Goodbyes

Hey gang

Today was, bar none, the most emotional day of my life since the end of CTYI `11. Today the summer holidays started in Japan - meaning my time at Minato Sohgoh has come to an end.

I am heartbroken to be leaving.
(I still have two weeks left in Japan but still)

Today, I had to make a speech in front of the whole school for the second time. The first time, I was nervous as heck, trying to hold back nerves as I introduced myself in shaky Japanese. This time, I was trying to hold back tears as I thanked everyone for taking me under their wings and making me feel so welcome.

After the speech, a group of my friends ushered me to the cafeteria, insisting we eat together because it was my last day. But as soon as we sat down, they all jumped up again and said, "ok let`s go back to class."
I had no idea what was happening!

Then, I was ushered back into the classroom, where I was greeted by exploding party poppers and applause. "THANK U FOR COMING TO JAPAN" was written on the board in big letters, and all the tables were pushed back except for a few in the middle, upon which sat two beautiful cakes and a huge bag of snacks. The whole class and our Home Room teacher began to sing Happy Birthday (although with the Japanese accent it`s "happy basuday") and some of the boys held up big signs saying Happy Birthday. Then, Manami (my amazing buddy) gave me a gift, a beautiful handmade card that everyone had written a message on. I immediately burst into tears.
I can`t believe that I meant so much to my classmates that they went to the trouble of organizing a whole birthday party for me (and it`s not even my birthday until Saturday) with such a beautiful gift. The teacher also gave me a wonderful gift -  a leather bracelet with the school`s logo imprinted onto it; it had been handmade by the Leather-craft class of the nearby Special Needs High School. I have only known these people a month and yet they treated me like an old friend from childhood. Everyone wrote such touching letters on the card, in English and Japanese, so much that I`m choking up just reading them now.

If any of Class 1-6 are reading this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. The party was the sweetest, kindest thing anyone has ever done for me; and I will always remember you, and treasure our time together.
I will come back to you all one day, like I promised.
I don`t know when, or for how long
but I will

I promise.

クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

Bulk Photo Post

In a restaurant with Wifi so with no further ado

One of the four gates to Yokohama Chinatown

Myself and some of my classmates :) Manami (my buddy) is on my left.

Pokemon Store. Like a child in a sweetshop.

Me with two swordsmen in Yokohama :)

Chris, Pratik, Kosuke, me, Shotaro and Manami with Sulley from Monsters Inc :D

BOOOOM

Mos Burger! The most amazing fast food restaurant in Japan

I MET PIKACHU BEST DAY EVER

Buddha statue in Tokyo :)

Sensoji Temple gate!

In Sensoji Temple

On my first proper day in Japan, in Chinatown, school uniform and all

Sensoji Temple

Yours truly in Sensoji Temple

In the ground in Yokohama City

Outside my school on my first day :)

Amusing Happenings #1

What up homies!

Today is gonna be a collection of the weird and wonderful things that have happened to me over the last two weeks. Whether funny, unusual or downright weird, they`re probably not gonna leave my memory for a while...

• This morning, as I made my way to school from the station, I was approached by two little Japanese boys (surely no older than 11) who asked me, in their best English, to "prease shuck my d*ck." Being from a gigantic potato Ireland, I was used to ignoring skangers shouting similar stuff at anything with legs, so I passed by, but their English was better than I thought and I heard "prease answer meeee" from behind me. I weep for humanity...

For some reason I am convinced that Mr Chow had something to do with this foul language.

 

• Today, in school, I was sitting at my desk, waiting for the next class to begin, when I spotted something rather unusual... all the girls were grabbing each others boobs and looking thoughtful. I think they were comparing sizes. I didn`t hear the conversation, and I don`t think I wanted to...

