明けましておめでとう

The Lucky Ones- Brendan James
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_qSuVCOTQc

Life- Beckah Shae
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8EpFKN1q6Q

I Believe- Honey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29NgBfM8hKo

明けましておめでとう (Akemashiteomedeto- Happy New Year)! Also, a quick Happy Birthday to my Grandma!

This week has been full of cleaning, building up to the New Year. The Japanese do this as a way to start the new year fresh and clean. Today I spent several hours, like my host family, organizing. The house has been cleaned, dirt wise, but today we had to organize papers and such to see what we actually want to keep or get rid of.

My host mom has also been preparing a lot of traditional and symbolic food (I will have to blog about this in my next post as I haven't actually seen this food yet).

Looking back on 2012 I have to say it was a pretty eventful and successful year. Starting first and foremost with my excitement about coming to Japan (I found out about it right before Christmas but the excitement lasted for awhile... as in I am still super excited to be here!). I also had a great year with my Robotics team, turned 18, attended my first and only prom, played ultimate frisbee, dislocated my knee, and graduated high school. Then the fun continued into a great summer spent with family, friends, and my wonderful nannying job. In August I packed my bags and came to Japan where I have been on a major adventure ever since.

I have already experienced so much this year. I have had great moments and also terrible lows but that's all part of the exchange- and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I now have two families that I love (one biological and one host) and I have made a lot of new friends. I think that my goals for 2013 are to continue to build these relationships, experience anything and everything that I can, and continue to work at learning and understanding the language.

Then in June I will return home, work, then go off to college in the fall. It is a strange feeling thinking about my return date... I still have quite a few months to enjoy Japan but the date seems to be approaching at a scary fast pace.

I have to say thank you to my family and friends for all of their love and support this year and a huge thank you to Rotary for making this big part of my year possible.

Sayonara from Osaka, Japan.

メリークリスマス！

Seasons Of Love- Rent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsj15wPpjLY

Upside Down- Jack Johnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYbNkE80NMo

Strut- Cheetah Girls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpJfcj7FvTc

メリークリスマス (Merry Christmas)! I know it's a bit early but I have already decided on my New Years Resolution... it has been awhile since I last blogged and from now on I would like to try to blog at least once a week. I think it will be nice to try to be more consistent.


To try to sum up this last chunk of time I think I will start in the present and work backwards. I guess the best place to start would be by saying MERRY CHRISTMAS again. Christmas was a very different experience for me this year. In Japan, people don't really celebrate Christmas unless they have young children, even then they still might not celebrate (they do eat a Christmas cake, though). Most people actually work or have school on Christmas- for some reason high schoolers are the exception and we get a two week winter break that includes December 25.  That was the case for my host family, my host dad and sister were both gone on the 25th. So, in order to share a little of the US culture I gave my family Christmas presents, just a few days earlier so that our whole family could be there. They were super appreciative and even pulled out their Christmas tree (which they haven't put up since their kids were little) to hang up the ornaments I gave them! Christmas day it was just me and Okaasan BUT I also got to Skype in with my family back home and sit with them while they opened presents. Technology is amazing.

Christmas Eve is my dad's birthday. This year instead of celebrating his birthday with him (being in a different country makes that a bit difficult) I hung out with Evan, a fellow Northfielder. He is an exchange student in Hiroshima and one of his Rotarians was very kind in offering to bring him to Osaka to hang out for a couple of hours. We ate at an Udon restaurant then I took him to Namba. We hit up the two main touristy sites, the Glico Man and the Giant Crab. We also walked down the main shopping streets and went to Namba Parks. At the end of our time to hang out we went back the the Shinkansen Station where I got to see him off.

On December 22 I was invited, for the first time, to hang out with friends outside of school! I have done things with friends before but there has always been some time of school event connected with us hanging out. This time there were no ties. They took me to Osaka Castle, my first time being there, then we went back to one of their houses for snacks. That was also very neat because in Japan you don't normally go to people's houses. It was a great day and a lot of fun to be able to just hang out for a bit.

In the past couple of weeks I have been to a lot of Christmas parties, which I found interesting considering Japanese people don't celebrate Christmas. I had a Christmas party during a Rotary meeting (we played BINGO and a 'real life' Madlibs game), one at Tondabayashi Language School (ate a lot of food), one for English Speaking club (played Scrabble and ate chips), and one for Flower Arranging Club (we prepared a xmas dinner and did a Christmasy flower arrangement).

The other big thing that I have done recently is that I hung out with Tia in Namba. We watched the new 007 movie and at Krispy Kreme doughnuts!

As for the future, I am looking forward to New Years because that is Japan's big holiday. Instead of sending Christmas cards they send New Years cards called nengajo. Another friend from school has also invited me to go experience some type a traditional New Years event on January 3rd, I'll keep you posted. I also have a Japanese Speech Competition that I am preparing for on January 12th.

Sayonara from Osaka, Japan.

