I have so many stories that I've written about my time in Japan. I have a website: http://www.one-million-butterflies.blogspot.com/ that contains about 40 different stories that I wrote when I was away.
Tachibana High School
I love it. That's about all I can say! I was so nervous on my first day. (I have lost train of thought... my little host brother just came on and turned the lights on for me, how sweet). Anyway, em, yes on my first day I was so nervous and I felt so stupid in my Japanese uniform but I bit the bullet and wore it all, including my pink little neck-tie. We left for school really early because my host sister Marina had club so I just sat in the class room waiting while people who were brave enough to approach the random Australian girl came up and said hi. I think they were more nervous than me! We all were in class and I sit at the back near a window, the view is awesome, cherry blossoms, snowy mountains and high rise buildings. We went into the massive hall for an assembly in which everyone was seated, there were so many people and everything was very formal. I was so nervous and help my speech so tightly in my hands I am surprised I didn't rip it. Yumi Sensei guided me to the stage and we were seated while all the students bowed, it is an amazing thing to see so many people in perfect unison bow the way the Japanese do! I was about to die when I reached the microphone but I delivered my speech the best I have ever said it! I was so happy and the reaction I got when I mentioned the fact that my family has two horses was crazy, they all just went, ooh.
Well I went home pretty early after that because we didn't have any lessons but then the next day which was Tuesday, we had our first day of lessons. In the morning we had to write our new school years resolution, the Japanese school year has just begun. I wrote my story in Kanji then Yumi Sensei came to check that I knew what to do and then she saw I had already finished and she was so lovely, going `oh my goodness, look at this, kanji and everything!`
English lesson was pretty fun although I felt stupid repeating after the teacher English words ha-ha. They learnt the phrase: `It's all Greek to me! `
Today we had massive tests on the work they had been doing over the holidays; yes the Japanese don't ever stop working. I just got to stay in the English teacher's room and talked with David. After the test we went to a pretty park and had more school photos! Also, after school today I went and watched my host sister's chorus club mini concert, it was so amazing! They sang, I Will Follow Him, which was so cute in their Japanese accents. In Japan, you show the people in the year level above you so much respect. These two girls beside me asked me if I was a senpai, which is a senior, and when I said yes, they wouldn't look me in the eye and they kept bowing to me and it was crazy.
Well Again
Australians hello, how are we all? I hope you are enjoying life, I know I surely am. This week has had some hurdles to overcome and some down times regarding some aspects of life back home, however I will put them aside for this evening and enlighten you all with some lovely tales of Japanese adventures.
Well, I suppose the first lesson you can be taught is that, from my experiences, Japanese weather is crazy. Today when I woke up, the sun was shining, the ground was warm, I even became hot riding to school. Later on we experienced sunny but raining and then cloudy and warm, then cloudy and raining. We had one random rumble of thunder and then it was back to clear again. It was clear when I got on my bike and left school. However, by the time I was home, I was again saturated and looked as if I had just been running around playing chase with a tornado.
I am starting to not get stared at so much at school. I am making such good friends here in Tachibana. Trying to remember everyone's name is hard, they always ask me! I have three lessons of calligraphy a week which I love! The teacher knows a word or two of English but one of those is `freeze`. It is such a harsh word and I ran the brush right over my page when she jut randomly said `freeze`! Yumi Sensei had obviously been speaking with her and she said she didn't know why I got so scared when she spoke English but it was funny when she finally realised what she was saying meant.
If someone asks me how tall I am, my friends always jump in and answer as fast as they can, before I get the chance, I think they are proud to be friends with someone who is 177cms tall!
This weekend I have to go to school on the Saturday. We have an open day (this is from what I can gather; often I think I am on the right track and then something completely random will happen!) We have heaps of Biology lessons and in the afternoon parents are coming in to watch us learn, they will think I am so strange, I don't know what to do but pretend to look as Japanese as possible, it could be tricky.
