Farewells

It was a week of lots of hard work and an equal amount of slacking off. But I got some study done so all is not lost. I took Monday off because I was shattered but Tuesday saw some real study get done.

School is getting really hot. All the windows and doors are opened and in every class there is a big fan going in the attempt to try and cool us all down. But there is no proper air conditioning. It's an actual portable fan that's circulating the air. But the heat aside, school is good.

I'm studying for the N2 test but we'll see how that goes, turns out that there is a LOT of stuff to study. But I'll do my best and give it a go. 

So I thought the bugs that had invaded my room were big but this kid was casually walking around school the other day carrying around a special type of wasp. The "Suzume-bachi." Suzume means Sparrow and Bachi means bee or wasp. They are scary. Very scary.

Welp

So the Suzumebachi's sting is capable of killing a human. They kill about 30-40 people in Japan every year. I've only seen one and that's enough for me.

Karate on Tuesday went awesome! This time I got the upper hand on Fuyuki but it didn't end too well for either of us. Our first bout went my way, I smashed his legs and landed a few good punches. And he knew it too, cos when we had our second fight he looked at me with revenge in his eyes.

He pushed me around as if I was a punching bag but I managed to take out his legs again.  But he was hitting hard and it was starting to tire me out. He jumped back and spun around for a big back kick. I aimed for his standing leg, the inner thigh to be precise but I missed. My kick was a tad too high and I caught him in the groin. Woops.

He went down in a heap and we could only laugh. I apologised but we both knew that this sort of thing happens all the time. Nothing we could do about it now. He soon got back up and we resumed fighting. But in about 20 seconds, I went for the big kick and his counter was also a bit high. It was a legitimate accident but he got me in the nuts too.

Down in a heap I went this time. We laughed it off but it wasn't all too pleasant at all.

I forgot to mention that from Monday night we had Jordan staying with us. His host Mum had some work commitments or something so he hung out with us. The Nunome family (my current host family) was Jordan's first host family, so it was quite cool that they got to spend some time together before he left.

On Wednesday night we all had sushi for dinner and it was great!

Nothing like raw fish and rice for dinner

The next day was rainy, it turns out it's like, typhoon season or something. So it starts spitting while we're at school (just as we got there) and we here an announcement come over the intercom.

"something something Japanese Japanese something GO HOME something someting"

Smiles broke out all around and we did as we were told. (It wasn't really spitting, it was starting to get quite heavy.) It turns out that this one time a few years ago, it flooded quite bad and kids couldn't get home so my school sends students as soon as it looks like the sky is going to open up.

It didn't, but no one argued.

The train was packed

I got home and slept all day. Karate was called off so I had a big relax day. It was nice!

The big typhoon was supposed to come on Friday but it actually brushed past on Thursday and left us with good weather instead. All the students were clearly disappointed as we had to go to school. I had to leave after 5th period though, we were going to Nagoya.

My host family and I plus Jordan and his host Mum were all going to stay the night in Nagoya so we could see him off the next morning.

We all got in the car and made our way to the city. We arrived at a hotel and immediately went out for dinner. We were having steak!

I'm not a huge steak fan but I'm a fan of huge steak. And that's what we got.

Steak with chopsticks
(That's actually impossible, I know because I tried)

Big!

I don't know how cooked it is. People normally say things like, rare, or medium but I've got no clue.
It was cooked good. Real good.

Host Dad and I

From there we went back to the hotel room and had a drink whilst we talked about Jordan's year. We went to bed early because of an early get up the next day. We did some last minute packing and then hit the hay.

So we got up early and made our way to the airport. We were pretty tired because we were talking for most of the night. That was dumb but we managed to get up and make it on time. 

Once at the airport we had a fast food breakfast and soon enough Jordan was leaving.

Goodbye and good luck from host Mum
I dunno what I'm up to in the back there

Jordan's first host Mum and my current host Mum

If you're not laughing you're crying.

 And just like that, he was off. I did get a bit teary but on the whole it went by smoothly.

I had about three hours to kill before the next exchange student would come and go. So I went to airport's onsen. Nothing like sitting in a big bath with a bunch of naked old men as you watch planes come and go.

There were a bunch of cool mascots walking about so Jake and I got photos with them all.

It might be butter, but we're not sure

I was sad when I grabbed the mascots hand because I could feel a real persons hand. I was actually disappointed.
But you can't stay sad at a smile like that!

This guy was mad though.
Probably because there is a fish on his head.

Eventually Emi came and we saw her off too.

Cool friends
I don't know what to say 

See ya later!

And just like that, they were gone. We couldn't really believe it. I don't really know what to say, it was amazing to meet them and we wouldn't be where we are without them. But our time with them flew by and it doesn't seem right. I've been here for about six months now. Shit.

There is one more "senior" left; Juliette. She leaves on the 27th. After that, it's all us newbies!

After we watched Emi leave, the three of us new kids went and got lost in Nagoya.

We took a train into the main city and it took quite a while. But at one of the earlier stops a whole heap of people got on and there weren't enough seats. I offered the spot beside me to a lady but she just looked at me oddly and then walked off. "Righto then." I thought.

But she came back with her son and sat him down beside me and said to him (in Japanese) "Speak English to this man!" 

But the wee boy was a bit shy so I asked him in English if he could speak English. He did speak a wee bit but soon enough I was talking to this family of four with half the train listening. We talked all the way into the city and it made my day. This family was really friendly and I had a great time just chatting with them.

People are cool.

It was a pretty cool day as well! Well it was until I had to go home.

Osu Kannon
We always go here, there is a mean Turkish kebab shop that we always visit

Looking over the "Sakae" district from atop of a ferris wheel

It was a pretty stunning view

So I bought some mints...
They are grape flavour, it's just some pretty unfortunate packaging. Good laugh though.

I almost missed my train but made it with literally one minute to spare. I had just run through the station and I was sweating and looked like quite a scene but it turns out the train was delayed by 10 minutes.

This wasn't good at all. Not only was I all sweaty for no real reason, but I was going to miss my next train. And I did. Missed it by five minutes. I normally get off the Nagoya train and walk over to the Gifu train. No problem, it all lines up seamlessly.

But not today. I had to wait an extra hour and a half. And when I finally got on that train, we ran over a deer somewhere in the middle of nowhere and had to wait for another half an hour while the train got ready to go again.

I got home at 12:00 on the dot. I went straight to bed and slept all the next day.

That's all I've got for now! Once again, sorry for being late on it.

Until next time!

Hotel shenanigans