Keeping Busy!

Been a very busy week for me, and haven't had time to update, but I've been doing lots. Last weekend me and the other inbounds went rafting as Niseko, which was great fun and a good bonding opportunity. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures, but there were some pretty good rapids. Thankfully, after my grand canyon trip, they didn't intimidate me much, and I think everyone had a great time. We also got a chance to look around Otaru city, which was really pretty and had some pretty cool merchandise. That same weekend, my host mother took me to a summer festival, which was a lot of fun, and I got to try a few Japanese snacks (and got free cotton candy just for being a gaijin, apparently, perks of being an exchange student!), saw a traditional Shinto shrine and got to watch several troupes doing various styles of Japanese dance.

Some of the festival's colourful dance costumes

This week Rotary also threw me a welcome/early birthday party (I'm seventeen in a couple weeks) during which we had dinner, I gave a presentation on myself and where I come from, and several rotarians gave speeches I couldn't understand much of. While I can keep a decent conversation with my friends from school, formal Japanese is much more of a struggle for me. Many Japanese words have multiple forms for different degrees of politeness, so understanding polite, business Japanese is a bit of a struggle. However, it would seem I have gotten very good at talking about food in my host language, so it's become my go-to conversation topic. 

My early birthday cake, reading Melissa Amelia Lye Happy Birthday. According to my host father, Japan has the best cakes in the world.

Yesterday my host mom took me to Shiroi Koibito park, which contains a lovely rose garden, a few gift shops, some antique displays, and a chocolate factory. The whole place gave off a Willy Wonka vibe, complete with animatronic musical numbers and bubbles. It was a cool place to visit, and I got to try sweet potato soft serve ice cream, which surprisingly tasted much like vanilla. I also got to decorate a Hokkaido shaped cookie.

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School is continuing normally, and I'm still enjoying my classes, especially with my Japanese gradually improving. Reading and writing are still pretty big challenges, especially with kanji, but I have a pretty solid grasp of hiragana and katakana. I'm making friends and having a wonderful time.