Back to normal life

It's now Sunday, and I've slept a lot since getting back Friday morning. It feels like such a let down to go to Japan, have the most awesome time ever, then get thrown back into normal life (at least school doesn't start for another week). Oh well, I guess a lot of people feel the same way after travelling, but DAMN Japan was awesome. I'm so set on the idea of going back in a few years for a longer period of time (a year maybe) to live in Japan. I just want to go back and explore it for myself.

Thanks again to everyone who's read and commented on this blog.

Jono
http://www.superjono.net

From Davis...

This is the first blog i have posted seen i did not know about the blog thingy. BUT JAPAN HAS BEEN AWSOME!!! the best party was the school visit. we were like worshiped when we went to there school where as when they come to our school it is nothin special.... disneyland was so cool too! it was so great but when i went on the ITS A SMALL WORLD ride i got the song stuck in my head... that song is so annoying : ( and the haunted mansion was excelent with all the hologram ghost!!! public bathing has also been interesting lol but all the asian people seem indifferent to it but to us westerners its kinda strange. Macdonaldss tastes so good here and the burgers are big and good looking like the adds which is great. and instead of getting a soft serve for 30c u can get a japanese soft server for 100yen which is an accual ice cream with a cone. Alot of the temples have been great like the one at Nara which is the largest wooden structure in the world. Its the one with the giant booda which is about 10 times my size which is the 2nd biggest one in the world. Through one of the wooden supports inside the temple is a hole the size of one of the booda's nostrils and if you can crawl through it you get eternal luck. i now currently have eternal luck 5 times. Believe it or not the largest booda ever is 3 times the size of the statue of liberty and 2 and a half the size of the empire state building. Jono's and my homestay exceeded my expectations heaps. They were so cool and they want us to come back next year : ) they got us lots of gifts too. Japanese arcades are so amazing!!! shawn,tim and i were all playing a racing game in a 5 floor arcade and on this one you put a seat belt on and when you crash your seatbelt tightens and ur seat shakes and lots of crash sounds come out of the speakers beside each ear....so realistic..... and i only have 1:28 of internet left so i guess i will have to wind it up. Ill see you all lata.....in 2 days

Disneyland

Today we hit up Tokyo Disneyland and it was awesome. The second we walked into the park, Tom, Erica and I went into the first store we saw and bought Mickey Mouse ears to wear for the day. Sure, random Japanese people laughed at us, but hey.

Japan has a thing for characters, and for the US. They follow US holidays, not so much the event, but the theme and commercialisation, so even though it's halfway through September, they have halloween stuff EVERYWHERE. As far as their obsession with characters go, they obviously need characters for halloween, so 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is huge over here at the moment. The licence is obviously Disney owned, because they had TNBC stuff all over the park, and 'The Haunted Mansion' ride had been totally themed with TNBC, which was odd, because it was like halloween and Christmas at the same time, in the middle of September. Inside there's these crazy holographic ghosts and stuff, and man it's sweet.

Once again my posts are short and incoherent because I only have a very limited amount of time to use the PC. It's our last night tonight (and most of us aren't planning to sleep much) before our shopping day in Akihabara (the 'electrical goods city') tomorrow, which I've been hording all my money for.

Some of you have said that you hope I enjoyed the trip, despite how short it was, but we've done SO much in 10 days, it so doesn't feel like 10 days. School and exams seem SO long ago, I'm expecting to come home and find everythings changed. Everyone on the trip agrees it feels like we've been here for months.

Omiya Minami High School

Today we visited Omiya Minami Koukou (Omiya South High School). It's kind of like a sister school, except not, since Mansfield's too not cool enough to have a real sister school. Anyway, it was AMAZING. You have NO idea how excited they were about our visit. We arrived at the school and they had a banner up saying 'Welcome Mansfield State High School' with our school emblem on it. We went and sat in our classroom to wait for the special, full school assembly to start, which they don't usually have, but had organised just for us. Meanwhile, all the students were walking past and waving in the window excitedly. We went to the assembly, and as we walked in everyone started cheering and clapping as we walked up onto the stage. They organised a big assembly, where both schools were supposed to sing school songs and trade presents. We don't have a school song, and we just had a small present, so we did self introductions instead. They cheered us all (and laughed at some of our names - Jonathan is the name of a popular family restaurant over here). Ruby and I had to do a small speech, and then when the parade was over, we left the hall, and all the students down the side held out their hands for high fives, while everyone was clapping.

