Japan Day 22 (I think)

This morning was not very good. I got really homesick after talking to my best friend (Talking to her wasnt the bad part, it was not being able to be home to see her and everyone else that made me homesick). Class was a lot better, we had my favorite teacher today and we learned (the others learned, I already knew it) If you're happy and you know it. It was really funny. The teacher made us do the actions that people suggested, I suggested pyon-pyon which means to jump or skip. It was So funny to see everyone jump up and down. Hopefully tomorrow will be better than today was. It got a lot better with class and dinner and leverage. Now Im waiting for my family to get on skype so I can talk to them. Tomorrow is our grocery shopping day, and homework (lots and lots of homework) So Im keeping this short and sweet. Night
Court

X-men, Karaoke and Great friends, Japan Day 20

Im so glad I made friends, even if it was with other foreigners. Last night was tons of fun. After a rough three hour class Nadine and I decided to part ways and relax before our shenanigans of the night begun. We met up at about 6:15 and got a text from laura saying that Talon, Markie and Rob may be coming over too, lets just say we about flipped a lid (it wasn't a bad thing, we just had to kick the cleaning into overdrive) While Nadine vacuumed and made her bed I scarfed down the ramen that we had made and did her dishes for her. This cleaning fit put us about 5 minutes late to meet laura at MaxValue. We got there and realized that it was only going to be 5 of us (Me, Laura, Nadine and Talon). We got drinks and snacks and left MaxValue heading for our apartment. Wolverine was actually a really good movie, I was expecting minimal because it was X-men, but it actually was good and now I have it on my computer Thanks to the Digital Copy :-D After the movie Talon left us :-( and we continued our girls night without him. We went over to Shidax (the karaoke place that is like a 5 minute walk from our apartment). It was my first time doing Karaoke in Japan and it was so much fun. We got our own little room with chairs and all the stuff needed to Karaoke. They gave us a book full of English songs with everything from Eminem to Michael Buble, and we had no trouble butchering most of the songs we sung. Laura sang Phantom of the Opera and could actually hit the high notes, I was so proud of her. We stayed out till like 2:30 and by the time we walked Laura home it was about 3am (yes the sun was beginning to rise and I was dead). All in All it was a really fun night, Today is Saturday the 29th and its now 2:00pm. We are going to explore the new Jusco that just opened down the street at 4 and I have homework to do. Other than that I've spent most of my morning sleeping away a headache. Church tomorrow and Class monday, Picture will be on Facebook in the near future.
Court

Another day another long Japanese class

It is Thursday May 27th 8:56pm Japanese time 7:56am American time. This morning was exciting, I woke up with the plan of rolling out of bed to met the guy from the post office at 9am (My box was supposed to come at that time) So after crawling out of bed and spending about an hour or so on the computer I decided "Hmm I wonder where my box is?" I knew that if I took a shower that they would come and I wouldn't be able to get to the door so I kept myself busy with the computer until about 10 or so when I heard a knock on the door. I got my box and after trying to break the fort Knox tape that kept me out of my present, without much luck I might add, I resorted to scissors to do the job for me. I opened my box to find a note that read "Courtnie LOVE YA!! Mom, Dad, & Mike Stuff to make Pizza Included Hope you enjoy :-)" Only my father could be this clever. Im Super excited about getting my present and pizza! I cant wait to make it with Nadine one of these nights for dinner.
After our curry lunch Nadine and I went to class (early mind you) and sat through the crabby attitude of our fellow Ball State classmates. I have decided that I no longer am associating myself with them and their bad attitudes, whenever someone asks where I am from I will say that I go to school in Nebraska with Laura and Talon :-). Speaking of, I got to eat lunch with him the other day, It was really fun, he's pretty cool. Anyway, tomorrow we have a test in our language class and after we are having a girls night. Im so glad I found people who dont need to drink to have a good time. Here there is a thing called Nomihodai which basically means you pay a flat fee and you drink as much as you want from like 11pm-2am or some ridiculous time frame like that. Im sorry, but that doesn't sound fun to me. Im happy with one drink (if I drink at all) if I went nomihodai with all the other ball state people, I would waist money and wouldn't have fun. Im so thankful for Laura and Nadine. Talon is getting better, he decided that he was going to a bible study instead of going out drinking :-) I was really happy for him (Prayer for our Christian brother Talon please and thanks :-) He's getting a lot better, but I dont want him thinking that he needs to drink to have fun). So far Im having fun and hopefully this crappy attitude that all the other ball state students have wont rub off on me. I will let you know how tomorrow goes :-D Night
Court

Japan Day 14 (or is it 15)

