bring my the 1 liter sized cup with coca-cola... I made thenm drink part of it. That was a massive cup of cola.

we finally get in to the dome, It was huge! peopel were slowly filtering in and then they started playing music. various live performances including traditional Japanes music and Korean music, an Orcastra, and soem orcistra from Newyork doing rag time style performance. the Korea girl song a song in English, teh theam fomr Titanic.... It wasn't good, but it was REALLY nice that she gave it a try. I thought that was much more important than the song in any case. The New York Rag Time guys also played a Japanese song and tryed to talk in Japanese, I kinda chuckeld at a few of there mistakes. When you say desu in Japanese, you say dess not desu the u is silent. No one told any of teh people who talked in Japanese. On the otehr hand, The song that the guy sung was REALLY good, He must have practiced a lot on that song. pronounciation was really good, but when he spoke in normal speak it was the same as all the rest of them. "desu"...... The point is they tryed to be multi linguale and considerate to the other parties involed.

after all the music,about an hour and a half, the stadium was full, hardly an empty seat to be found, there was an expecter 58,000 people there. The speah started half an hour or so late waiting for important people. that left us with 10 minuites before we had to leave to do the last thing on the list of things to do while in Osaka. But in the 10 minutes we seen a tranditional Noh play. My host father says that it is thing only Rich Japanese like to watch and understand. I kinda think I go tthe point a little bit but not really. we left right at the end of that.

What did we do? we went back to teh hotel to get an earing that mrs. Okamura forgot and eat Osaka modainyaki..... It was good. really good stuff, Osaka is famous for it as well, Kumamoto is famous for Basashi[horse meat] if your wondering. Basashi tastes bad at first but I got used to it and it is just a normal food now. I hope Mr. Bell back in America dosesn't read that... I won't be passing his class next year if he does..... ;P Mr. Bell is a science teacher that breeds horses, for those that don't know him.

after eating that late lunch we headed to the Osaka station. got on out train, got off at Shin Osaka Eki[New Osaka Station] and bought shuttle tickes to the airport. We get near the gate and a garurd says that we will miss our flight if you wait for th bus and should hurry to catch a taxi. WE go and get a taxi on teh uper level of the station and we are off, they driver "forgets" to turn on the meter and charges us 4800Yen... yea, right, FORGOT to turn it on... we made out flight with lots of tiem to spare, I got omiyagi[Gifts] for my host family and then had a glass of water while they had a parfae. I was too full form all teh other food I had eaten in the past 2 days to eat another parfae...

The plane ride took an hour and five minutes and we had no problem getting my sword though security, I did have it personaly HAnded to my when Exiting the airport though. It didn't come out on the convayor belt with the rest of the stuff.

That was teh trip to Osaka, I didn't get to meat up with a few frinds taht I wanted to see again, but they also didn't emat any of there friends either, There was just to many people to find each other without a cellphone, and the 4 people that I wanted to meet didn't have a cell phone...

I did find that I enjoy translating for people, that was really fun. And I got to see the Japan that people think of when you say Japan, shines and temples and then the night life. all teh flashing bilbordsa nd neon lights. the bums and foringers... A great ime in all, Even If I didn't get to see much of the COnvention itself.... accualy, I saw none of the accuall convention, we left before the first speach was given. there will be future years I suppose. I just have to figure out the whole haveing to be in Rotary to Attecnd these thing, and to be in rotary I have have a bussness. Small details I suppose.

Next planed trip, a trip to America. I wonder what that is going to be like. I don't Know if my ENglish is good enought to find my way around America, I hope there is lots of Japanese information boards.

ちゅんぼじゃない！[chunbo jya nai(I'm not lazy)]

2004-05-27T10:20:00.000-04:00

I'm not lazy, honest, I have a lot typed up now, Its not finished yet though, letme type more when I'm not tiered tomarow, taht way you can read teh full story, for today, Just check out the pictures, I have 5 new ones up you never seen. updated daily!!!!

LIVE UPDATE! 4

2004-05-22T09:38:00.000-04:00

OSAKA IS AWSOME. IM IN THE HOTEL NOW. I GOT TO SEE THE JAPAN THAT YOU SEE ON TV. I HAVE A LOT OF PICTURES TO PUT UP LATER.

I ALSO SEE ON TV NORTH KOREA LET GO OF JAPANESE HOSTAGES TODAY AND BEGAN TALKS WITH JAPAN AS WELL. I THINK THEY SUSPECT THAT THEY WILL BE THE NEXT IRAQ. KIM IS GETTING A CLUE.

TOMAROW IS ROTARY

LIVE UPDATE! 3

2004-05-22T05:16:00.000-04:00

WE ARE LEAVING KYOTO RIGHT NOW. IT WAS REALY GREAT TO ACCUALY SEE THE CITY THIS TIME. I HAVE LOTS OF PICTURES TO ADD LATER. I THINK THE TRAINS ARE FASTER UP HERE THAN KYUSHU.

FIRST WE TOOK A WALK ALONG A FAMOUS RIVER, ABOUT 20 METERS. THEN WE TOOK A TAXI TO A TEMPLE THAT WAS NIFTY. WE WALKED ABOUT 2 OR 3 KM AFTER LEAVING BEFORE GETTING A TAXI AFTER LEAVING.

NOW WE WILL GO BACK TO OSAKA AND MOPE AROUND.

LIVE UPDATE! 2

2004-05-21T23:10:00.000-04:00

WE CHECKED IN AND NOW ARE HEADING TO KYOTO. TOMAROW WE WILL BE AT THE CONVENTION. I THINK I LIKE POSTING FROM MY PHONE, IT IS A LITTLE HARD BUT I WONT FORGET ANYTHING. I MET AND TRADF PINS WITH SOME ONE ALREADY.

LIVE UPDATE!

2004-05-21T21:30:00.000-04:00

I AM IN OSAKA NOW. WE ARE GOING TO DROPOFF STUFF AT THE HOTEL RIGHT NOW. 岡村(OKAMURA) WAS ENTERTIANED BY THE TRAIN...

2004-05-21T02:42:00.000-04:00

I CAN UPDATE THIS WEBSITE VIA MY CELLPHONE! I LOVE TECH.テスト

2004-05-20T10:04:00.000-04:00

http://www.aikidofaq.com/ I can't give you any more information on Aikido that that. enjoy a nice long read if your interested and have a lot of time to spare.

This sounds like fun, what did I do today,

woke up
ate eggs pizza pan and orange juce
slept a little more
woke up, got dressed got on bike went to school,
Did school stuff{played Jpaanes dodge ball in PE today.}
found out tomarow is 2 hours of school only
Practiced kendo and won a fight.
Practiced Kendo and lost a 13 other fights
Came home
Talked to host mom about various things
Got on computer to check e-mail, responded to and wrote 4 mails
Posted 5 more daily pictures.
got on Blogger to type this
Going to sleep in a few minutes, It is tomarrow after all.

Nothing out of the ordanary except that I WON a kendo fight. That was nice for once. That is a normal day really. I'm goning to do the last hting on that list now.

mata ne.

2004-05-18T05:00:00.000-04:00

I finally ordered my bogu name plate thing for kendo!!! Its a little late but I really, really wanted it. I finaly have my name on my armor, well not yet, but I will next week. I just hope I ordered the right kind. I REALLY hope so... I also got a catalog of the pieces at the kendo store that I use. a small bit of bad news, there cheap shinai'S are being discontinued... It will be about 300yen[3$] more for each one.

I'm also making a list of things I need to buy for gifts and getting really for that... AKA: getting money out of the bank and into my pocket.

I didn't plan far enough ahead and can't get my certification in Kendo now, the next test is in August and I leave in early July. Soooo mad I can't get my shou dan. They have 3 tests a year for kendo and one was this month last week.... LAST WEEK!!!!! I missed it by one week only and that makes me madder! I don't know if I could have passed the test anyways though. I don't know what I needed to know. Oh well, I'll call a few dojos and see if any teachers will give special consideration...

2004-05-15T01:53:00.000-04:00

I want to make sure everyone can see all the new pictures that are up, there are 25 and I plan on adding 4 or 5 a day until I run out, that will still take 3 months at that pace. I wonder how much storage that website is giving my for Blogger.... Hello.com is giving Blogger users free picture hosting, I worry for how long and how much space do I have.... We'll find out, hopefully not soon.

--==Kendo==--

I think I'm getting better at kendo now, I hit a few good Men's during practice. That isn't English{Men} It is Japanese; Let me explain. In Kendo[Japanese lesson; Ken:Sword, do:Fighting style{ex:judo, karatedo, kendo, aikido}] you have 4 targets on your opponent; Do is the stomach, Kote is the Forearm, tsuki is the Throat, and men is the head. The way you strike men is to leap forward with your left foot and extend you right foot forward, at the same moment that your shinai hits the men, you yell, "men!" and your right foot hit the floor. These 3 things must happen at the exact same time to maximize your power. I read in a book that it is possible to generate over 850KG[about a ton] of force with good technique. There are stories of people having there foot go though the floor, and I can believe it...

I was trying to exercise the best technique today and my foot is killing at the moment. Now I go to aikido again to learn to fight with nothingness.

2004-05-14T06:26:00.000-04:00

Today's test went very well I think! I had physics, programming, and Math A. I thought I was gonna bomb physics but I think I got at least a 60% on it. I forgot the way he wanted me to put Acceleration down. So about 3/4 the test wasn't done. That was more than I thought I would finish though.

Programming was a piece of cake.. All except one question that I didn't understand the Japanese on, If it was what I thought it was then it was just a little ice cream to go with the cake. Nothing hard at all!!!!

lets not talk about math A..... I completely forgot anything that I had learned before... Its statistics math I think.. The beginning of statistics. It could have gotten a 50% at least if I had memorized a table I had in my notebook.... That was all in heighsight though.

As for the new picture blog... I have 20 pictures you never Seen before up on the web, I have put up a bunch everyday. If I can get on this computer once a day to check mail and post pictures that will give you a nice reason to come back and check on things every day!!!! I'm getting though my Osaka trip pictures at the moment that are well over a month old, but YOU never seen them before. Comments are still broke at the second, If anyone wants to struggle to post a comment they can very well do that, but it's far from perfect[or Done].

I'm contemplating learning true CSS and transforming the site to XHTML or something like that. I think it would be fun If I had the time to do it. Maybe I'll though in a few minutes every now and then to doing that.

2004-05-13T18:45:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm going to Osaka again tomarow! It is for theRotary INternational Convention that will host around 20,000 people, if I'm not mistaken, from all around the world. I don't have a clue what is going to happen or what is there, but It should be interesting I think. I hope to see Kran there along wiht rotarians form my sponcer district. I'll be wearing my school uniform because I was told I had to do so, I wanted to wear my rotary blazer but they wouldn't hear of it. I'll just be harder to find and a lot more hot.

I leave with my last host father, Okamura san. My current hostfather has another wedding to go to, or so he says, He didn't want to go to begin with. My club president is also heading to osaka as well.

After that me and Okamura are going to Kyoto as well. If someone dosn't check her mail right now she isn't getting anything from kyoto.....

2004-05-12T20:07:00.000-04:00

Apparently my geography teacher decided I shouldn't take his test... Sooooo Now I sit in the computer room for an hour. Should be productive though, I'll be able to get a few things fixed now while I wait for the next test. English!

Oh, And it's raining... Hard. While going over a small bridge I looked down at the river and seen the water flowing by the 1000's of gallons a second. This river never had any water in it unless it rains, so it was interesting. The windgusts right now are around 70 mph at the moment I would suspect. Its really coming down, and I don't think there was any typhoons in the area last I seen.Kumamoto weather forecast[Japanese]

2004-05-12T10:41:00.000-04:00

[Edit Ignore the part about it working and the comments... Its not working... :( ]

Ok, well, I got the site "patched up" It looks ugly but It works. I will try to put in a few 50 or so pictures if my computer in my room doesn't die.

