Universal Studios Japan

As i've said before, my host mother bought me a gift pass to Universal Studios Japan as a birthday present. We went 2 days ago and i still haven't recovered from all the fun we had! USJ was an abosluely breath taking place. I mean, it was for me anyway. I've never seen holllywood or Orlando so USJ was something new to me.
   I had such an amazing time. I wore my sister and friend out and it was so funny. I thought i killed them!

  Apparently when you're a park junkie ( Yes, i love roller coasters so much ill even have a title with the word junkie in it.) you have a higher tolerance for walking and waiting in long lines. We waited 2 and a half hours for the harry potter ride.. and i hated it. THOSE DAMN SPIDERS SCARED ME. My sister on the other hand, loved hearing me scream my ass off when the strobe lights hit us showing me the terrifying spider that was barely 3 feet away.

   Even though they laughed at me for the spiders, We all had the same reaction to jurrasic park. I even have the photo somewhere ( This was accidentally saved as a draft and not completed while i was in japan. the photo is currently in a suitacase and i will scan it as soon as i unpack). The three of us all have different facial expressions, but we all screamed. My friend looked like she was terrified of heights, my sister like she was waiting for the water to hit us ( and about 2K worth of cameras in our bag) and i was scared because of the damn T rex that was above our heads.

  After we rode everything we possible could, we did what any normal teens would do. We celebrated the release of Pokemon go with an hour of pokemon hunting at USJ. I never had so much fun in my life.

My last day at Yuhigaoka high school

I never realized how close my last day was. It feels like i've only been here a few days! There's no way i've been here five weeks already! It's just doesn't feel possible... Unfortunately it is though. Yesterday was my last day of school. You have no idea how much it hurt after the final bell rang and we cleaned the classroom one last time.
  My amazing class ( 2-6 ) had a party for me even though i've only been here for a short time i've grown so attached to them.

 I love my entire class ( No, this is not all of them. Some had club!) . I'm so grateful i've met all of them. Everyone was so kind and patient with me.  

 Tairo and shimada ( Left)
      Tairo and I  ( right)


During my time in school the teachers made it a point to make me work with different groups! Im grateful they did that, if they didn't I would have never met Tairo and Shimada ( I seriously hope they spelled their names right). Tairo has helped me learn so many words in japanese. Shimada is my life line during Caligraphy and gym class! I couldn't imagine having to survive class without her. I love you both! I hope we will meet again!

RunRin and I^
                                                        Ganchan->


I feel so bad for him, He had to sit next to the American who knew no Japanese! He was kind of forced into associating with me. I hope he doesn't hate me because of that! He's such an amazing person! I wish i would have known he liked basketball before i gave him baseball cards as Omiyage!! Please don't hate me because i'm completely incompetent when it comes to speaking Japanese!

YamaGuchi sensei, my homeroom and biology teacher!

 Everyone of you have been so kind to me even though i am absolutely terrible at speaking Japanese. For many of you, I was the first foreigner  you have ever met. I hope i didn't ruin your ideas about Americans! I promise we're not all weird and in love with anime.

  Thank you all so much for the past month. You all made it so i didn't want to leave and go back to America. unfortunately I have to, my visa is going to expire.

I've grown to care for everyone                                                           of you. I hope you don't forget me                                                       when i'm gone. THANK YOU SO
                                                      MUCH 2-6 FOR EVERYTHING.

My 18th birthday

         I recently celebrated my 18th birthday here in japan. We didnt have a huge party, but it felt like my birthday would have been back home. We had a nice dinner with everyone at the table together. They sang happy birthday to me, in English, and we even had a birthday cake.

                     My host mom went out in the rain to get my cake. She went above and beyond for me. She's so patient and loving, i couldnt ask for anything better. I'm sad i'll be leaving soon. 

My host sister Kate (けいと) wrote me a beautiful letter for a present, and my mom bought a universal studios gift pass! They did so much for me. I cried then, and teared up now just thinking about my sisters letter.

Im going to cry so much when i leave. its not fair im only here six weeks. I'll miss you all so much. I LOVE YOU KEITO, HIRARI, EMA AND OKAASAN!

The Pokemon Expo center, Osaka Japan

Sunday, my host family and I ventured out to the Pokemon expo center in Osaka Japan.

 I have never seen anything like this in the United States, so i didn't know what to expect. I was kind of scared that it wouldn't live up to my expectations. Fortunately, it was more than i could hope for!  The Pokemon Expo gym was pretty large compared to what i was expecting. It had a lot of small Pokemon you could choose from, it also had some pretty large ones!