Well I've been here for about two weeks (Im going on my 3rd week here) and I have 8 more left. It is 10:00 pm on Monday May 24th. After our long shopping day on saturday I was so tired it wasn't even funny. thats probably why I didn't get my homework done like I had planned. Sunday I felt awful and I didn't go to church :-( I pumped myself with pain meds so that I could go to the zoo. It was a girls day out Sunday (with the exception of Rob). Nadine ran back from Church and saw Markie over by the Ramen restaurant on the corner. She followed Nadine home and we all met some friends and made our way to Odori Station to meet up with Laura and Rob (Laura's Ipod case didn't fit her Ipod so she had to return it). After meeting Laura and Rob at Odori we got on another subway to Maruyama Koen (Koen is Park in Japanese) The station was about a 10-15 min walk from the zoo itself. The floor of the station was SO cool though. It had tiles of animals found at the Maruyama zoo. We walked for a bit and finally found the entrance, thankfully we were with a Japanese girl who had been there before. The zoo was small, but it was cool. The best part was that we saw PENGUINS!!! I was so happy haha, the Japanese girl thought I was crazy because I took like 7 pictures of the penguins alone. After the zoo we all were so hungry we decided to go out to eat. We were going to go to this hot pot restaurant, which didnt really look good. Laura said that she really didnt want to eat there (there was a wait and it didnt sound good, Im glad she spoke up) We ended up at Bikuri Donki (its basically a hamburger without the bun type place, but not... its kinda hard to explain). After dinner we got on the bus and headed back home, everyone was SO tired that not much conversation took place.
Monday (Today) was the LONGEST CLASS I have EVER been a part of. I was about ready to gouge my eyes out. It was SO painful... I stopped paying attention like half way through the 3 hour class because I mentally could not keep focused. After class we spent about an hour or so studying Kanji (Me, Laura, Markie, Nadine and Rob) in the tea room. I am determined to learn kanji before I leave japan. Tomorrow is tuesday! Tuesday=No class for Courtnie! Things on my to do list= Skype family in the morning, Grocery shopping after lunch, Laundry sometime and finishing homework. Im kinda excited about this weekend, Nadine and I have planned a movie night with Laura and we also are thinking about going Karaoke.... OH random fact for today. I learned about something cool the other day, its called Tabehodai (which basically means 'All you Care to eat') Its kinda like a buffet, you pay one set price and you can eat anything you want. The thing that was really crazy (and something I would never do because Im not a big drinker) is that they have a Nomihodai (which is the same thing, but with drinks) You pay a set price and you can drink whatever you want, how ever much you want, for a certain number of hours. It's not something that I want to do, but its interesting nonetheless...
Good night and I'll Update soon
Court

Shopping+Subway+The Girls= A Pretty Awesome Day!

Today was Awesome! I woke up early (for a saturday that is) and Nadine and I made Squid over rice for lunch. We met Laura and Markie at the bus stop at 1 to begin our full day of shopping and exploring downtown. We went into Alta and conquered all 8 floors (we were so proud of ourselves). the clothes are so cute but none of them look good on me because in Japan I actually have a somewhat large chest ( I never thought I would be able to say that) I have decided to live vicariously through Markie and made her try on a bunch of clothes haha. She loved it though... In the basement of Alta there was a Lolita section (Lolita is the crazy outfits girls wear at Harajuku) Anyway... Markie and I fell in love with it and have decided to go back, we kept saying that we would have bought things if they weren't so expensive. It made my day shopping with her and Laura and Nadine. We found so really cute clothes and Laura successfully bought a full outfit (shoes and all) and only spend 90 some odd dollars. For dinner we went to Subway, which was yummy. I just know that Im going to end up going to one back home and asking for an えびアバカド (shrimp and Avocado sandwich) and they are going to look at me like "What are you talking about?" and Im going to start crying haha... Tomorrow we are going to the ZOO!!!! Its gonna be fun. I am SO tired and my feet hurt so bad from all the walking that tonight I think Im gonna keep things short and sweet and to the point.
Loves much
Court

The last 2 weeks in a nutshell... (Recap)

