Welcome to Gaia! ::

awww.... I'm sorry. Thats not cool. I hope the virus mutates and gets him sick again...

lol awww, poor choire choire. You know what would make you feel better? pocky. Lots and lots of pocky.

yeah... I've only tried the chocolate kind... .and apparently they sell it near by...

awwww... I'm sorry.... you can get sympathy affection from ME! but then I remember that you're going to Japan and I'm not... loser....

I haven't written in a really long time, so let me catch people up.

I've been living in Japan for a month now. I have wierd dreams here, I think its because everything is still so new. The sun comes up around 4 or 4:30, so I can't sleep past 5 or so. We get segregated from the Japanese in most of our classes, so because of that and my poor speech, I have trouble makeing japanese friends. There are 13 exchange students, and we're all pretty good friends. There are two guys that are sort of fringe characters though.

In other news, my boyfriend bought my engagement ring, even though he can't ask me for six more months. He's really excited to be marrying me, but almost as soon as I get home he's probably going to go to Canada for a semester, so I won't get to see him for about a year total. He wants to have the wedding at the end of next summer, but if he leaves,I don't think that's going to happen. After we're married, I'm going to put him through graduate school, then I never have to work again if I don't want to. I want to be an animal raiser for zoos.

I'm color blind, I've had contacts that allow me to sort of see some colors, I'm still learning about that. And I'm still debating whether I want to try to get my driver's license. I don't even like riding in cars, I'm not really sure I can operate one without freaking out.

Ok, all that's out of the way, from now on I think I'll just be putting in interesting things about being here, and what I'm learning.

Trust me, you go to the Japan, and you'll learn Japanese. You can't not learn it here.

Thanks about the car thing. The whole family wants me to try, and I just don't think its quite time yet. Although, it would be a lot easier if I learned when I got home. Maybe I should learn here, I'm left handed, so driving on the left might be easier. That's messed up logic.

That's exactly why. When America was forming its government, they decided that they wanted to be as different from England as possible, so they switched sides and created a whole new measuremtn system. Although, scientist no longer use the American Standard Sysstem, so its dying out. But I think the whole other side of the road thing is probably here to stay. Although, since most of our military air crafts are bought from over seas, they're set up the European way. THe manufacturers refused to change just for American pride.

(me mostly)

Today I went to Yasakoi. Its a huge festival once a year that Sapporo is famous for. Its about unity and group-ness. There is a parade, and there are lots of groups in traditional costumes, they dance for a block then reset themselves at the intersections. It lasts for hours. Then they do their dances on stage to try and place in the contest. I got so many awesome videos. It was HUGE, Its at a bunch of locations all over the city, and it just kind of spills out of the parks. There were THOUSANDS of people.

When we were there, we were sitting in the grass eating, and people would just come up and talk to us because we're Americans. If they know English, they want to try and use it. One guy came and asked us if we were American, and we were with our British friends. He wanted our picture and for us to sign a book, but he didn't even want to look at the British people. The Japanese girl with us told us she had never seen Japanese people just walk up to strangers. I though American were friendly, but I had no clue we were celebrities.

Then we went to Sapporo Station on the way back home. Today was the first time I rode a subway. The station had several floors both above and below ground. Its packed with people, and you can't tell your underground. The food mall part was as big as the Indianapolis mall, and that was just for food. We didn't spend a lot of time there because we were tired, but we're going shopping on Thursady, so maybe we'll go back. It was so awesome.

I was so tired afterward, I tried to type something in another guild, and when I read it, even I had no clue what it said. So I took a nap, which means I'm going to be up for hours tonight. But that and my back hurting were both weorth the trip.