PLEASE, if you would, look down at the lower right of this box, and all boxes on this site created after this date, and see the comments link? Its in a light color and will say something like "0 comments" at this point in time. Click it and then add you comment to the post, its easy, fun, and you get to tell the world about what you think about my Adventures. It will also e-mail me to me new address that I wont give out to the internet, I happen to like not having ANY spam in my gmail account.

....Its my first name followed by @gmail.com that simple. I don't think that anyone that has read this much of the site would spam me. And no "spiders" can pick that off the page. I hope.

I'm off to tinker with the template for the picture page[you can get to the NEW picture page by clicking the respected link to the right of here... Inside the picture navigation box, if you still don't see it. For any one that still can't see it, New site Link Don't bookmark yet, I will more than likely change that link in a while. It does feel good to be able to no have to rely on the School servers..... They are really slow and old by now. After I graduate I will lose that space anyways, I'm so happy.

It looks like I have gained a new leap into the webpage with the new tools I have been given, I hope these tools will bring better experience for all 12 of you who visit my page every day! I lost my Google pagerank of 1 though, that made me sad...... Oh well, I have only myself to blame.

2004-05-12T05:47:00.000-04:00

OK, I turned on a few cool things and enabled a bunch of new fetures for the site, but the old template that the makes the site look like it does dosn't have all the code to handle the new stuff, I want to put MY template back up ASAP and will work on it tonight. I am using just a general "BLAH" template that 1000's of other people are using right now too, so not original. But you should try posting a comment to this post and check it out but clicking comment below. there is a link on all the posts so you sa asl me questions or say somthing to me without e-mailing me! postin g a comment will let everyone else see you message too.

I have a few new pictures from osaka last month posted for you to try out. I think I like the new set up, but... I need to fit a completely new template to that site and I will start on it tonight. also, I have to enter in all picture one at a time so I can type in Comments about them and Its just wow, look at the post below for the new link. Durring the switch to the new template all my links on the right are gone at the moment, They will be back tonight, I am walking ou tthe door to aikido right..... NOW!

2004-05-12T04:44:00.000-04:00

New picture site

As I seid previosly, Blogger got a HUGE upgrade and it is all free!!! I found a new site that will host pictures on the internet for blogger members and they have a really nice program for uploading. I will be experimenting with all teh goodies that have been released.

aikido was delayed an hour due to bad info, not on my part.

I tryed to post a post from my cellphone but It hasn't show up yet... A weird post might yet magicly show up and shock me. .... 2 of them..... FYI

2004-05-12T03:27:00.000-04:00

oooohhhh, shiny! Blogger, the site I use to make this blog and host it on, has go a new look. It is also owned by Google along with many other site on the net. I happen to think Google gets a lot of things right. Blogger one of them, Blogger was accually acquired by Google last year I believe and This new UI changes is easy on the eyes. Just a side note that none will understand except me, but that's ok.

I have been doing stuff despite not posting, I think I try to check my mail once a day an then neglect my website, but I really do try to get in one post a week, 3 a week is my real goal and 7 would be massive sweatshop production that if I could I would do. I'm not interesting enough to do that though. I do have a really good Idea, even if I am late. I was watching the news and there was a blip of news about camera phones in America and people think they are evil because perverts are u p-skirt-in g[I had to do this to make MSN stop giving search results for this topic] people with the cameras.

I sit here in Japan and laugh at the report. I reach in my pocket and pull out my phone that has 2 not just one but 2 cameras integrated in the thing. One faces me for using a video phone and the other is used for taking stills that is on the side of it. It was supposed to be stylish but it is just, well, not. All cell phones in Japan have a camera on them now. Its not an option is given that if you have a cell phones that you also have a camera on it. Nokia makes a phone with a decent camera in it and there is a big outrage.

that led me to my idea. I can take an Idea that was meant to be evil and use it for good. Most people seem to do the opposite. If I can get a PHP script running on my school server I can #1 get all the pictures from Japan Uploaded in about 2 minutes( I have another 150 or so that need to get on the net eventually) but # 2 the script I really want is so that If I take a picture on my cell phone I can E-mail it to the server and have it post auto-magic-ly to the web as I sit on the bus or train or where ever I am. I am gonna start working on this little thing now and see if I can't get the administer at my American high school to enable PHP...

-===~~~===-

Now on to Japan. There are the monthly test right today tomorrow and Friday, and they are hard. I thing I did fine on the hardware test but I definitely failed Japanese and Math I. We are doing 'basic' trig in that class. I was really dumb for the first 20 minutes and didn't understand what the test wanted from me until it hit me square in the face... So simple. The Japanese test gave a lot of Japanese trouble I think I guessed one right though. Hardware was great, Matsushima Sensei[Japanese Lesson: Sensei is like Mr. but for teachers. It means Teacher.] Had a test in English for me, but the first, and largest, part of the test I didn't understand... It was a good try at English though, I think I figured it out in the end though.

I'm going to go to try aikido in about 40 minutes. I have no clue were I'm going but I have been told it is near an intersection that I do know about. I might get there, I might not. Whatever. It's free to go the first time and then if I want to practice more I can pay to join the dojo.

from my Knowlauge aikido is combat system that uses your oppoent's energy against himself. It allows old people to fight and overcome young strong people in flights. There is very little energy or strength used in aikido. The way it seems is that aikido is more of a self defense system then use to attack because you need to enemy to put out energy and then unbalance him before you can use any moves. I'll tell you all more about it after my first class.

2004-05-06T08:09:00.000-04:00

Ok, I go tto school for the first day after golden week[the week that the nation of japan takes it vacation] and we have 3 classes today and a baseball after school. the entire school had to go and support the first game of the season. It was about 11 KM from school on bike and it was very slow getting there, over 1200 studens biking their way to the ballpark.

It was a game agenst Tamana high school, The school Ben goes to but Ben didn't come. The game was 3 to 4.... Kumako won!!! It was won in the 12th inning, 2 outs, 2 strikes, 3 balls. THat must have been some pressure.

that was all that happend really. I came home hot and sunburned and turned on CNN. I wanted to see some story but it never came on. and now I forgot why I wanted to see CNN. It looks as if there is a lot going on in the world.

well, thats all folks, I(ll get to THe okinawa story later, With pictures. including the 200 I have saved to put on the web some rainy day.

matta ne.

2004-05-04T05:54:00.000-04:00

I just got back from Okinawa!!!! It wqas grea, I have a lot to say, but I'll type it up tonight, I have unpackign to do.

2004-04-29T23:52:00.000-04:00

Going to OKINAWA!!!!! MY host family is taking me there for 5 days 4 nights. this Will be great! I leave in a few minute, got to run fast, bye bye!

2004-04-23T07:34:00.000-04:00

http://kazenotayori2.blogspot.com

So I'm looking though My list of referals( a referal is a site that links to my site) via the tracker that I have and I see a blog, Ok Ill check it out. Some Japanese ?guy? near tokyo linked to my Japnese blog site and wished me luck. If you go to that site you won't understand it but, you can see me name in English letters.

I thought that was cool, I have sites that link to me. Which means I have content hat people find interesting... and there isn't much of that in my Japanese site. very VERY sparse info and broken sentences. Oh, its like my English section with less updates. If you didn't notic you can click that Japanese flag near the top right of the page and see the Japanese site. Or just click here

I'm gonna keep a look out for more. that was intesting reading that guys blog.... Yes I could read it.

http://briannasr.blogspot.com/

This is a site I found interesting. He's an Aussy from down-under. THats what I made of it at least THere are minimal typos and he has been here about 2 monthes now... He teaches English with NOVA an English school that is all over Japan and in almost every city.... He does like nutto though, that is weird.... *shivers* I can eat vegimite but nutto.....

2004-04-22T08:31:00.000-04:00

WOOO I'm a happy camper right now.... I got a gmail account! That is one gig of e-mail storage for FREE! from google! www.gmail.com

It is still in Beta testing but look soooooo nice! and I have a GIG of storage! a GIGABYTE!. My yahoo mail is already yelling at me too buy more storage becasue I have been keeping my e-mail while in Japan. now once I find a way to get this old yahoo mail transphere I will never need to delte a mail agian!!! When it goes public I want to get all of my family on gmail. off of spammail i mean hotmail. Hotmail is horable. the storage is small the spam filters DON'T work well and they use pop-under ads....

a google serch of gmail will give you tons of info on the service. Its pritty nice. THerre is the whole privacy thing, but that is more of a conspiricy therory than anything... I thin kI would trust google over any other web site on the net.... Maybe that is a bad thing.... Still not gonna give out personal info to google but they can hold my mail for me.

I had heard about this a long time ago and wanted in to the beta testing but its closed and invite only. How I got an invite? thats a secret.... :D Because there are few people tha thave accounts I was able to get a REALLY easy user name to give out... dawonn is memorable by ME becasue I see the reson behind it..... anyone that knwos me can remember the new one.... YATTA! no excuse for no e-mailing me!

I'll tell you how it is from the inside, I think there might be a secracy thing were you can tell about it spacificly untill it is made public. I think it will be soon though. THere are sites taht have all the goods for you if you really want to read about it.

I accully wanted to tell everyone about my 2 bike accedents that happend 2 days ago.... that got over riden by my getting a gmail account!. well the front wheel was totald and I got a few minor injurys.... It was on the day of the sports test too...... I have to post about that too... how about tomarow or so....

I'm happy, じゃね

2004-04-20T07:58:00.000-04:00

More hazing and making the Freshmens lives miserable has been going on, but now ITs really calming down. So far.

There is a sports test tomarow. they record our times in various events and stuff and compare it to the year before. I havn't got a year before so I just get to see this years data. SHould be interesting,

Kendo!!!!

Kendo IS still great, some of the freshmen are playing now. they are good compared to me. But they all are nowhere near the others. THe Captian of Kendo opens right up on them and today one guy walked away with an arm that was redder than a tomato. meanwhile, THere was a mesuring tape in the locker room and I had all my armor on, click click click click My waist wiht armor on is smaller than it was when I got here. SCORE!

Oh in related news, Kumakou told me to bring my Armor home to America in July! やった[yay]!!! New kendo armor costs around 2000$ in Japan for a quality set. {this set that I have} It is kinda old and there are lots of unused sets in the kendo room that havn't been used in a very long time and they were debatin gweather to though most of it out. I might also get to bring a set home for a friend to I can keep pracitcing in America. But why did my frined have to Spend all his money a couple weeks ago? Shipping It gonna hurt I think. Speaking of witch I need to send them boxes out tomarow. I may take a holiday from Kendo tomarow.

Matta ne.

2004-04-13T07:48:00.000-04:00

And let the Hazing begin.... ;D Naguta Keike gave a talking to the JOHO['Information System' which includes all computer courses] freshmen. I only cought the end of his speach but they were all looking pritty scared... none were makeing eye contact with anythign but their desks and feet... they all yelled really loud 'I understand!' at teh end... he had complete attectino and contol of that room. After, maybe caused by Keike, there were three students bowing and saying good afternoon/Morning to everyone that walked by that wasn't a freshmen[I'm not a freshmen]. That was fun, almost all the second and third year students walked by them after that, I bet their thoughts hurt after lunch break was over. :D

I'm taking physics. And he had English printouts from a book. It loks like its about as old as the school, 106 years old. Its called "Advanced Collage Physics". I read the chapter on speed and velocity. A simple concept that a 6th grader can understand; maybe a 5th grader. The way it is worded made my head hurt... and it made a couple referaces to caculus..... My head hurt, I need a dictionary for one word, My head hurt.

But for cleening, My group has..... The administrator room....... *Bun ban BAAAAAAAAMMMMMM* NO ONE like going in there.... There is one really scary guy in there and he is way bigger than I am...... A Japanese that is bigger that me is odd, THAT much bigger is scary. But so far so good, I met the Vice principal and talked to him a while... He didn't know ther was an American at the school!!!! They also feed us dongo once... Wasn't to my likeing but I didn't turn down the bear-guy.