So... Since I FINALLY have Internet I can recap the last 2 weeks for you. Right now it is 5:50pm Friday night May 21st. But let me take you all the way back to the beginning so my stories will make sense. We will start on Tuesday the 11th of May, this is the day I got to Sapporo after a full day of flying (it was EXHAUSTING). Im glad that I had a flying partner, it made airports and what not easier. We met Nadine and Professor Ratcliff at the airport and took Bre to the DK house. Interesting fact #1, The sun rises in Japan at like 4:30 in the Morning!!! therefore the first day or so, I too was up at 4:30 in the morning. Im taking 2 classes at Sapporo Daigaku, a 3 hour Long Japanese class (for zero credit) and a one hour long culture class that is one day a week (for 3 credits). The good thing is that we have tuesdays free. I learned that my hopes of taking Kendo classes or joining the kendo team are unlikely because it costs a lot and I would have absolutely NO free time. Our landlord speaks NO english which is interesting, Im really glad that I have Nadine here with me. The first week went by REALLY fast. My first weekend we went on a tour of Sapporo which was fun, I met some new friends (Laura and Talon are from Nebraska, Jin-Jin and Cho-chin are from China, I cant remember which state Marki is from but she is pretty cool, Akito, Jin-Jin's boyfriend (who's name I forget at the moment), are studying at BSU this fall, and Nobu goes to church with us.) OH Nadine and I found a church. Its really cool, I think its evangelical (?) but I could be wrong. We (Nadine and I) are going shopping with Laura tomorrow and to the Zoo with Laura and Marki on Sunday. We found a curry shop that we like to go to, its right outside the entrance to school and not only is the food good, we can actually read the menu. So... That Recaps the last two weeks (kinda)

Right now it is 6:08pm and I am getting ready for dinner. Usually Nadine and I eat together, but tonight she is eating with Cho-Chin tonight (Cho-chin has never had french toast so Nadine is going to make it for her).
Today was AMAZING!!! This morning I woke up, and took a shower like I usually do, but this morning was different. See instead of just getting ready for school and what not, The people from JCom came to my apartment and gave me a present. It was called the INTERNET!!! I was SO excited, it basically made my day :-D I got to talk to my family for the first time in 2 weeks (thats not entirely true, but thats what I feels like). Class was LONG today, it felt longer than usual. Hmm I dont know if there is anything else to say.
Talk to you soon (I can say that now because I can actually update more often)
Court

Week one is OVER

Ive been in Japan for 1 week. So far so good I guess... I think I will be a lot happier when I have internet access in my apartment (which will happen on Friday of this week). Ive been super busy with classes and homework and hanging out with friends. This past weekend we (the BSU students) went on a tour of sapporo. We went to the top of the telivions tower and had okonomiyaki for lunch (YUMMY). Saturday was also Nadine and my first time riding the subway and the bus. When we were done with our tour we were told we had to go back by ourselves because the group thought drinking was more important than making sure we got home ok. Thats the one thing I dont like about not living in the DK house, i feel left out of the group sometimes. Anyway, Nadine and I were fine on the subway but we missed out bus stop and were forced to get off the bus when the route ended. we asked the driver where the college was. He said to get back on the bus and he would tell us when to get off... It was a mess lol, but we eventually got home. Sunday, Nadine and I went to church. I loved it, the pastors wife sat behind us and translated the message. After church and lunch the pastors wife took us to see the plum blossoms at a park. there were lots of people and the trees were so pretty. I met someone who looked like the Japanese version of Justin haha... Wednesday (tomorrow for me) we are going to get cell phones. Tonight I have a bunch of homework to do on top of laundry and grocery shopping. Tuesdays are my only free day so I spent most of my morning on the internet at the computer lab. This weekend we are getting INTERNET!!! (YAY) and going to the zoo... We are also planing to have a movie night with laura (another exchange student from Nabraska).
Classes are crazy, I only have 2 but one is a 3 hour long Japanese class that meets everyday but tuesday and one is a 1 hour long culture class that meets Wednesday mornings. The first week of classes were really hard becuase I havent had a Japanese class in almost a year, so I have a lot of catching up to do.
I will write more later... hearts and hugs
Court

1 WEEK

Yes my friends and family, in 1 week I will be on a plane for 13 hours to Sapporo Japan. I am stressing out! I have four more finals left and I will be done with my junior year of College ( I cant believe it!!!) I am studying like crazy so I dont think about the scary journey ahead of me. Im excited (dont get me wrong) but at the same time I think I will feel better when I get there and know that I have my luggage and what not. I have no idea how Im gonna fit all my stuff into one suitcase and a carry on haha. Im just glad that this isnt my first long flight. I met some girls that are going with me. Giselle (ok I probably spelled her name wrong) and the larger group (7 total) left this morning and the remanding three of us are leaving next sunday. The two main things Im worried about now: 1) language (making sure I know what Im doing) and 2) making sure that my luggage actually makes it to Japan this time. (last time it didnt :-( so hopefully we dont have a repeat of what happened last trip *knock on wood)... Hopefully I will be able to either take a kendo class or join the kendo club when I get there.

More later, now back to studying

Court