There And Back

Tia, a girl from Minnesota also in Osaka on exchange, shared the first song with me. They are amazing Japanese guitar players (しゃみせん- shyamisen). The second song I heard playing in McDonalds the other day and I instantly connected it to my life here. 

Rising- Yoshida Brothers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RERXiliJfdI

Moment 4 Life- Nicki Minaj
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN0Saar-QKQ

This is the blog I've been trying to work out for awhile now. My goal was to create a post that has pictures from my personal experience in different major cities that I have visited and also have background information on these cities so that you can have a better understanding of these amazing places.

Osaka
Osaka literally translates to "large slope" or "large hill".

Osaka is the capital city of Osaka Prefecture. It is located at the mouth of Yodo River on Osaka Bay. It is the third largest city by population after Tokyo and Yokohama. Historically the commercial center of Japan, Osaka serves as one of the command centers for the Japanese economy. The ration between day time and night time population is 141% (the highest in Japan- highlighting its status as an economic center)- Day time population is around 3.7 million while night time is around 2.6 million.

Osaka used to be referred to as the "nation's kitchen" in the Edo period because it was the center of trading for rice, creating the first modern futures exchange market in the world.

The initial area of the city was 15km sq. and after three major expansions it has reached its current size of 222km sq.

Osaka was the industrial center most clearly defined in the development of capitalism in Japan. The political system was pluralistic, with a strong emphasis on promoting industrialization and modernization. Literacy was high and the educational system expanded rapidly. This produced a middle class with a sense of literature and a willingness to support the arts. (*Today it is the center of comedy in Japan.)

Like its European and American counterparts, Osaka displayed slums, unemployment, and poverty. In Japan, it was Osaka that first introduced a comprehensive system of poor relief, copying part from British models. Osaka policymakers stressed the importance of family formation and mutual assistance as the best way to combat poverty. This minimized the cost of welfare programs.

Osaka faced major devastation during World War II due to American bomber attacks on a regular basis in the last year of the war. Many people fled and most of the industrial districts were severely damaged. However the city quickly rebuilt its infrastructure after 1945 and regained its status as a major industrial and cultural center.

I live in the Osaka Prefecture and have been into the city a couple of times. I normally go into the city for shopping in Namba and Tenouji but I have also been downtown Osaka at the Grand Cube for my school's 100th anniversary celebration. Oh and I can't forget the time I went to Tenouji Zoo!

Shopping at Namba with Shiho (8/27/12)

Eating out (9/23/12, 10/6/12, 11/14/12, 11/25/12, 12/10/12)

Zoo (9/23/12)

Kanan's 100th Anniversary at the Grand Cube (11/14/12)

Movies (9/29/12, 12/10/12)

Nara
Nara is the capital city of Nara Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. The city is in the northern part of Nara Prefecture and directly borders the Kyoto Prefecture. Eight temples, shrines, ruins, and Kasugayama Primeval Forest collectively form "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara", a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The temples of Nara are collectively known as the Nanto Shichi Daiji. The remained powerful even after the move of the political capital to Kyoto in 794. Nara was the capital of Japan from 710 to 794.

In 2010, Nara celebrated its 1,300th anniversary of its rise to the high level and power as Japan's imperial capital.

With my host grandpa, cousins, and parents (10/6/12)

With Valentina and her host grandma (10/20/12)

Kyoto
Kyoto is a city in the central part of the Honshu, Japan. It has a population around 1.5 million. It was formerly the imperial capital of Japan (794-1869) and it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture. It is also a  part of the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe major metropolitan area.

It was ranked 11th as on of the world's most livable cities in the magazine Monocle in 2012- Kyoto was praised for its history and compact city solutions such as its own subway system.

In the late 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (a warrior, general and politician in the Sengoku period. He is regarded as Japan's second "great unifier") restructured the city by building new streets in order to double the number of north-south streets in central Kyoto. He created rectangle blocks, taking the place of the ancient square blocks. Hideyoshi also built Odoi (earthwork walls) throughout the city.

Today, Kyoto is one of the few cities in Japan that still has an abundance of prewar buildings like machiya (traditional townhouses). However, modernization is continually breaking down the traditional Kyoto in favor of newer architecture like the Kyoto Station complex.

With my host parents (10/26/12)

With my host family (11/25/12)

Tokyo
Tokyo has been the capital of Japan since 1869.  It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace (home of the Japanese Imperial Family). It is also the largest metropolitan area in the world.

Tokyo was originally known as Edo (meaning estuary) and changed to Tokyo (to- east + kyo- capital) when it became the imperial capital.

Edo was originally a small fishing village in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo grew into one of the largest cities in the world with a population over 1 million by the 18th century. It became the capital even while the emperor lived in Kyoto, the imperial capital. In 1869, the 17 year old Emperor Meiji moved to Edo. Tokyo was already the nation's political and cultural center and the emperor's residence made it the imperial capital as well. The former Edo Castle became the Imperial Palace. 

I have not been to Tokyo yet but I would really love to visit!

Sayonara from Osaka, Japan.