It was an Interesting day.

2004-04-12T08:46:00.000-04:00

All the First year students(AKA Freshmen) we intorduced and stuff today. The cerimony included us singing the school song at the new students and stampeading them during the first "OSE!"(like a greating but only kinda.) For once the guy holding the flag, a friend of mine, held the flag high and at the proper angle... that was a first accully.

Then after a few people seid things I don't have a clue about, THe brass band gave a performance..... They are that good. The band won the 2nd best in teh nation tital at a compitition and I see why. THey played 5 songs and did all the marching and danceing you expect of the second best High school band in the country. I was amazed at the people with the tubas, the though them in the air making them spin and cought them, then played more..... If you ever held a tuba, you'd know why that is impresive....

I was gonna cause HAvok fo rth eFreshmen JOHO system students(My class) but I lost my Fist year student badge.... I was gonna go pretend to be new and just cause random Havok, but.... Oh well. It was all right when walking thought the hall a freshmen bowed to me and yelled "Konechiwa"[Good Afternoon]... That was cool being on the reciving side....

YOSHIA![Alright!] I'm off to burn in the 27 degrees celcius weather. ATSUII[Its hot]!!!!

2004-04-11T01:38:00.000-04:00

I can officaly shop in Japan, I seen a discount on CDs on a flyer. went to the advertised store and bought 10 CDR discs for less than 2$. Yea, I could have gotted 200 for 30$ butI don't have 30$ to blow In a past post I mentioned finding a masive 4.5 gig file to test the connection here... I'm gonna, Um.... test the Burner in this system. :D It works good, I get on at night and work on my blog, mail, webcomics taht I like, and recently I found out how fast a T3 optical fiber line is. :D I love technology, One of the reasons I came to Japan, TECH! So, I'm accomplishing another of my goals for coming to Japan by burnign CDs of game Demos that this computer is to slow to play!

For the IRAAj employee who runs across this, No music was DLed during the "test", only game demos from Gamespy.com. :D Have a happy, legal, downloading day.

2004-04-11T00:51:00.000-04:00

Well, Its been a good week, I didn't know a week had gone by though. I have a couple boxes of clothes I never wore that I brought here reader to ship home. I'm trying to get people to buy some Shinais, bamboo kendo sticks, So I can ship them all at once. They are too big for the airplane, and probly too expencive to send them home by air, Ship is the way to go. I want to have friends buy a few so I can fight them, how will I do that without armor you ask? Taht is a good question..... Very carefully... ^_^

I found out how fast this host familys connection to the net is kinda. I have 5 gigs dled in 2 days and the busy light on the modem never blinked once. I also found out how slow the computer in my room is... I think it needs RAM, badly. Oh well, I don't use the computer much anyways. Just my cellphone.

Takashi just started highschool this spring, Spring is when Japanese Students start the school year instead of Fall in America. His school is 30 minutes away by car and almost all uphill. He dosn't want to wake up early to go up a mountian on a bike every morning. It is quite a long way from the house, so he will stay in the dorms at the school. Kumakou, my school, also had dormatorys for students. He has been doing cleening all the time at his dorm. All the freshmen have to do the cleening pretty much 100% of the time. His school Is a High school and collage mix. He will have classes mixed up and leave high school with a collage degree, i think he has 6 years to go there though. norma Japanese high school is 3 years. Junior high is 3 years long as well.

Meanwhile, I am a 2nd year student now. The was one day of scoll last week for us. We changed classrooms and listened to the staff introduce themselfs along with a new principal. That was a long time to sit on the hard floor. Our new room is one room down from the old one and is a little smaller. Just a little though, we have more windows though, I think. Real classes start tomarow. The second year students have a choise in there scheduals, physics or chemisrty an World or Japanese History. I took World and physics. I have secret love of pyhsics, I like the theorys. I hate proving them... MATH!!!! But chemestry is math only, and a few pouring chemicals together. I took world history because as much as I want to know about Japan, it would be a class the biulds on past knowlage that I don't have. I couldn't dream of passing it in otherwords, World history I have a little knowlage of, I may pull a D or even a C in world history. Thats what most of my friends are taking as well.

I feel Curplue-tunnel creaping in, matta ne.

2004-04-06T06:34:00.000-04:00

Oh, so I'm eating dinner and my host father says, "oh, your going to a new host family tomarow."

That is my excuse fro no updatesa and e-mail cheecking. bUt I did findout I NEED to send stuff home Via ship now. the suitcase was filled up, both of them. with stuff I bought while here and school unifore things. I've got a box filled with clothes I have yet to were while in Japan and have no plans to start doing so now. I'm still keeping many that I will more than likly not wear but Oh well. My suitcase just reaches the limits of the airlines now, so t's allll good, for now. I also have a box of nothing but homework and papers form school that took 5 kilos just by itself that I will SHIP home. I won't need any of that immediatly when I return and I don't need it now. so off it will go. I wonder what it costs to send Via ship.... Lot less than goign over my limit on the plane thats for sure.

I broke down and bought 3 kendo shinei sticks. I was gonna get 4, but decided to get 3 only and use the money saved for a littl annoying kid that can't use a computer so its ok to talk about him here. I got him 2 shinei so we can fight when I get back. Without armor.... that might be a little dagerous, but i think a pillow will work out ok for practice. :D :D :D I need to get money from other people that want a stick so we can fight and stuff, they are really cheep so e-mail me if you want one! I'llsend them all at once to save shpping. probly by ship so it will be about 3 monthes form now before you see you bamboo beauty. Kumamoto have the lowest cost sticks in Japan, not substituting quality I suppose. they have more expenciveones too, but the cheep onse are good forf practice and stuff.

I want a metal sword!!!! If I hav e money after buying gifts, I'm gettign one..... Everyone that comes to Japan have to Buy a swrod right? 300$ of shining beauty, And I know how to wield it too, kinda. We been studying in Kendo how to use metal swords. even though we only have wodden ones and bamboo sticks.

HARAHETA!!!! matta ne.

2004-04-05T22:17:00.000-04:00

SO I just got back from Oita. It was all teh Exchanges tudents in this district together and we saw a bunch of bissnesses. I Had a cold th ewhole time, but it was managleable. We seen all kinds of thinks in Oita, Including being invited to the opening Debut of a aquarium, it was invite only, so that was cool, it still smelled of fresh paint. They had all the typlical things. Penguins, dolphins, a turtul, otters, walrusus, and fish. accross the street was teh monkey place i didn't get to see the last time i was in Oita so I walked over there, and there we a lot of monleys. a lot of monkeys.

I'm on a putz of what we did I'm too tiered to remember.(Still have that cold.) we seen a huge budist temple that is famous in Japan. Also, we went to a musuam that told about the anceint tombs in Japan. I didn't Know Japan had tombs. they looks like gigantig keyholes. I have picutrees and stuff. From Oita and Osaka, I have over 200 pictures. My host father let me borrow his camera and I LOVE that little thing. It is 1/3 the size of my good one and 2 times as powerfull. And its stylish.

I cringe at the thought of 200 pictures...... That is going to give me carple tunnle alone.

mata ne

2004-04-02T11:11:00.000-05:00

I forgot about the most important part of the trip! I accomplished one of my goals for being in Japan! I got on a popular National TV show!!!! Almost everyone Watche Baseball and I got on the TV durnig that game, not just a crowd shot but JUST me cheering and shoutin my lungs out! I was on Tv and the camera was right there in my face and my Phone was going crazy getting mails from people that were watching the game and e-mailing me telling my they could see me. I kinda smilled when I got e-mails while the camera was there, becasue I knew I was on TV at that moment when the phone started vibrating.

That was the best part of the game.

2004-04-02T10:47:00.000-05:00

I am finally back from all the running around the country of Japan now. Still going places tomarow, but thats only Aso so its not that big of a deal. I think i will be going to Kumamoto castle again tomarow morning as well, the trees are all in full bloom right now and there are people from all over the country to see our little 'ol castle in Kumamoto. Other than that there is Kendo every day. That is about all of the plans i have for spring break, that was quick so I put it first. now for what I already did.

Fist i went off to Osaka, the second largest city in Japan. My school is really top notch in the baseball section, accually, my school is number one for sports in Kumamoto. In october or smthing we won the regonals and got invited to nationals for baseball. it was 50$ to get a seat on the bus and there were a lot of people. about 45 people to a bus and Kumako had 19 busses go to Osaka. that is a lot of people. well, the bus ride was a long 10 hour night ride and we all woke up in a theme park parking lot, Expo land. I was told it was a great big place back in 2000 when I came to Japan and here I was in the parking lot of the small thing. it saw so tiny. but oh well, we couldn't go in there was no time and it wasn't open.

Off to the stadium that wsa still a was to go but all the bussese had regrouped together and we had a caravan of 19 busses going though Osaka. that was as sight to see. We get in the stadium and see the game befor ours finish up and move to the Kumakou section of teh stadium. we had a huge section to ourselfs, as did the other school.

The game, it was long and we did a ton of cheers and stuff; like the superman thing, and the kumakou hand spelling thing. niether of witch i wish to start to discribe. we lost the game 0-2 but they are the favorits to win and have been doing just that, winning. i think the lost a game today to seikei or somthing, it was in the last inning and I didn't see it. I want them to win becase thta woul make us look a little better losing to the number one team only. Although that was our first game. It would make us #2 or something in my head at least.

after the game we headed all over to Osaka castle, and that castle is quite small compared to Kumamoto castle accually. But the Osaka Castle is more shiny, it was gld a long time ago but now it is brass because people like to steal that amount of gold. All the casltes are the same thogh, except my host father tells me the lighting rod at the top is accually gold but it would take a huge crane and a whole lot more time to steal that then can be done in a night so they leave it there. cool trivia I suppose. In the shop there were little plates that were about 3 inches in diameter. the had pictures of sumo size samurai having sex with the same sized woman.... it was funny. I took a picture. nothign graphic mind you but the was enought information to tell what they was doing...

That was a one day thing, Ride up on a bus the night before ride back the night after and then sleep the entire day when I get back. The day after sleeping i headed to Oita for a rotary convention thing. The average endless talking and telling us we don't know enought Japanese. BUT IT WASN'T THAT! no it was accually enjoyable! we sighseed around oita got into a ew companys that were there and got into the opening debut of a new aquarium in Iota! The Aquarium was across from teh monkey mountian thing thta I missed out of last time I was in Oita. lots of monkeys.. LOTS of monkeys... And then there was alsoa few MORE MONKEYS! a couple hundered were in the park and just walking abround. A couple of them had a fight. that was fun. I'm sure I could think of many other things That i did, but I can't at the moment. It was really fun and enjoyable though, so that was good, now I'm gonna go to sleep.

I havn't had time to get on the Computer in a while here. and It seems that Is how it will stay for a bit. I like it. I should open one of them things called a book and study... I think I WILL! Here i go! this book says "learn" and "Japanese" on the cover. so I think I'll read it.

matta ne!

*Its late and this person is tiered for no reason at all* Oh, I have about 250 pictures to add to the web after getting set p to do so... that is a lot of pictures, need to sort them first. bye bye

2004-03-25T03:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, well the closing cerimony for school was boring as usuall. nothign spectatular.. just sat listening to awards and speeches for 2 hours and had a half hour cleen up.. I thought there would be mroe, but oh well... OH! now were ar a grade up so we get tou use the shoe lockers that are near our biulding! YAY! that cuts about 4 minutes of walking off my day!

I' m heading to Osaka now for my schools base ball game! Wish Kumakou luck!

2004-03-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

Time flys so fast here in Japan! Where did the weekend go??? And the end of last week too while I'm looking for lost time.. oh well, I could go back in time and write a few posts,b ut I won't bend the space time continum for that...

well, In Kendo I have all my armor and people are hitting me on the head and stuff. I hit them back, all teh same, Usually its me getting hit a million or so times befor i get in one. The other students have trained my longer and harder than I have. The captian has been playing for 12 years i think he said. that means he started when he was five years old! Thats a lot of practice!