• Last weekend, in Yokohama City, the two American students, myself and our three buddies were standing in the square when we were approached by two gigantic black guys (I`m not being racist, it`s not their colour that was scary but their sheer size) saying in thick American accents "すみません(excuse me)" to my friend Shotaro, whose English is the poorest of the three Buddies. So, Chris, the American with the strongest Japanese, replied "yeah?" (in a fairly polite manner). The bigger guy looked at him, laughed, and said "I wasn`t talking to you, white boy." Then, to Sho, "are you his slave? Damn, they be slavin` Asians too?" and poor Sho had no idea what was going on. "Can I take a picture of your shirt? It looks like my daughter." (it was a T shirt of a clown with a mustache) then he looked at Chris and said, "unless you gon` translate, white boy" and so Chris did translate. Both guys looked amazed and said in unison "DAMN"
• after that, he took his picture, then asked for a picture of the six of us, and he randomly put a bottle cap on Sho`s head, and went to take the picture, and after about 7 seconds of our half-hearted posing, he says "I ain`t taking no picture, man why you let someone put a cap on yo head, gimme dat" then took the bottle cap and walked off. Weeeeeeeird...

Picture unrelated.

 

 

• I discovered a cat cafe in Yokohama City. Despite my allergy to cats, I`m desperate to go. You pay ￥900 (around 7-8e) for 30mins of playing with cats and kittens in a cafe. The best part is I`m not even joking or exaggerating
  

• When it`s raining, dogs wear raincoats
• I saw a drag queen on Japanese TV today on an "Ireland AM"-type show
• My English teacher accidentally called me "Kaiba" instead of "Kuiba" (the closest to Caoimhe in Japanese) and everyone was all like YU GI OH WOOOOOOOO

Pictured: me

 

k lads. I`m off to bed, much love night y`all

xoxo gossip girl

 

クイーヴァ

Caoimhe



ねむい (sleepy)

Yo homies,

The Japanese sleep a lot.

a LOT.

EVERYWHERE


It`s one of the things that surprised me the most about Japan. When you get on a train, people all around you are out of it, snoozing away. At first I was quite alarmed when I saw someone nod off, thinking maybe he`d fainted, but then somebody else closed their eyes and soon about half the train was asleep. Yet, nobody ever sleeps past their stop. It`s truly an amazing skill.

Also a lot of people have mastered the skill of sleeping standing up (unlike that poor fellow in the photo up there)

In school it`s completely normal for people to give up in the middle of a lesson and have a nap. I know I used to sleep in school all the time, but it was never during class, only in free classes or after school if I was wrecked. The Japanese students just collapse onto their desks and snooze, and what`s more, it makes no difference to the teachers, who just carry on teaching.

I think today I`ll write a few short posts rather than just one long one, so chat soon!

クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

Life as an Exchange Student in Japan

Hey everybody!

I think today, after one whole week as an exchange student in Japan, I will tell you guys about my daily life so far.  :D

朝（morning)
For a girl who has been known to sleep until 4 in the afternoon, coming to Japan has been a total body shock. Every morning, my darling iPod wakes me up with the sound of Ireland (i.e. church bells) at the ungodly hour of 6am.

When I searched for "sleepy head" on google I found this and it was much better than the picture I originally wanted so please enjoy it.

 

After the initial body-clock-shock of waking up this early, I get dressed and eat breakfast (generally something cool like eggs and sausage and melon-bread and salad) and go to the bus stop for 7am.

 

The bus costs ￥190 each way so it`s fair cheap. It takes about twenty minutes to get to the train station so it`s a relaxing, picturesque ride. For some reason most bus drivers in Japan (that I`ve encountered) make announcements with this kind of voice:

Seriously, do all professions in Japan come with a special accent or?

 

So then, at about 7:20 I get to Ofuna, where I am greeted with this marvellous sight:

This is the Ofuna Kannon statue, which is a gigantic bust of the Buddhist deity Guan Yin. It`s 25meters tall and absolutely breathtaking. Every day I can`t help but stop and stare at it. It`s truly beautiful. It overlooks Ofuna Station and the surrounding area.

Anyway, then I board the 7:37 train to Ishikawacho, which is the station smack-dab next to my school. Although there are no Buddhas at this station, there is one of the four gates to Yokohama Chinatown, which are also majestic.

Then, I get to school at about 8:00.

学校（school)
School is fun. I have 6 classes in a day (except on Thursday when I have 7) and two Home Room classes per day. Lunch is about 45 minutes which is cool, and I get a delicious homemade bento (Japanese style lunchbox) every day from my host mother. The school also has a cafeteria but it seems to me that mostly senior students eat in there. My year eat in our classrooms.
The length of a day can vary. Classes always start at 8:30 but sometimes they end at 3:15 and sometimes they end at 4:30. towards the end of July, they`ll end at 1pm, which is cool.