If this would have been in America i have a feeling there would be a lot more teenagers ( and most likely college students) visiting here! But, here in Japan Pokemon ( and Anime) are more for kids or "boys" as my host mom says. The only adults I seen in the store where there shopping with their children :( 

Being the huge dork that I am I had to pose with the HUGE Pikachu they had out for display. It was just to cute not to do it.

Oh yeah! We even posed with the Pokeball! I know this isn't my sister type of thing so i'm so grateful she went along with my crazy plans! 

The pokemon center was and still is the only place I have spent more than $15 USD on something. I'm so glad i did it though, my cousin is going to love what i got her! 

Anyway, There's a crappy jump cut edit video on my youtube if anyone wants to see more of the Pokemon Expo Gym! Ill link it, my Instagram and facebook below! 

Facebook :

https://www.facebook.com/xStrawBerryx17

Instagram:

www.instagram.com/_xstrawberryx_/

Pokemon Expo Gym Youtube video:

https://youtu.be/mMKVZJ8rB_A

My trip to NipponBashi

Yesterday Rose ( another American student who attends my Japanese High school) decided to venture out into Osaka on our own. Even though Rose has only been in Japan for three months she can get around pretty much on her own. Unlike myself who needs to be walked to the school in order to find her way home.

NipponBashi was so huge! I'm glad I had rose with me. Even though we didn't "get lost" we did a lot of extra walking to find a store. A store.. ha! We all know i was looking for the anime store. I didn't take any videos in the anime store Rose showed me for many reasons. One being that a good portion  of the first floor was nothing but hentai and body pillows with explicit content on them. So there's no video of the shop, but i can do my best to tell you what was in the "pg" part of the store.

So on the first floor there was obviously the "adult" area, but the second floor was absolutely heaven for me. It was anime key-chains, posters, random accessories for days!! There was even a cosplay section. It was just so perfect, i didnt want to leave! 

Without even realizing it we spent over 2 hours exploring the store. After forcing ourselves to leave the amazing anime store we went to look for lunch. Since we're both living in Japan you would think we would eat some traditional food right? Wrong.  We ate pancakes and had french vanilla lattes.

After lunch we had to head home because it was already 15:00 ( 3 O'clock PM) and she had to be home by 17:00 ( 5 O'clock PM) . We didn't leave before the nerd ( Me) seen Iron man and had a mini fan girl attack. So of course I made Rose pose with him. 

After searching for the train station , and Rose asking for directions ( In Japanese!) we finally found it an hour after we started searching. We walked past it twice. Unlike on the way to NipponBashi we didn't have to take the Subway to get home. Just two trains. 

Yesterday was the first time I've walked home alone from momodoni station. It was a lot easier than i thought it would be. I think i'm finally getting used to being in Japan. It's to bad I only have three weeks left!

Fushimi Inari-taisha 2016

                 Yesterday my wonderful host mother decided to take me out to explore Japan! We went to a few places, but the most memorable was Fushimi Inari-taisha, the fox shrine. As some of you may know i'm a huge dork when it comes to foxes, so of course the nerd in me came out when we went to the fox shrine! I took pictures with almost everything there. Thankfully I wasn't the only foreigner who did so. 

Unfortunately we didn't make it all the way to the top. It was WAY to hot and as you can see i was wearing long sleeves! We did climb for at least an hour though, maybe because i stopped to take some pictures, but we did make it a good way up. I'll post a video on my Youtube for everyone to see eventually!

On the way up we seen so many cute shops, gosh i wish i had brought more money! No,.. I don't, i would have spent it all. 

^ Kitty-Chan!!

While we were at the shrine we did the typical Japanese things. We prayed, got paper fortunes, prayed again, and wrote down wishes on white fox cut out and hung them up. Although I didn't, many people made a wish on a special stone at the shrine. 

How the stone works:

First you toss some Yen ( Japanese Currency) into a hole in the concrete around the stone. Next you clap your hands and make a wish. After you make your wish you lift the stone off its holder. If the stone is light, your wish will come true. If it's heavy, well your out of luck. 

While at the shrine we seen many, many candles burning in certain areas. It was so beautiful!  I love the natural light candles create. Even though we didn't make it all the way to the top I seen so much. I hope that someday everyone who reads this will be able to see how beautiful this place is in person.

Peace-

Strawberry