Well, I maaged to win a match agenst 2 people last week, Both times they both hit their head in schook that they got beat by someone that has been playing for about a week in the ring. The teacher then yelled at them after for being so weak that I could beat them. It was funny so I didn't mind the insult. This was all last week.

on saturday we did what my host father loves and did nothing! Both of my host parents fell asleep oon the floor. Then after they woke up 6 hours later, Me and my host father went to the driving Range and hit a few balls. We go every Friday too it seams. My host father loves golf. He used to do all the things young men do like smoking and going to the casino and making freinds in the Japnese Mofiea. But he quit smooking 2 years ago and stoped going to the casino and started to golf. "Golf is more fun, you win a WHOLE lot more, and it dosn't cost a 1000$ per day."

Sunday we took a drove out somewhere got off the rode somewere else, and just drove pretty much all day. We stoped at som ecaves and went in... I should have known, It was all paved sidwalks and stairs going thought the caves. and ther was all nice lighting in though out the cave. It was still kinda fun though. next we drove some more. There is suposedly some pork that is only in the mountians that is really good but we couldn't find any and choose a noodle resteraunt.

Right next to the resteraunt was an Onsen, wiht REAL mineralwater coming out of the gound and stuff, not the fake stuff that I think is at most of the Onsens now. The water felt really differant there. I don't know, it was weird. How can water feel differant??? It Just does. Thats how. I almost left my Jacket there, that was the only excitment for the whole day really. Becase of out late lunch we ended up going to Joyfulls and getting a quick bite fore supper at 9:00.

Today I had my last Java Class for the Year. I don't think I have it next year though.... In case you have no clue what I'm taking about, I have explained it in the past, The japense shool year starts in April. The Spring vation is 2 weeks long and when we go back we are a year up and there are freshmen to tourcher! In japan you really do get to Tourcher the Freshmen and the TEachers are there only to help you in doing so. from whatI hear at least. I plan on makeing sure a few of them know Who I am during the first week. Don't bow to me when you see me in the halls and you die freshie! Japan has perks.

Tomarow is the last day of class, Then there is a cerimony and half day of school on wendsday. After that is spring Break! I still have to go to Kendo though... School clubs never sleep! I have feeling they will take a short cut and have an hour fo practic or somthing like that.... Kendo is great.

My school is going to Nationals for Baseball, as some may recall from long ago. the game is on the 28th of the month during Spring Break. they are takign all the busses and loading them down to the max with teachers and students and a few of us are going to Osak to see the game and be on TV. With 2Americans in the cheering section of the school, We'll get on TV, no doubt. A lot of people are going too! Almost all of the Kendo club, a couple cute girls from the second Year JOHO class, Danial sensei(I said 2 Americans will be there, This is the other one), and a million Teachers.

should be interesting... I'm working on somthing nifty now, Time to get craking and codeing!

matta ne!

2004-03-17T06:31:00.000-05:00

ok, Last week there was no school for 3 days and then a half day on friday. nothing teribly exciting happened. I should tell you al about white day though.

In japan there is Valentines day and White day. On Valentines Day girls give boys chocolate. Guys do nothing. There are no little cards that you give everyone you see in Japan. What color do you asosiate with valentines day? Red. Ask a Japanese person what the oposite of red is and they will say red. look at the Japanese flag. It is red and white. so they made a day called white day for the guys to give back to the girls on. But It would seem that not many accually do. But, insted of chocolate the guys give cookies instead. This all happens on march 15th by the way. I, being the nice guy that I am, bought all the girls in my class(there are 8 of them) cookies and had them individually wraped and all the Japanese custom stuff. nothing big, and I gave 2 friends in Joho 2 nen sei(Equivilent to Juniors in my class) cookies. I got speical little baggy things for the managers in Kendo and my host mom. ran me 15$ for a whole lot of individually wraped cookies. It did take me 3 hours to find the place to buy them though.

During this day I also went to Kumamoto castle and took a bunch of pictures with me palm camera because I Just thought I would. I will get them up soon. VERY soon, I'm working on them now. Well accualy I'm typing in my blog right now. I have neglected it in the past week. along with My Kanji Studying... I'm getting in to it agian though. It'll(Is that a new word?) just be a couple days.

today was the class match. All the classes have a tournement agenst each other. The frirst year students played basket ball and the second years played soccor. All the girls played dodge ball, and it was a mean game i hear.... Well anyways, we came in second place.....from last.... Interior came in last, not saying much for My class, Joho.

tomarow is like the last day of class. I think. next week we have closing cerimony and then spring break. After that we start a new school year. It is the Japanese way to start in april wiht the bloming flowers of spring I suppose.

Ja ne!

2004-03-09T00:24:00.000-05:00

Well I have today, tomarow and thursday off... what am I gonna do??? I havn't got a clue.... yesterday I went to the driving range with me host fater and shot 300 balls. staring to understand now, I hit quite a few straight, but the rest were all way off.... oh well. He's in a tournement tomarow and off praciting right now. Masahshi is gonna be with his girl frind all day, there is no kendo and nothing really interesting to do today, maybe tomarow will be better.

I'm studying Japanese today with all my spare time... its not sticking though.... not today, not right now...

2004-03-07T09:56:00.000-05:00

I did somthing rotary today. we went up to som muntian and planted trees. lots and lots of trees. took a few pictures that are still on the camera, I'll get them eventually. I have to put someting on page 19 really quick, I just found out that I made a mistake and added 19 pages of pictures when I don't have 19 pages of pictures... opps...

well, that was all intersting and stuff, and the we eat some hot food thta was realy good and i eat an umeboshi. (they are not very good) We got home at about 1 in the after noon and we all fell asleep in the living room. I woke up and went to my bed, it was too cold downstairs. it snowed a little this morning and a lot on the mountian. i got a mouthfull of Michigan in Japan.

did The usual Sunday thing after we woke up 3 hours later, went up to the mountan onsen(hot spring for if you havn't figured it out) I want to add Onsen to english, in two years Onsen will be in the websters dictionary, you just wait and see! We had okonomiyaki for dinner and that was REALLY good. missing Lunch yesterday seems to have put me back in cycle of being hungery around dinner. Okonomiyaki is noodles with some stuff on top and an egg fried on top of that. then you have some mayonasai i think to spead over it with ketup possabley..... REALLY good, possably my new favorite food.

now I'm going to practice Japanese. Ja ne!

2004-03-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

Today was one of those days that you just have to love. First I woke up late. Realized the time and dicided not to go to kendo. It was almost half over. After eating breakfast I went to kendo. Today was a traing day. so all we do is strenus exercize. and it feels noce for once in my life. being with friend and doing it on self motivation is the best thing in the world.(typing with cold finders it the worst thing, I will make a heated keyboard someday)

So I left completely exausted and be and the two managers went to a hair cut place that was close and they chose a style for me. I won't bother doing that again.I told them I was getting a short hair cut right down to Kumakou standards. REALLY REALLY short. they wouldn't hear of it. "your hair is beaiful, you can't do that!" If you havn't guessed yet, they are girls. so I have long(er) hair now. Its ok I suppose.

After that was finished they went home as did I. It started hailling REALLY bad just as I left. That ruined by hair just after gettind it "done". I htought I would go to a ramen shop and eat lunch to get out of the now rian but couln't find one. Theo only street in kumamoto without a ramen shop. so I just went home. remember this was a good day. It just started out kinda rough. at that point my only expence was 1500yen for a haircut. another bad thing is that money flew out of my pockets like watter today. Although I havnet accually spent any money in a long time.

Got home and Decided that the rain had stoped i would got to Shimatoroi to get a book for school and contact lense solution. If I could find a new case fro them too. I was gonna use my new buss skills to get there but just so happens my host mom had to go there just as I walked in the door, Hitched a ride, saved 370yen. found out it is Momo's birthday today and we are goning to dinner. I add a small gift for her to my list of things to look for. Also remembered a couple peole who I should probly get small littl trinkets for. One mentioned chopsticks with a case. I'm a guy so to save time looking endlessly for gifts I add 2 chopsticks with cases to the list.

I get to walking down the main shimatorio road and see KFC and thing a twster would takes good now. Never did find time to eat breakfast today. I was walking for about 3 minute from gettin gout of the car and what do I here? "JOHN!!!!!!!!" here is a second year Kumako friend of mine and her friend walking the strip. John is somthing she just ramdomly started to call me, so I call her sally. I'm fairly sure Its out of the English practice books. We start walking and talking together. She wanted to take a picture in the one of the photo boothes that seembe self breeding all ofthe the place. more and more new ones just seem to pop up everyday. Finally get to the photo machine thing and take a few pictures. do the whole drawing thing and lukly they did all that. I hate having to think up witty things to draw to the pictures. I then realize I'm a little more lucky that I ran into these girls... girls are good at shopping! and Japanese girls know where things are. BINGO!!

You might remeber this picture, Miho(Sally) is the one in the middle
[Picture Page 13]

Look! I'm really starting to use HTML and care how thinks look now. (Picuters, tables, links, thumbnails) I'm good. ;)

I talk them into helping me find the chopsticks at some little place and they point me to the shelf with the nice case sets and I grab the first 2 I see.(they guy shopping instinct. They then yell at me for not thinking and we stand there talking for about half an hour on every possiblilty and color of them. Girls seem to know this kind of thing so I just do what I'm told and change "my" mind a good 20 times. (There were only 7 kinds) I endo up gettin a tird set for onther frind I forgot about they reminded me of. Finally I get awy from them and pay really quick before I,rather they, change my mind again. (1800yen) chopsticks are expencive for plastic(they last forever in America though)

Got out of there and now where I REALLY get luckey, Momo's gift. she is now 6 years old. Without the professionals I would have walked home empty handed and not bothering with it more than likely. they lead me into Kiddy land. I did wonder what was down there anyways and with 2 girls wihtme I felt a little less dumb being in a little girl's store. They point at some stuffed animle things and I agina grab the first kinda intersting thing and am ready to leave and they just say "no, put it down" quite blankly. I obayed. ended up in there for way to long and left with nothing to the Disney Store at the top of Tsuraya(biggest department store in kumamoto).

Get up there and they look at every little "cute" thing in the store. There were lots of "cute" things. every time I thought that was the end of the adventureI would have my mission fufilled. but no, they would see somthing even better on the otherside of the store with shopping-hawk-eyes. After criscrossing the store a dozen times finally got one thing... "OK were done I'll go pay now... " I say.... They just give me a weird look and start talking about what else I should get.... the second thing dind't take as long. With math I was able to say look this is close to 1000 yen so it should be fine. and they agree thankfully. I pay ask for is a gift and we leave. I grab some contact solution on the way out. I din't see any cases her and my guy shopping instings took over wihtout girls around noone was albe to stop me. I bought some renu soulution two pack thing that was on sale they pointed me at from outside the shop. I seen Opti-free witch I nomally use but It was WAY WAY more expencive.(5000 yen ) the renu was 1700 and that is what my American mom uses so it should be fine.

So, all I have left is a book and a contact case. we start walking to a book store they recommmend and I have to leave in 45 minutes. but The store they led me to I hade already been too andthey didn't have anything. I decided to go to the one I knew about with lots of books in English. They went to take more pictures. By the time I would finish getting my book I would have to hurry to the bus they seid we split up there. I d get my book at that store I went to and It only took 10 minutes to find and get to it this time. It is really hidden away. I only went across a road once that was wrong before realizing that is the wrong side. normally it is 5 times or more before I remember which side it is on. I was gonna get another theretical physics book but I seen "DUDE Where's My Country?" sitting there ant the first page was kinda funny. I bought that. (1700yen) I get back to the bus with 10 minutes to spare.