家（home)
Once I get home, the same way I came to school, I study, do homework (or attempt to) or read. At the moment I`m re-reading A Game of Thrones and falling in love with it all over again. In the evenings, I help my host mother cook dinner and clean up. Yesterday, I made my first ever Dublin Coddle for dinner to say thank you to my host family. Although it wasn`t a patch on my mama`s tried and tested Coddle, I have to say I did a good job :) and everyone emptied their bowls so I was delighted!

Then I usually spend about 40-50 minutes online, writing this blog and sending emails, and then I shower, bathe and sleep. The shower is very interesting, I`ll save that for another post ;)

Also it may interest you to know that all the girls in my class think that I`m very beautiful, which is sweet. They all say "I want to be white like you!" (which I don`t know if I should take as a compliment cos I`m so pale or...) or "I want your blonde hair" etc etc. So far I`ve heard:

• "Your eye colour is very beautiful!" *cue staring into eyes*
• "Your hair colour is very beautiful!" *cue stroking my hair*
• "Your skin colour is very beautiful!"
• "Your eyebrows are very beautiful!" (I think this was just a polite way of noticing that my hair and eyebrows are different colours)
• "Your feet are very beautiful!" (as I changed into P.E. socks and shoes. Yep. My feet are beautiful here.)

Anyway folks I`m very nemui (sleepy) so I`m off to bed now. Leave suggestions in the comments if there`s any particular topic you want me to write about!

じゃあね、
クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

 

 

こうこう（High School)

Hey everyone!

Today was my first day of Japanese High School, and whoooooa. SO different.

I didn`t really understand much, but I had fun. I'm gonna seperate this post into sub-headings because I have so much to say here!!

かもく (subjects)
I`m taking all the same classes as my Buddy System partner, Mana-chan (who is the most adorable lil thing) here they are:

• English Conversation
• Freshman English
• Japanese (very difficult for me)
• Maths
• Home Economics (surprisingly the subject I understood the most after English)
• World Science (basically a mix of Science and Geography, an absolutely deadly class)
• P.E
• Computers
• Music (very different to Leaving/Junior Cert Music, it`s completely performance-orientated)
• Social Studies
• Health

I thought Maths would be easy enough, as, y`know:
"why are you taking 12th grade calculus?"
"cos it`s the same in every country"

OH BOY WAS I WRONG

Students
Japanese students are the sweetest thing! I love them!
Today I heard the word "Kawaii" (cute) at least two dozen times. Literally everything I did was adorable to them, my accent, my clothes, even my yawns :P
Everyone seems fascinated by me, which is lovely. All the girls have taken my photo already :`) at one point, everyone was touching my hair and saying "kawaiiiiii" over and over again.
Also, cos I can`t go on Facebook at the mo, somebody please tell Aisling Kearns that there is a girl in my Home Economics class that looks and sounds exactly like her. Except, y`know, Japanese.

Also, the students here are more lax regarding rules. Everyone has a phone in their pocket and texts between classes (and sometimes during) and the teachers are completely unfazed. Long conversations take place during classes and it`s completely normal.

Uniform
Although the school has a set uniform, the rules are very lenient. The essential components are the school skirt and a white shirt. After that, you can choose your own sweater-vest, socks, tie and shoes. My vest is a navy button cardigan, I love it :)
Each brand has it`s own logo on the chest. Mine is a man riding a horse- like Ralph Lauren ;) - and lots cater to the "cute" culture of Japan. However, I`m not sure that the logos are completely understood, because I`ve seen a good few Playboy Bunny sweaters and socks...
Some other popular logos I`ve seen are the Eiffel Tower (on my socks), Statue of Liberty and Minnie Mouse.

General amusing things

• A teacher asked me today if I watched football, so I said yes and he raised his arms and said "ROBBIE KEANE"
• There are sinks in the hallways where the girls brush their teeth at the end of the day
• I brought a big box of Love Hearts for the class, and they are a huge hit
• I would not be considered small here :D :D

Ok, I`m off now. Actually, I think I`ll do the toilety post cos people have asked..

Big shout out to Joe Fontana in Macari`s Tullamore who awesomely sponsored my trip :D

Caoimhe