Huh?

So things are a little strange in Japan right now. Swine flu recently got into the country, specifically in my area, and the Japanese are a little paranoid about sickness. As a result Kansai Gaidai and many other schools, under the advising of the Japanese government, have canceled classes for a week. As it would happen, finals for the international students were this week.

Guess what? Finals are canceled too!

So that's nice, except that our graduation ceremony was supposed to be this coming Saturday. Well, since the school is closed, the ceremony is canceled. Not too happy about that.

But I'm making the best of it, and I'm definitely making good use of the sudden huge amounts of free time I have. So here's a post for you. ^_^

Let's see, what have I been up to recently?

Well, as soon as classes were canceled some friends and I decided to take purikura to remember the occasion. This is what we came out with:



Pretty good, huh?

I tried kyudo, or Japanese archery. I've been wanting to try kyudo since I became interested in Japan back in middle school, so when my friend invited me to his high school's dojo it was a dream come true.

Even for being out of practice, he was much still much better than me. -_- I was such a beginner! The shooting style in kyudo is very different from western style archery, so even with previous archery experience I was horrible.





I also went to one of Japan's three most scenic views, the land bridge Amanohashidate. It was beautiful. The bridge separates a lake from the Sea of Japan, so walking on the bridge you have the ocean on one side and a lake on the other.



According to legend the bridge was once a ladder between heaven and earth, but it fell down and now is a land bridge. When you visit Amanohashidate you're supposed to view the bridge between your legs because it makes the bridge seem like "it's floating and connects the land to the sky". It's an interesting view, but I think it's because blood is rushing to your head.

So here's me doing it. ^_^v



And here's the view.



My host brother Taiyo started kindergarten, the equivalent to pre-school in America. These little 3 and 4 year old kids have to wear uniforms to school, and they're absolutely adorable.





Also, a friend from home came to visit! She's actually studying abroad in Korea right now so she came to Japan to do some sight-seeing. I'm going to visit her in Korea this Sunday! She and Taiyo had a blast together.



We also went to Shinsaibashi, a famous street mall in Osaka. Looks really cool at night.





So this was a while back, but I shared some American traditions with my host family and showed them how to dye Easter eggs. Easter isn't celebrated in Japan so the dye for coloring them doesn't exist here, but I found a natural way to color the eggs using curry powder and purple cabbage and we gave it a shot. They turned out pretty well! And Taiyo loved having an excuse to eat eggs.



Even Otousan joined in!



I went to Fushimi Inarai, a shinto shrine with over a thousand tori, the orange gates you see a lot in Japan. It was so cool!



I think the gates literally cover half the mountain the shrine is on. They just keep going and going and going...



Oh! And I was finally able to do an event with the bagpipe band here. The uniform is a lot more elaborate than the one I have for my band at home. The hat was huge!!




And here's the band!



Umm, what else? Let's see...

Went to Himeji Castle, which has got to be one of the coolest places I've been so far. The castle and grounds are exactly the same as when they were completed 500 years ago, so it's a real, authentic castle and one of Japan's national treasures.








I also went to Kobe, which is really pretty at night... but that's about it. Not much to do there that you can't do in any other big city.



I've also been volunteering at an elementary school near my house! School in Japan is different from American schools, and the kids were so much fun! The language barrier didn't stop us from talking at all, and we played a lot of games together. Can't post any pictures here because I don't have consent, but still, it was awesome.

Well, I think that about wraps things up for now. I'll leave you with a funny video, just to show you a small part of what I live with everyday.



Have I ever mentioned I love this kid? ^_^