There is a huge foma 900i diplay up nead the the buss stop so I go and take a look and get a bag of information they gently force into your hand. It had an dawsome dog on the front of it so I took it. Nice bag, nothing interesting inside. the new phones are just so awsome. the cameras they have on them are smaller and tehn same quality as my GOOD camera that I brought from America. I do with they had a nice trade in program I have to admit. "I don't NEED it. I DON'T NEED it. I don't need it." I have to say that to myself the whole time I drool over the new tech gadgets.(one of my reasons of come to Japan. Tech stuff) I still love the N producion best even in the new models. I wish I could find someone that had a foma phone that I could call. I want to use my Video phone so much. But people are reluctant to switch becasue their image is the coverage area is small. I have yet to go out of service as long as I'm not on a mountian.

I think DoCoMo needs to post the maps of coverage all over the place. not the features list. The features are nice but the coverage is what people want.

I get on my bus which comes about 10 minutes late al leaast I think. I may have read the chart wrong. in that case it would have been 2 minutes late(more probale, I don't remember the other time exactly but I do have a picture of the chart to look at later.

I got all the things I came for except the contact lense case. The old ones seam a little dirty, can't really cleean them out well for some reason. On the bus I start reading the bok I got and its bashing bush and the author is a democrat trying to get Bush out of the office. didn't make me to happy, thought it was suppposed to be funny. I suppose I'll get to see another point of veiw on the situation. It you can't atack the polacys attck the politic is what I see in the the few pages I read so far. I personaly like the job Bush is doing. He has to finish what his dad started in the gulf war. Even though he used some crude tactics to get there. War usually make jobs and thats what I think He was hoping for, dind't work thats all, the economy changed since WWII. I am kinda looking forward to laughing at the stabs at bush. Like heis "links to the Bin laden family". that is was great. to make it look more credibal he adds tons of sources to everypage. on average it seems that half the page is writing and half is sources. Aparently that goes away after the first chapter.

I get home and we are almost imediatly off to eat dinner for momo's b-day(did I write tanjobi up ther somewhere, I'm too lazy to look at the moment, if I did tanjobi means birthday). Yakiniku. Were you cook your own meat on gas burners biult into the table. I think they might have got a little bad meat. I had a small sumic each after and didn't eat all that much. and aparently while i was in the batherroom someone dind't make it to a toilet and got sick in the sink. eeeeeewwwwww

They had a whole pile of meat waiting for me when i go tback which I had a hard tiem gettin gother people to eat because they were full. didn't mentin the bathroom and got my host father to eat it. It was horse i think so It was probly ok. I was really full at the time anyways. Come home and say I donw want Icecream tonight and they ask if I'm ok. then my host fater alsa says he don't want any becasue he's full too. and I call him a lier as well. My host mom does eat Ice cream. and after that Incredably good day I am here typing and equally incredably long blog. It's been a while so its ok I think.

JA! mata ne!

2004-03-05T09:55:00.000-05:00

look at that now would ya..... I accually DID finish off the monthly update to all the pages and got the new pictures up. I found a couple from last december floating around too.. I thought I had them all!. There were only a couple. and the one of momo in the massage chair was nice. looks like a little puff ball.

More improtantly this picture, taken today. fresh off the palm. Its really bad becase we couldn't let the teacher see the camera when taking it. Later I'm sure to take more. [Picture Page 18]

2004-03-05T07:42:00.000-05:00

Today was even better! In kendo at least, I wa in full rotation and doing all kinds of hitting! and more getting hit than anything. THe gloves are smaller than they should and so when i get hit there it hurts... i accualy have a few bruses from the gloves. I mostly practiced mei witch i hit the other person on the head. I did that alot today. and a little hiting on the wrist. i tryed dou(stumic) a few times too but it just didn't work. These people are so fast. I get hit 10 times in the time that I start to swing my stick. It hust for a while getting wopmed on the head but its all good now. NOOOOOOOO PAAAAAAAIIIIIIIN! I also got into my full armor and sunck a Picture in while the teacher wasn't looking. Weather I get that up tonight demends on the storm and the cold. IT's cold now and I can barly type, as if I ever could type.

I think today just seems al the better no thatI accually get to fight in Kendo! for 3 months I had to earn this buy pracicing by myself. now I can't hit people without annoying them. But I missed pretty bad on the last fight with the captian. he dogded by leanign back and i got his wrist that you usualy never get hit with a mighty blow. sent him running arround the room a few times I could imagine that would hurt.

2004-03-04T09:12:00.000-05:00

Ok, well today was awsome.... kendo was awsome I should say. The teacher seid that I should put on some armor and go hit people.! OK!!!!! I have been praciting by myself for what,? 3 months, 4 months and i finally graduated up to getting into rotation. accuall rotation. working harder than I knwo why. I got my helmet mask type thing and put it on and it is REALLY uncomfortable, I'll get uesed to It I suppose.

I missed someones head completely and hit his shoulder. that was a bad thing. I cccam instucted to only hit on the head for now, no wrist neck or stumic hits for now. I might get to do them in a few weeks i guess. I got my "present" form kouchi today at rotary. my Cell phone bill. not bad accually, no extra charges for over use this time! only 55$ for broadband in my pocket, THat is accually good compared with a lot of other people's bills that are on the old system. usually around 100$ a month or more. thats expencive. I Have a huge rollover i have to use up this monthefrom not using it much the last 2 monthes so I downloaded wom melodys. they are cheap, 300 yen for 15 songs. they are ok i suppose. sent a few e-mails. you know, the usual. games got boring. i am sucha a tech lover! there is a new foma cellphone out now and it is calling me!!!! oh it looks so nice!!!!! oh well, i don't need it, wouldn' really use it.

Oh, I can kinda speak japanese, At rotary i spoke for at least 20 minutes with some lady rotarian that was collecting money. it was intesting. and then I gave a short speach and it was no sweat.

Oh, and watching the news recently... does Kelly think he REALLY has a chance agenst Bush? come on, Bush id doing fine as he is! You put a democrat in the office and what does it do but cause al the military movments to be useless, you pull out or Iraq and the Iraqis will feel used and mistreated and abandoned. not a good thing. GAW at least one of them guys came to the realization and left the race while he was behind. Bush for a second year Is what I have to say.let him finish what he started.

My 2yen for the day. BYE BYE!

2004-03-03T10:25:00.000-05:00

Thank you to the people that helped me with my little webpage problem I think if it works I will leave it then.

If you don't know what HTML is then stop reading this post right now. Your head will hurt after. The rest of the post is technical stuff.

When I originally put up the site I set my encoding to what ever blogger decided to use and that obviously didn't work for putting English inline with Japanese on the net right? well I found out that UTF-8 worked. I put it in my meta tag for the encoding and it worked on all the computers I got to get on in Japan. But I thought Unicode might be the default charictorset in The computer and a US computer wouldn't need these Japanese charicters so any other computers would make any Japanese apear as boxes or question marks. But It apears that this isn't the case. when you install Asian Laguage capabilities you also enable the UTF-8 Japese display.so any computer can accualy handle the UTF-8.

What I changed the encoding too during this misunderstanding was Shift-JIS. This is accually a pushed encoding my Microsoft that they want the world to adopt. This page happens to be encoded with UTF-8, inthery what should really be used and the Japanese Page is encoded in Shift-JIS. Witch should YOU use when making a web page? what does your computer make easier for you to input? that is the real question. MS pushed their encoding out and it is on most computers that have any Japanese display support so if you must then do. The first standard and some would say the REAL standard is UTF-8. Do your own research, which page looks better and is easier to input, probly Shift JIS if you use Windows.

To set your encodeing to UTF-8(this page's encoding) insert this code into your head statements
<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

To set your encodeing to SHIFT-JIS(this page's encoding) insert this code into your head statements
>META HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=shift-jis">

2004-03-02T02:53:00.000-05:00

これ見ますか。

Getting help from people other than the people that already come here. Don't mind this message.
Thank you LRNJ users!

2004-03-01T08:42:00.000-05:00

I finally got a page up for Japanese people to read. You can look at it by clicking the japanese flag on the panel to the left. there isn't much to se I warn you. some really bad japanese, a couple kanji I geussed on or looked up. I got the template translation in progress right now to make the left sidebar in Japanese too. That SHOULD take about 10 minutes and i'm off for now.

Try the link and see If you see Japanese there. I think you should. I figured out how to make it all work but.... to make THIS english site work i have to redo or remove all teh Japanese that i typed or you will see chinese that really isn't chinese... or boxes in some cases... I'm not worryed about it. only on eperson e-mailed me about not seeing it so I suppose no one really wants to; or reads the posts this far down.

2004-02-29T12:11:00.000-05:00

Well, I had to go to school today to see the ceremony for the 3rd year students graduation. It was intesting. They accually put out chairs for us to sit on... and it wsa the first time too. they had to give instructions how to sit in the proporly...... I thought that was outragously funny. Heres how to sit in a chair, 10 minutes on that. then the principle talked for an hour almost to the dot(literaly). Gave aout a few awards and then It was off to home. tomarrow no school.. nothing to do, I think I will go and look for som things people wanted.

We went up and took pictures of some Bed and Breskfasts they had done so they could put them on the website my host father started. I'de post a linl, but the site is quite poor and all Japanese. but nice try getting on the information super highway.

After that we drove forever and ended up seeing this fountian thing. It was water thta bubles out fo the ground and it's really good for you to drink. I went I drank I got he T-shirt. It wasn't that impresive. the were little bubbles you could see floating out of the ground and stuff. Finally onsen and Dinner. nothing much today but It was a good day for some reason. The morning was rain and it cleared up. that must have been teh good part of the day.

Last night I watched "The Otheres". I like that movie. But that wasn't the best part. I see a Commertial got an English school during the movie. and in the 5 minute long Ad was president Bus sing and dancing. It was so hilarious. It was lipsynced were they took a film and ran it backwards and forwards to what they wanted him to say. It was stuff like grouplearnig is fun for everyone. and English is a fun thing to learn. BUt he was singing! Although the voice was nothing like hte read Bush voice. During the thing they had footage of him walking that they would run back and forth really fast and make it seem like he was dancing to the music. I wanted nothing more that to record it and put it up here for everyone to laugh at.

Also esterday I went to a Yaki Niku rasteraunt wiht all the Kendo members and sied bye bye to teh 3rd year students who are graduating. THat was fun. the captian kept making one person eat weird mixed up things untill he couldn't hold it any longer and BUUUWAH! things like wasabi beef and Icecream, and something that smelled like paint thinner and was green in a cup. no one knew what it was.

I posted one picture of my Japanese Keyboard in Japan. It is a standard 109key board. Its on Picture page 14 on the right. I have other pictures but they arn't ready.

2004-02-26T10:54:00.000-05:00

Exams are over, tomarow I get to go to kendo for the fist time in 2 weeks, I really miss hitting people on the head witha stick. I want to find somone in the states that would be willing to buy a しね and fight me. But need to have arom for that. and armor is expencive, 2000$ for a cheap plastic set. and plascit is jsut fine for oocational practice by the way. its quite strong accually. the mast is still metel i think though, which is a good thing. sticks are 30$ around here, really cheap. but they do break every now and then when you hit hard. I'm gonna buy one or two before heading back to America for sure. Display though really. ther is only one practice you can do wihtout armor and it's not incredibly fun. I suppose pillows would work for a while. :) lets try on my little brother first to make sure. heh.

Oh, Exams were the same old thing, don't think I passed any of them. Prgramming was kinda a pain. Math was ok on the second half but the first half was just bad... really bad..... Chemestry and economics were a joke. I did some things for chemestry. maybe i got a 12% on it, ecomics would be funny if i got one percent, i just guessed on all of them and practiced writing the kanji that was listed in the vocabualary box. electirity was kind ok maybe, I had to write an essay(in english9 for health about AIDS i think.... thats what I worte about anyways. I don't think anyone can read my hand writing except Danial anyways. SO tomarow is kendo, and that is a good thing after so much stress. I 'm wondering if i want to go back to kyudo or stay in kendo longer. I really enjoy kendo right now and don't want to leave. I made very good friends with the 8 people in the club and just got my armor. I will go everyday if there is kendo durning vaction. (you see, I am becoming Japanese after living here so long. I like onsens and I got to school on days I don't have to.)

