A journal, too.

Three days ago, I suddenly got the impulse to write down my thoughts in my notebook (I know, it surprised me too) for later use when I had access to my computer. Here's the results of three days of writing:

28/8/09
Friday

It's 10 o'clock in the evening, I'm laying in bed, doing nothing more than think of the one most dear to me.

Tomorrow the two remaining students living in this family will leave (Alex left today already). I've recently been informed that I won't be moving to my next family before monday, which is the same day I visit my school, the day before it starts. All of the other students already know which family they will move into and have already visited their schools. I feel kind of left out.

I made more friends than I thought these three weeks (which have passed with blazing speed) and now I realize that I won't meet the majority of them ever again. That's a pity.

It gets dark so early here, the days are short. The sun goes down before six and rises again by 5 (which makes it hard to sleep in the morning). There is not much time to get things done during the days, it's mostly travelling here and travelling there all the time. My legs ache every night from standing for hours on the train and my shoulder hurts a bit after carrying my bag while standing there (but I bet it's good for me).

*random whining part that was omitted*

Living in what's more or less a forest is pretty scary, there are lots of spiders here (and arachnophobia is not one of my good attributes) and I've seen quite a few other things, like lizards (tiny ones), a snake (though it was dead, but Alex once saw a live one), a mantis (those things are huge!) and loads of different creepy insects (not to mention the cicadas). Needless to say there is a lot of noise from the outdoors.

I've been writing for half an hour, which is pretty impressive since I've never managed to keep a diary in any form before (I did'nt even plan on having one while here), though my handwriting is still horrible as ever (it's a pain to transcribe this, by the way).
As inspiration is filling up my existance and I am in desperate need of distracting my thoughts from all the things I left in Sweden, I'll keep writing about anything that comes to mind.

Oh yeah, I wanted to write about this long ago: Last tuesday (18th), the organization took us students to a furin maker.
Furin are those Japanese wind bells you see every once in a while in manga and anime. We all got one glass bell each and then we got to paint it. From the inside, which was apparently a clever method to paint them with.
I did'nt really know what to paint so I just made a few random things, I will probably take pictures of it at some point (or just send it home, or both). I've been really bad with taking pictures while over here, I better shape up and do that more often in the future.

Japanese food is kind of a yay or nay to me, either I like it or I dislike it (there is no in between). For example, I really love the whole "pan" thing here in Japan, they've got billions of different tastes for their bread. So for lunch every day I used to buy two different pans and a random drink (they had loads of different drinks too, but I tended to buy a pineapple juice every once in a while, it was just so good), it was both fun, tasty and really cheap. Awesome.
However, I noticed to my great dissappointment that I don't like seaweed (and believe me, I tried), so onigiri and the likes are a no-no to me. But oh well, at least it seems like I'm able to eat enough of the Japanese food to stay alive.

Funny coincidence, the very evening of the day I wrote that long blog entry (that sunday you know) my host family took me and the others to a sushi restaurant, along with their son, his wife and his daughter (who is adorable, by the way). I gracefully avoided eating any raw fish while there and instead got some tamago sushi (egg sushi), ham sushi, a slice of honey melon and a big bowl of Japanese udon. It was all quite tasty.
The sushi restaurant itself was very interesting. The food arrived on a "rullband" (there is no English word for it, as far as I know) and you simply picked the food you wanted from it. The portions were very small so you could try many different things. You could also make special orders and the food would soon arrive on the band with your table's number on it (as with my udon). In the end, I had about six empty plates on top of each other in front of me, with a nearly empty bowl of udon by the side. However, the others ate like 12 plates each, plus three or four side orders. I was pretty amazed by their capacity.

This will have to be it for tonight. I can't belive I just wrote 3 1/2 pages just on impulse. I can see how my mood changed over time (which is pretty interesting). But now I must go to sleep, there is a busy day of cleaning, laundry and goodbyes tomorrow. I hope I won't have troubles sleeping.


29/8/09
Saturday

I'm in the bed again, listening to music on my cellphone. It's about 5 o'clock and I'm very lonely. The girls left today, they did'nt even say goodbye, they were simply gone. It was very mean of them to do that.

I finally got to know about my new family today. They're a family of four, the kids are five and seven years old and the parents are in their thirties (so they know English, yay!). They live in an apartment about 50 minutes from the school by train, not bad at all (by Japanese standards). I'll only be staying there for 2 1/2 weeks, so it seems like my family finding troubles are'nt over just yet.

This day has passed so much slower than any of the prior days. I've done all I can to make time pass but the pointers of the clock just won't move. At least I can proudly say I've done a lot of chores today, and I've taken enough pictures to please the entire population of columbia.
I also joined my host father for a brief visit to his restaurant (apparently he owns a restaurant, who whould've known). It was a nice place, with a display of old cameras in the window and Jazz music playing from an LP in the background.

*I must stop here, I just have 10 minutes by the computer left and I need to write some other stuff*

Today is monday and therefore the day I leave and the day I visit my school. That's going to be interesting. I'll be going with my (soon-not-to-be) host father to the station in 40 minutes and they want me to leave the computer in ten.

I feel pretty confident about the school and the host family even sent me a welcoming mail with pictures, so I'm not worried about that either.

Unfortunately, I don't know when I can reach a computer again, this might be the last you hear of me in a while. But know that I'm still here with exciting stories to tell as soon as I get the chance to.

I miss everyone so much, but most of all I miss you.