Australian mothers, you are 100% outdone when it comes to packing lunch boxes. I am sorry to say, but it is a fine art over here and every one has such gorgeous lunches, I will take many pictures. The only issue I have had so far is the way my host mum slips grapefruit into mine. I can't help the face that I get when grapefruit enters my mouth, it is so disgusting, I hate the way they look a little like mandarins!
As well as school this weekend, I know that my family and I, of course, are going to either a temple or some other place which I am not sure what it is, but it is our plans. I will tell you all about it!
Grandparents
I quickly shut my dictionary and head into the kitchen. Grandma is standing at the sink, her stained floral apron tied tightly around her waist. She is grinning and I grin back ten times brighter. I check out the table, a usual ritual, to see what I'll be putting in my mouth this particular lunch time. It seems I will live to see another day as the food doesn't look too scary. Granddad has already started lunch, slurping his Soba like it's about to disappear before his very eyes. I reach for the chopsticks pot and pull out mine; they are new because the ones I had previously been using weren't exactly the same colour, indicating that they perhaps weren't the original match. Of course, that is not acceptable in any way, shape or form. So two nights ago, Granddad spent about ten minutes selecting just the right pair of chopsticks for me before tea while I sat there starving hungry, staring into my miso soup as it grew colder and colder...
Today's lunch is traditionally packet food. Sorry to hurt any Japanese cuisine recipe seekers, but that's the way it is. I pull back the plastic, cursing the difficult Kanji that explains just exactly what I'm about to eat. I say my prayers with my Grandma who has also sat down beside me, her legs folded underneath her in the most painful looking position.
The food tastes quite nice until I come across my best friend, $B$($S(B. In English this is the equivalent of shrimp or prawns, I am not a seafood girl... Now anyone who was at Steph`s house that fateful night knows how well $B$($S!! And I get along. We simply don't. However, how times have changed. I eat this stupid $B$($S!! and don't even pull that pained expression I usually get when I clash with my meals. I won't say I like it, but the tolerance levels are slowly rising each day and in more ways than just food.
Granddad has things to do; hence he leaves after saying thank you for the meal. Now it is just Grandma and I. Old Japanese people are my worst nightmare when it comes to my Japanese. I swear they don't really speak Japanese but a strange dialect of some ancient language. I act super interested in my food, which is beginning to get hard because I am so full, however, Grandma feels chatty so I act like I am too. Smiling with a mouthful of rice I nod and pull the usual!! `Ah` and `mm`. Then she starts shooting the questions. I manage to chat about my family, saying what they do and how old they are etc. She then tells me about a wedding function recently, one of her relatives... not quite sure what else but she has something, what she has I will never know...
Whipping out the green tea, Grandma pours me a cup as I struggle to finish the rest of the meal. I try a technique I heard about on TV once and try and put a lot of it in my mouth at once, but then I am so full I can't swallow. Grandma is offering me little bits and pieces and she is just so hard to refuse, very insistent. I survive and after slamming down the rest of my green tea and half dying on the little leaves that produce the strongest of flavours, Grandma asks if I am finished and I say, yes, I am definitely 100 percent finished.
I try and help clean up but she insists that I am on holidays; hence I should go to my room. So, now here I am. I have been doing a lot lately, the other day after school I went playing Karaoke. Just think a not so gorgeous version Cameron Diaz in `My Best Friend's wedding`. I hadn't spoken English for so long but I sang English songs and at the start I had the scariest Japanese twist to all the words I was saying! I began to pronounce my L`s properly in a matter of seconds and finally I was ok! Also, I have recently had the chance to visit many temples which has been great and for those of you wondering why I'm not at school, this week is Golden Week in Japan, no school. I go back on Monday but on the Sunday, I think we are planting rice... Also, we have another holiday on the Thursday which happens to be my birthday, and Ayaka`s birthday, a girl in my class!
Well, going to study as much Japanese as I can without my text book which I smartly left at school!
Shelley reports from Shizuoka ... "In the beginning, almost everything I came across in Japan was new or different from what I had known in Australia. 