I play SFA everynight. I have 624 kanji memorized according to the stats and i think that i realy have arount 500! that is really good for me, I can't remember my birthday sometimes! let alone other people's.
soon I will be the KANJI KING.

my cold is getting better just as I knew it would and predicted, to the day. "on wendsday it will peak and start falling and by monday or tuesday it will be a thing of the past." thats what i seid befor i started coughing at all. I always follow the EXACT same pattern when getting sick and know it well...

Oh, I been watching that extracker thing and its really nifty, people that are looking for "trip to japan" and this one really got me, "Shimatori kumamoto japan" in google are finding my page. people looking for volcano info are poppoin gup in here too, I should put Volcano picture up or something for them. click that little picture on the far left of the screen under the links box and you can see the data for yourself. 40 visitors form the states, 12 from Japan, 7 from canada, one from romaina, itialy, sweaden. Its kinda scary what i can pull out of all this data. imagin what other profesionals could pull out... not much on you spacificly, but the general traffic flow in and out of a site.

2004-02-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

- to be a little more clear on what an Onsen is. here is an ok site for Information.... No I haven't gone to a Onsen were males and females mingle in the water. yet.

2004-02-23T06:14:00.000-05:00

ahhhhh. Exams... so much to study for..... 5 hours just studying today you know, it is really boring.... heh, yea right... 5 minutes is more like it. today I had tests on Electricity and Japanese. I think the first test was ok, not a passing grade, but ok. I didn't turn in my japanese test. I could't anserw any of the questions. but tht is for peoplel who speak Japanese for 16 years of there entire life! I had less than one. It was to be expected. tomarow i have more tests that i will fail and wensday I will pass thoes 3 tests. I'll blog about them after I take 'em though.

Today was only 2 hours long so we went to the small hotel my hostfather is finishing up on and I mostly vacumed the finished rooms and stuff. It is the same one he's been workng on for 2 monthes now. It should be all done by the end of the week. The third floor has to be done still though. THey have LCD TVs in all the rooms. and 3 of them in one of the big rooms. that is nice!!!!!! they are smal though. 3 chanels to choose from. :P

After finishing up for the day we went to an Onsen as usual, some new one that we just drove around and picked one. It was nice but nothing compared to the ones we normaly go to.... but it was half the price of the ones we normaly go to. 2$ per person to take a bath, Japanese do wierd things huh, but I suppose you fill up bath water and heat it it goes over 2$ in the end anyways huh? on the way there we saw a ton of wild monkeys eating in a small field. THEY ARE SO COOL! the go t litle red faces and the jump around. I wanted to go pet one, or feed one, but couldn't. agian no monkeys for me.

Still studying Kanji with LeaRN Japanese more than ever, everynight. The have been more update recently to the program and its starting to get really good, I have almost 500 kanji learned, but I only knwo the english meanings. Its ok, I figute them out in teh wild from what i learnd. like no smoking and other stuff. I just figure that kanji out yesterday(no smoking)

I will write up a post of what i did yesterday too.

2004-02-22T08:14:00.000-05:00

Americans get in clumps in Japan... not good for Japanese.. It was the same bunch from went we all seen the Matrix together, witch i forgot to blog about too.. I took the bus!!! by myself!!! for the first iem ever. I got on knowing it was going to somewhere downtown and it left me right at shimatori.... I was an hour early bu tok, ealy is always better than late. We gathered at starbucks and one person decided that he would meat us at another starbucks so we had to track him down. Starbuck are all over the place here in Japan too. Just like 7/11 and mcdonalds.

Whe got to the theater and sat down. before the movie started everyone was talking really loud and then it started. The lord of the rings. No talking for 3.5 hours. just.... ooooooo he's gonna die, oh, nope he's ok, don't worry. I liked it though. After the movie we all eat dinner at some resteraunt. good stuff there, I will remember that place. Then It was time to get on teh bus.... one of the 100's of busses that go by the stop in front of comitori..... I found my kanji that i was looking for that my host mom wrote down for me to use ase referance. 13 minutes to wait..... buss came 2 minutes late and it was smooth sailing from there. It felt so good to finaly get somone to show me how to use the bus. I was going to use it today with or without help though. I think I would have figured it out eventually. I'm not sure if I would have seen the kanji on the bus i was looking for though. I was looking for the toshima kanji and really I need to look for 三山 the last stop on the rougt.

I'm looking on how to get Kanji to apear for everyone. grand ma say she sees, and grampa says he's blind. BAH! computers.

2004-02-17T09:47:00.000-05:00

seems I need to tell people about my host family that I am with now. My new home is 20 ~ 25 minutes from school by bike every morning. mostly downhill in the morning and up hill on the way back. They own a construction company and it is attached to the house. Both biuldings are 2 stories tall and are technicly attached, but it is like a duplex; you must go out side to get to the offic sections. They have a warehouse and lumberyard out in the middle of nowhere for all teh big stuff and keep small and expencive things here at the house. Unlocked and almost in plain sight. The office has a DSL connection , I thinkk, that I get access to Via 802.11 wireless network. It really gets slow somtimes, but othertimes it goes like lightning. I have to pu my computer on teh window sill to gett a strong signial though.

The area name is Toshima, 6th block. IT is on the very edge of the city, I see fields of rice and stuff growing out side my window and Biking into the city is no problem, but coming back is kinda a pain. It is 40 minutes on bike to shimatori, the big shopping distric where everything happens. There have been mafia shootings at shimatori too. I missed the action by about a half hour once. I take the dogs for a walk out on the field roads. There are 3 dogs here, some Japanese breed I think. one male, two females. If you don't let the male out of his cage he won't let you touch him and is mean, but after you put him on a lesh there is no problem, he's happy.

My host mom does office things most of the time. My host father goes to the site and works. They are nice people. WE go to an onsen every weekend, especialy one u pni the mountians, it isn't as crowed often. sometimes we go to one in the city that is really good sized but there are lots of people there all the time. Breakfast is the same every morning; a boild egg, toast, yogurt, milk, and half a grape fruit. It is some diet they are trying and I just followed lead, no need to make a special thing for me. although every now and then they change the toast with a Japanese style BLT. I told my host mom how to make them and she messed up but it was good so she kept it. She doesn't cook the bacon. It's weird, maybe just a little heat is put to the meat.

my host father insists on Ice cream every single night. Tehy buy a tone of Ice cream from 7/11 every week and come home witha bag full of varaities. I usually eat the cone type Ice cream and he likes the ones that are like pocicles. m host mom just takes what ever, no preferance.

Every weekend ther is somthing to do, there always seems to be somthing involving gold every other week at least. I whent to an accual golf course my second week in this house. It was fun, I got a 116 or somthing like that. I don't remember exactly. It was ok, my score that is..

they always go to bed at 9:00 or some time near that. I watch CNN or discovory chanel for a while usually then Go to my room and practice Kanji and typeing. Read my mail and send out replys. Catch up on websites that I like to read often. Send e-mail on my cell phone to friends like Ben in Tamana. I update the web site during this time now. I get to sleep around 12:00 or 1:30. I study kanji and typeing for 2~3 hours depending on how My tieredness level is. I don't get to sleep untill then any ways. School is at 8:30 and my host mom yells for me at 7:15. I can eatin 15 minutes take my time waking up after that and be out the door at 7:50. My first/next Host family wakes my up at 6:00. I like this setup.

Time at night gives me lots of time to write long reports like this when people want to know things. I still need to get programming again and finish up that Picture page update soft. That is what I will finish my night tonight doing. I practiced untill I was sick of kanji. Typing is an endless struggle that I fight hard. I think tonight I have a record low typo and "..." count. I have about an hour and 45 minutes till I can sleep. Maybe I will cut out early because my cold is starting to fade out. That means I should be able to start to sleep soon. No big classes tomarow at school; English, Japanese with the boring teacher that wants to sleep more than me usually, then four hours of computers. I probly Just jynxed myself right there and Java will be over this week. There are only two weeks of school left for this school year and March is no school.

じゃ、またね。

^ still working on how to get everyone to see Japanese..... aparently UTF-8 wasn't the best way. can anyone see anything other than boxes?

2004-02-16T07:25:00.000-05:00

WEEE!!! i got UTF set up corectly..... Finally.. but I wonder if you will see any Japanese or not.. With my luck you will not. Well Its not like you can read it anyways. I know all Japanese computers should be able to read it at least. I maight figure out Shit-JIS some day... If that is what I need to do.

2004-02-16T04:52:00.000-05:00

you know what? you can tell my tiredness by how many "."'s i put after a sentance.... YOu see lots of them, combinde with way too many typos and it usually means that I'm tired. In chat rooms it gets worse as i need to type faster

cold?flu really suck.........

I have been sick for a while now and to day it was a REALLY nice day and half day of school...... I got home eat lunch and took some medicine... then I slept thought the entire day........ it is 18:45 now.. the good day is gone and I didn't get to walk the dogs....

I don't know were winter went to.. in my mind, It was December until 2 days ago and I jumped all the way to march / april today. Its really weird...... I need masive amounts of snow... on the other hand...... I don't have to shovel snow...

I'm off, jaa ne.

2004-02-15T04:52:00.000-05:00

Today is my real B-day. And I don't knwo why we celebrated yesterday. The went to a restreaunt that serves mainly meat. It was momo's family. I suppose it is my older host brother's family... or older host sister.... don't know how we are related... It easier to think of them as another family.... well, anyhoo, We whent to this restreanunt and there was a waiting list of 13 people. to use up time we just walked thought a supper market across the parking lot. that was great. just walking around a super market. We went back and had to wait about 10 minutes at the resteraunt. They serve a huge plate of meat that is uncooked and you have gas burners at your table that you cook it with yourself. REally good but then you remember that in JApan meat is really expencive. the billl came to over 200$ I think. I don't remember but I'm pritty sure that is what I heard. that was for 4 adults, me, and 2 small kids. with just my host parents and me it came to over 100$ the first time we went. this was the second time.

I think the site is fixed.... If you knwo what Japanese looks like then tell me if you see Japanese or somthing completely different below.... I switched to UTF-8 encoding. I think I did at least.

これの日本語はこんたんです。　でも、これはテストです。

2004-02-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

well, I forgot what today was....... When you don't think about these thigs they just go POOF!
Click the image to make it bigger, Just like the Picture pages.... #14 added by the way

It was so great to see the cake.... they told me that when they asked the cake baker person to put English on it they got a couple stange looks... All he had to work with was how they seid my name.... and kinda how I spell it in Kata kana デレク。
It was a genuin effort and I liked it.. the cake was delicious too... they gave me a wallet and a pair of grey pants.... Just what I always wanted..... So my first family had it right on the nose to just ask what I wanted for chistmas insted of geussing... I have a really nice leather wallt with my name on it that my aunt and uncle gave me at there wedding for helping and I quite enjoy that one. Although It destorys any plastic card I put in it after a while... about a year.. there is a brass button/ bar that holds the coin pocket closed and it puts presure on the cards in the middle.... But If I'm carful I can bend the thing in such a way that It ...blah blah blah... well its all good now that I know about it... Credit cards and drivers licenes on top is safer.... I did need the pants though, my old pair were looking a little bad... but, I like my clothes, and shoes.... ;P getting new shoes took me 5 monthes after I really needed them...

oh, I got a e-mail today that says they are canceling the Japanese class I been looking forward to at the Sault high... Noot enough interest or somthing... but wait a second,.... when it was just me It was alright but with 5 or 6 people ther isn't enough interest..... somthing funny is going on.... I'm trying to fight to keep this class again from the other sid eof the world... not an easy thing to do.. a lot of e-mail whent out this morning to various people..... Last year(2002 really) I got the class started for me to take by myself. but the class was Japanese 2. It rotates every year, class one class two..... SO I had to wait, I'm sure a lot of paper work was done to get that set up. the for tis year I got it going agian for a friend and he took over once I found out I was going to Japan. He got a few people to sign up and take the class were I really failed I think. but a few people dropped out or didn't take the class agian. He is trying his best to get Japanese 2 to get back in motion, If it ever was, and So am I. when I go back I want to keep practicing and talking, hopfully have a career that will put me in Japan every now and then. tech firms I hear are in need of this kind of service. especialy Manufacuring plants.