We went back to the room where we met our buddies, who showed us around teh school (it was lunchtime). Everyone was so excited, we got stopped in the halls everywhere we went, because lots of people wanted photos with us. They yelled out our names and waved as we went past, and just the school itself looked so fun. One guy sang opera for me and Erica in the hallway, and another three did an organised, synchronised dance. At one point Davis walked past and heaps of girls started screaming 'Deibis! Kawaii!' (Davis! Cute) and running up for photos. They absolutely worshipped us, and we all feel bad for how much of a nothing we do every time they visit our school.

In the afternoon we watched a tea ceremony that they do for club. The ceremony was great, but the tea, well... I love green tea, but this was green. Solid, murky, disgusting green. SOLID GREEN. We went with our buddies to see more clubs, then at then end of the day we all stood out the front, while all our buddies ran around excitedly taking photos with us and trading emails. I had one girl come up to me and ask "Do you have a girlfriend?". I told her no, and then she giggle, and her friend nudged her, before yelling shyly "I love you!". It was insane, you really had to be there to understand how excited they seemed for us to be there, they'd been looking forward to this day for so long. As the bus drove off, they all ran after (including the teachers). We looked like rockstars. And that's just some of the things that happened to me, but everyone had stories of how much these kids loved us (one guy followed Tom around at lunchtime fanning the back of his neck).

Disneyland tomorrow, Akihabara and going home on Thursday. We've only been gone for 8 days, but it's been the longest week of my life, we've done SO much.

Shopping

Today we were out for 12 hours (12 HOURS!!!) shopping in Harajuku and Shibuya. I bought a shirt, because you just don't go shopping in Harajuku, Japan, and not buy anything. We went down the main, grungy, trendy shopping street. The stores are crazy, there's surf shops, op shops, and mega crazy goth shops. You totally have to see it. There's these African/Jamaican guys that hang out on the street and try and get you to come down the alley to check out their shops, who we were all told to avoid. Davis got kicks out of letting them catch his attention, then making up excuses to run away.

I've uploaded some photos too at http://flickr.com/photos/superjono/

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry for the abrupt ending to the post the other day, but my turn on the computer was about to finish, and then screen just turns off leaving everything you were doing (including being signed in to msn and my blog post) open. I was in Kyoto when I last posted, and since then caught the bullet train to Hiroshima, went to Miyajima Island, ate Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima, visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum and A-bomb memorials, it's all been very cool. Our youth hostel in Hiroshima was REALLY flash. Japanese style rooms with Tatami mats. We sat around on the tatami, dressed in yukata, sipping genuine green tea. Be jealous Amy, it was fantastic.

After Hiroshima we caught a bullet train all the way to Tokyo (it took 5 hours, despuite how fast we were going.) for a 2 day homestay in Narita (near Tokyo). The homestay was EXCELLENT. My host family was great. There was a 50~ year old couple, the Iwatas, their 18yo son Yuji and 30~ year old daughter Emily, Emily's 30~yo husband and their 3yo daughter. David is Chinese, but grew up in LA, where he met Emily who was living in the US for a while. They both speak fluent english (David actually doesn't speak Japanese, despite the fact he's been her for 5 years!) but Emily's parents don't speak english, which was a great opportunity to practice my Japanese. And they gave us lots of presents, so many that they gave us a BAG to put them in.

Tonight I'm in the Tokyo International Youth Hostel, where we finally have internet access again. It's odd here, me and the other guys on the trip are sleeping in a seperate room from Mr Mihos, our teacher. He's in a room with students from ANOTHER school (from somewhere in Victoria). Meanwhile, the spare beds in our room are taken by Logan bogans.

We also went to the Sony building here in Tokyo tonight, full of heaps of new, flash, Sony gear. By the way, I LOVE all the bright city lights, Japan's just so cool.

Till next time, (hopefully tomorrow)/

Good Luck

Today we caught a Train from Kyoto to Nara to visit a huge wooden building (names are escaping me at the moment). It's the largest wooden building in the world (rebuilt hundreds of years ago at 2/3 height of the original( and inside is one of the world's biggest buddah statues. There's a whole in a wodden pillar, and if you can fit through (which Davis and I (just) did) you get good luck. We also fed some deer, then went to Maccas for lunch.