Oh, and I see not only di dI forget to post dad's flash animation but there has been a page 14 of pictures for about the same time now that hasn't had any out side links yet.... Gomen! I also found the code to make you all mad at me and get the site to display right, as in Japanese not Chinese. you all hav eot down laod a japanese laguage pack I think one time, If you don't have it already. UTF-8 is the codding for Japanese ANd I need to set this in the encoding meta tag... YA FOR ME! If you don't Download it nothing will change..... if you do, you will see my horable Japanese, but Its ok, you can't read it anyways..... i could bash my head on the keyboard with Japanese turned on and you would think it was a poem... ;o

well that it for now... I procrastinated way too much and not I'm tired... I read a conspirisy theory on google..... it was scary... and wierd..... I still love google.... CIA I wont touch....

2004-02-13T09:46:00.000-05:00

Warning

typo danger is high, It is tomarow for me.. afternoon for you..... lots of "....."

Last night I spent the night with my class in the school seminar house... It was interesting. there was on big tatami room and everyone had futons to lay on. A lot of people wresled and I wooped a lot of little Japanese peopel who tooked me by surprise... except one person, cake.. I call hime cake, It is really kekei (or somthing) nagita. It sounds the same. I think I could have gottin him If not already wearing my unifor in the the morniong and having one other person trying to break my legs at the same time...... He is strong though..... I learnd how to get someone in a head lock and flip them over my head then flip myself over on to ther back.... That was the greatest thing ever..... only got to do it all the way once... girls had their own section of the biulding.... 6 of 8 came and slept. they pooled money otgether and bought all the boys chololats for valantines day..... that was sweet.

oh on that word, I see some chocolates called sweat choco while walking in a store..... obviously they ment sweet because of the kanji I saw but it was funny.

for our seminar we watched a movie called "the eye". It was korean and I was told it had english subtitles and Japanese audio..... They suposdly asked the store people.... and I was 110% asured that there would be English.... 15 minutes latter They figured out how to use the DVD player and realized there was no English...... It was lright though, I understood what was going on... a blind woman has an operation and it able to see agina but se also sees dead people.... And the first thing I thought of when I figured this out was... "I see dead people" you can voise over the little kid wispering voice. anyways she solves a mystery about a gil killing herself and make an old lady happy... In the end they are stuck in traffic and se sees a bunch of black gaosh shadows going to the fron of the trafic. she see these when ever somone will die. ther are lots of them and she tryed getting people out of there cars to get away, but then there is an explosiong and they all diea anyways...... She gets a peice of metle in her eyes and loses her sight but dosn't die...... It was an ok movie really. the explosion was way too big to be anything near beliaveable though.... it was a gas tanker explosion.....

when everyone was suposed top be asleep the teachers would open the door to check that everyone was sleeping... in an instant all the lights comming from cellphones around the room would turn off... It was great... then 3 seconds after the door closed they all poop back on... e-mail is great when you can't make any nosie....

The whole thing was funn except when I had to do school work the next day and was wishing that futon would float into the class room so I could go to sleep..... every one was the same I think.

2004-02-08T10:15:00.000-05:00

.....well, American dad's b-day was wendsday and I had this set up to Post a nice flash animation up saying happy birthday but then I get an e-mai l about not saying Happy birthday and stuff. Confused I look here and what do I see...

NOTHING

ほら, I am starting to put HTML in my posts. I cant get to the animation untill I get to school. I must have left it on the computer there and not uploaded it to the server. Its not there anyways. can't say It was very good anyways, my first shot at doing a flash.

well, yesterday I whent to this rotbot biulding thing that Matsushima sensei told me would be intersting. he...ha. ho... the most boarding 5 hours to be had in Japan yet... (Oh i feel the urge to use HTML)

It was ALL junior high students. I thought it was high school class
It was about basic computer usage and a little bit of Z80 microprosseser usage.
He talked for 2 hours on copy and paste......... OMFG, 2 HOURS!
There was no programing or building involved, everything was prebuilt

there was supposed to be 4 classes... HAHAHA. I almost left after the first hour. I could have learnd to use the bus os somthing.... I did learn to make flapping oragami birds. so WOPPI DOO to that one thing in the day. even some of the junior high students just slept. I kinda onder if half of them went today, I didn't.

We whent to a bonsai selling thing today first. the miniature trees. My mom here boaught an ornge tree and a cherry tree. both look dead but the ornge tree came with ornges, go that was a good buy I think. THere was also people selling yard decorations. but this wasn't like flamingos and knomes, these were landscaping designs. with HUGE bolders, trees small rivers and stone lakes. I took a few picture that Will be up soon, you know my definition of soon.

I'm working on a program for my school progect, end of year is this month, one day for graduation in march. Everyone is doing a report of some type but I was told don't bother with anything, but I will. not a report though, they can't understand it anyways, I'm still waiting to hear about bout my eassy I did for health apon request during a test. I know he can't read it but A for effort and putting up with me in PE.(being late, not having things because people leave me out of the loop, ect.) how did I start taking about that.... back to basse here now... It is a program that will be able to update my picture page from one button push. when I sync my palm I will in thery check my picture fold for pdates resize them, rename them, generat a new page and FTP it on to the web. Also add descriptions to the picture is a deam I have, butyea right on that one, 221 picture to type a description for is a little harded than I want to work. I know the code exist to to do first things though. I want to do It myself but time is not a thing i have much of. *(see below later)

Insted of that momo chan came and we saw a movie. My host mom ans momo chan saw finding Nimo(The one wiht the little fish by disney) and me and my host dad weren't to thrilled about the movie so we whent to another theater and saw hollywood homicide. can say it was the best movie but it beat seeing the fish movie.

After, my mom decided that we should go shopping for shoes and jewlry... Americans an Japanese are quite alike hu, me and my host father agian found a table and sat down for 20 minutes while she looks at jewry, didn't buy anything after all that time though. they did get some shoes though.

Finally we got to a resteraunt and i eat a huge crab... It was a monster. momo decided to help. witch was no problem. It was just the legs this time, I dind.... get the canch to eat all the good stuff inside the shell.... get the chance it a good way to put it... It was good, then There was nothign unusually that happend, but it sure did beat sitting in that cold classroom witha bunch of junior high students listing to an old guy talk about flapping birds and basic computers....

Tomarow I will have Matsushima's head...　　While the teacher in the class was talking yesterday I had lots of time to try and read the flyer that Matsushima gave me telling what days to go... what did i see in the middle of the page.... 中学生
with means JUNIOR HIGH STUDENT.... Well thats over with.... and I'm glad. today was accually a fun day after all, and I found out how to make this sitte obay my comands to display JAPANESE! as in not CHINESE! but i still need to put that code in.... ;P just a too little lazy at 11:53

Think I got influensa after all, but throat is really starting to hurt and starting to cough. nto enough cold medicin and I will have to fight my host parents desire to go to the hospitial.... It will happen, they will want to go... and my plan at the moment is to stay in my room and nat let them have anyclue untill it is gone. If it starts to get ugly. Heres a good Image of JApanese.. "oh you eye is haging out side of your head, I thin kIt wil be fine, Just wait 3 days and If it doesn't go back in will see if we can find a doctor." AND THIS "OMFG!!!! you have a cought and a feaver that is 2 degrees above normal! I'lll can an ambulance, you need a doctor!!!!" (If you remember my small fever and eye injury in october This is my referance)

oh, movies... Yea, let me get back on that..... 今はできない。VIRTUALDUBはむすかしですよ！。デコダはありません。
My software of choose can't decode my video and If I can't do that I can't encode it eather.... know where there are nice codecs for virtual dub foating around? I need them because I forgot how to set The thing up or somthing. not high on my prorities. The're not too interesting.

Below later

*WOW... Its tomarow already... I came back to type this paragraph and I became tomarow.... 15 minutes ago.... good night I have somthing funlky at school tomarow and i don't know what it is.....

2004-02-03T01:31:00.000-05:00

NEW PICTURES ARE UP!!!!

I also am starting to remember HTML off the top of my head. Like the H3 tag that makes test big. and not being Lazy helps. There are now 221 pictures on the web. I know, I typed all the filenames. I also seemed to fix the annoying little white text al the bottom of the side menus on the left there. I think it was this Japanese Keybord and I didn't notice. I still have to choose an encoding method but don't exactly know what one to use. no biggy For now. Just make the Japanese that i will be typing more often not show up well. or as chinese.

All the pages on both the servers were updated today to include the side-bar. yay! Next thing on the todo list is re encode the movies. starting right now.

make movies easy to obtain and view.
Add desciptions to the pictures
Spellcheck the entire site.
Learn to type.

2004-02-02T19:24:00.000-05:00

http://wsidecar.apple.com/cgi-bin/qt/nph-regqtXHL go there and when a little box about a security warning pops up say yes and you will have quicktime. It will ask you a bunch of questions that you just need to click next next next next.... I think you need to type you name in a box some where though. Don't worry about your seirial number. It will give you the free vertion insted whitch is just fne.

then you go back to the movie listing on my web page( where you see the list of movies) and click one, It should cchange into a big screen that say quicktime and start down loading. It will take forever on you internet connection, just wait and it should start.

If it dosn't then Just wait Untill I get set up and I will make movies that are easier to get. Today I'm gettting new pictures up. then I will try to get these movies taken care of. I know what neeeds to be done and that is the scary part. and my page looks purple agian....

JA NE!

2004-02-01T06:52:00.000-05:00

I went to kendo yesterday, even thought it was the weekend. I never went before. I never thought about it really. It was really hard becasue it was all musul training that day, not hitting people and stuff. Kendo is getting me into shape I think... That is making me happy happy. My arms never stop hurting from the amount of effort I put into it every day. But that is a good thing.

I accually had lunch with friends from Kendo yesterday. BINGO That was so great, then I found out that My American friend from Tamana was down town. I went down town, showed him where the good bookstore was for English books, then went to the best place in Kumamoto(the top of PARCO). They have everything that is interesting up there, Imported stuff like A&W root beer, hippy things and Zippo lighters. the good ones too, not the crappy ones that fall apart.

yesterday was a good day. today we whent Park golfing. Its like minuture golf but its real golf. The ball is bigger and the is only one club. the greens are still farly long though. Forgot my camera,cellphone and PDA at home. no pictures...

I almost forgot to do my reports too. That isn't a good thing. They didn't yell at me last time when i was a day late. That was really Shocking too. Another schocking this is that my grampa in America may have figured out how to watch the movies I put on the Internet. How he did that is a mystery and a half. I put them there and I find it hard to get to them.

In my last post I typed Japanese. Did any one see the Japanese? If you know what Japanese Looks like, Was it Japanese or Chinese. I may need to add a line in the Web page code to make that work right if it didn't show. I was trying to add pictures today, but park golf poped up and can't miss that just to put Up a few picture that no one will see for a wwek anyways hu. But my luck everyone will check tomarow morning to see if there is an Update.... なぜみんなはげんきじゃないですか？　おれはパークゴルフじょすですよ。これの日本語は大丈夫ですか？

2004-01-29T07:44:00.000-05:00

Then today 3 girls came up and demanded my Webpage URL.... "You must give it to us!" This was also a good time to test my ability to put Pictures right here for a short time. In a few days I'll put this into the picture page. All the pages have to be Updated to Include the Video section　anyways.

ああああー　かわいいですね。　アメリカ人はわかだないです。　だじょぶです。　あとうでこれのさしんはうつすです。

You need to have the Japanese Laguage pack to see this correctly. It will be chineese if your computer dosn't have the pack. YOu probly can't read it anyways hu.....

2004-01-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

Tonight I had to give another speech. It was at Kumamoto Castle Hotel. There was a bunch of peolpe from Rotary clubs and Lions Internation clubs there all there to talk to us. Us being the other girl, Eleen, that is in Kumamoto and 4 Univesity students from America. One of them didn't show though.

My speech was ok this time, I wrote it the day before and the had a friend check grammer and stuff. Workd out good. I stumbled on a couple things but it turned out really good i think. The girl wrote a speech in Romanji(alphabet) and i wrote mine in Japanese kana and kanji. I am very proud of my reading abilities.

There was one guy that looked like abraham lincoln in the front row. He spok really good English too. If only he had a top hat. I got a picture of him. After speaches we eat and talked for about an hour or two before leaving. I showed my host foather a good place for spicy ramen, He chikened out at the last minute though, and he got somthing else. It is the same place as in the 10 minute Ramen shop movie.(get there with the links on the right side of this page. 10 MB file)

2004-01-26T07:49:00.000-05:00

Look at the videos! come on people. no one e-mailed me. hehe,　It was only one day old but I expected a better turn out than that. ;P

2004-01-26T07:45:00.000-05:00

WILT (What I lernt today)
#1 I cant spell
#2 because your kinda near the equador dosn'T mean it will be hot. IT IS SO COLD in kyushu. but I am asured that Okinawa is still warm... I'm jelous.
#3 bikes don't like me. if i am desperat for somthing to do I'll post the 5 pages of things that bikes in japan have done to me.... today the handle came off.... think I almost died multiply times.

2004-01-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

Well, here is my big surprise for you all that i have been waiting since newyears to put out. My celphone has an decent camera and movie function on it.
I can save it to an sd card and put in on the net from there. You need Quicktime to play them. *note: you just go righ tto the bottom and click download now and you don't need to give you e-mail address* if you can figure it out and get them to play good for you enjoy my crappy camera skills. The ten minute long ones are 10 minutes long each, the length my camera can take for and are around 10 megabytes. Thats about an hour for a 56k modem and 2 hours for grampa to download. They arn't incredibly exciting to me but you get to see things. My initial Idea was a weekly updated web movie thing were i'd just walk around with a camera one a week and every sunday though them up on the web. that would force me to do pictures too i think. (still go to do them agian) At some point i'll put them together to make a "nice" movie. hence the production page that is a joke realy.

the shorties page hase moveies shorter than 10 minutes that just happen to fall into my SD card. and then onto the server. there are more interesting things there I think, IMHO( In my own opinion ) they are up, but unless you readead this as i'm putting them on the server. in that case try in an hour or so.

becasue all teh picture pages are done by hand the links are old and may not work at the moment. but links of this page a fresh and green, well purple on this monitor. I really need to find a new color theem before it drives me more crazy I have a girls web page design. how did I not see it!

enjoy th movies if you can. If you have trouble, I'm always open to e-mail, spam is getting boring.

Happy B-day gramps!

2004-01-25T07:46:00.000-05:00

you know what? my typos are disgusting........ and This page didn't look so purple on th eLCD that i used to creati it on, but now on this normal CRT it looks like girls site. I should add pink flowers and ivory trim around the boxes too while i make it look worse already. finished the small update to the page to make the test a little more readable, does it make a diferance anyone? that has my e-mail

2004-01-25T07:27:00.000-05:00

Why o why can't I get FTP? I got to look into that i think the router is blocking it. atoude.

today i made pancakes for my hostfamily and the loved them andthen my mom trys to make so more and runes out of milk. well and extra egg and water should be the same as milk right? that was one bad idea that i never touched. so the next batch is a little ...... blah.... still edible with lots of butter and syrup though. they liked them still.

after wi went to my host fathers lumber yard and warehouse for his construction company. there we painted siding, lots of siding. i loot a few picture because it took forever to paint it all. ugly gray too, i hope that was a base coat, it looks hoarable.

bu then I got to see the Last Samurai finaly. If you havn't seen it go see it!!! its my story with war added to it. yes i do wear that samurai thing in kendo and do fight with those wooden swards. but when versing each other we use bamboo sticks and armor. that looked like it hurt pritty well if it were real in the movie. The movie really got the facts down, that new wepon in the movie was a real wepon at some point but it never realy took off if i remember right. I know somone that might know for sure. Kendo still rocks.

We were in a resteraunt for dinner and some guy starts talking in ENglish to me, he was anExchange student to canada 19 years ago or when he was 19. that was weird. and the was a guy that was in rotary with him that asked if i was with rotary. then offered me bottol of champain to finish off. then remembered about the no drinking rules from when his exchage and took back the offer.... like i would have taken it anyways..... but it was funny a whole botle of champain becase we had a slight bit in comone, Japanese people are great.

I'm working on the colors of the site to make it readable for everyone right now but weather i finish or just make things worse is yet to be know for tonight.

i have aspeech this wendsday and I'm still not ready, not cheat sheet alowed. i better write somthing up tomarow i think.

2004-01-22T08:24:00.000-05:00

You would probly think a person from the UP of michigan could deal with a little ice and snow. It acculayy snowded a good inch today, but its mostly gone now. this morning I made it al the way to school was turning into my bike parking slots and the was a nice patch of BLACK ice. After I got up I was sondering what I slipped on. nothing but a few sparkles of glare revield themselfs. GAH! scraped my knee up pritty well, but my bike is ok. for once. I did kick it once becuase it hurt. Bled for 4 hours nice and slow. oh well, its fine now.

I'll try tomarow on the FTP; The computer was still yelling at me for somthing, I think they have FTP blocked because its not everyday normal people use FPT programs. small hurdel.

Even though im really far south it is still cold. Around 0 degrees F, -5 celcius. that is my geuss, i don't know the formula for convertion, all I know is that is involves a 5 and a -32.

2004-01-21T17:48:00.000-05:00

"There is a ton of snow here, and I still can't get them to call a "snow day". Maybe on your blog you will have photos of green grass and flowers for me to look at! " end qoute from Mrs Belavander at the high school. that was last night i got that.　I wake up and what do I see? snow... lots of snow...

look later today or tomarow for pic updates. I was trying to put them up now but i can't get into my FTP for the picture site.

I don't want to go to shoccl right now, its too cold!!!! b.b.b.b.b....bye bye.

2004-01-21T03:18:00.000-05:00

I love kendo. If you don't know what it is let me TRY to explain it with out typos. Its like sward fighting with sticks. the sticks are usualy made of four pieces of bamboo held together with leather are the ends. Your right hand goes on top and your left on top. When pulling back the stick It goes over your head and touches your back, then the person launches forward brings the stick over his head at high speed hitting the opponent on the head with great force making a victory. At the same time at you hit the person's head your foot smashes on the floor making as loud and painful as possable tud that shakes the floor. If it dosn't hurt, you did it wrong. The students in my club are very fast and can hit each other 3 times faster than I can say wow. No joke there.

The uniform's pants look like a dress at first glance, but I assure yuo they are pants. The top is matching color, blue, and is held shut by two strings, oneinside, one out. Armor that Kumako has is plastic, it covers the chest and stumic and another set of pads go below it that are blue as well. On the front of the pads is the name of the school and the fighter's name. the mask is metal anis held in place by strings that magicly work. There is no pain when you put on the armor, but your arms and legs dont have protection.

There are 4 ways to win. mei:head,kotei:wrist,dou:stumic, and tsuki:neck.

next picture update will have a couple pictures of Kendo club at Kumakou. From the move to the new host family I seam to have lost the CD i saved my program to... probly the same disk that had my speech I lost on it.

today was cold and tonight will be really cold. -5 degrees celcilus. I don't know what that is ferinhieght but it is cold.

looks like I got som sort of regularity back in the blogage now, so see you all later. got to find that CD, know its around here somewhere.

2004-01-18T09:31:00.000-05:00

ouch, 2 weeks without Internet....... It hurt me much more than It hurt you trust me. But I survived and you will too. way to much happend, now I'm in a net host family house, the reason for no net, and its 2004. I counted my "pocket change" and had over 90$ in my littl box then all the cash from new years. my allowance from rotary came in last week too, so I'm god on cash too for once.

Today we had a district conferance in Oita and kouchi came with us. I had to give a 5 minute speach and I found that I didn't save my typed out one on a CD like I though. I did save teh outline in english of my speech though, that wasn't a lot of help though. I typed out a new one, and had 2 hours later finished.... It was horable wihtout my teachers to correct it. while reading it, people looked unhappy that it wasn't going well and I took seppkatsu. (I ended up cutting it short).

Had a surprise test today too, that was great, I think i got a 50% this time, i got a 10 of 70 on the test in november i found out today. not the lowest score of the group.

We didn't read the rules a million times today for once, and that was a good hting, got right to the point and It was back o home, nothing exciting really, got to speak a little english. They really take the fun out of seeing onther exchange students here. tests then the yell at you for not speaking Japanese. and blah blah blah your In Japan speak Japanese..... I'm working on it..

we were going to see monkeys today while in Oita but there somhow wasn't enought time. I wanted to see monkeys! there is a monkey park where monkeys are just all over the place, no cages or anything. just monkeys... Ben whent and sent me a picture on my cell phone. cute little monkeys they are.

Get well soon mom in America.. and to all thouse that can't read this I'm changine the text color In a little while as soon as I get this computer set up to do work stuff and not just e-mail...

2004-01-03T05:09:00.000-05:00

I just got back form a trip to my host familys grndmothers. We all went and stayed there for 4 nights. she lives 2 and a half hours away. It was near a really small town, 100 houses max and that was close to anouther small city, half of SSM probly.the was lots of mountians and i took a video while waling the dog. He is so cool,ã€€ and well trained... kinda. The hous was old style ond only the kitchen and living room had heat. all the floors were tatami and weavy..... in otherwords it was a realy realy old house. There wasn't even any paved roads untill 1995 out that way. they had a picture of there house taken from a helicopter.

newyears day Parents and aparently relitives give money to there kids(relitives). I was shocked that i got money, i Knew my host parents would give me money, but then there grandparents and my host mother's brother gave me 50$ each! I have 250$ from that trip. It was a schook really, I'm watching Obachan give out the little envolopes and i get one too.... Complete surprise. takashi ended up with only 200 Iyaka 180 and masashi 140..... WOW...

there wasn't much to do out there so the cellphone batterys got a good couple chargings everyday. We were playing any game we could find, mostly the defalt included games.

no time to type, gonna forget things..... OH NO!!!!!!

did some things with friends from Tamana on chistmas and whent to a party at some americans apartment with danial sensei and his um... girlfriend.... It's a secret... ;P

I change host familys tomarow, really bissy right now. I got everything packed i think already though.... I got there for 3 months, not 3 weeks.... ok that is a little differant.. no kids still.. I thought they had a daughter for a while here, but nope, it was a neacie or somthing...

GOT TO GO GOT TO GO GA TO GO RIGHT NOW!

Boy do i got a surprise planed for you maybe, If my next host family has broadband it will be good... Sorry gramps, you need to go to nans house or my house to see it if i decide to put it up... (Kinda a hint but not a good one.)

Ja mata ne!

2003-12-24T19:50:00.000-05:00

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....

2003-12-24T18:41:00.000-05:00

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!

2003-12-23T08:15:00.000-05:00

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...

2003-12-22T00:52:00.000-05:00

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.

2003-12-21T09:10:00.000-05:00

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!

2003-12-20T01:55:00.000-05:00

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