My June ♡ (1/2)

こんにちは！ konnichiwa! Hello!
How is everyone?
Im going to split this entry into two posts, because I haven’t written for almost a month (I’m sorry!) And theres alot to talk about. So here’s the first section..I may not get around to writing the next one till after the weekend by the way >_<
And high five for those of you that get the Kpop reference in the title ;D

So I left off last time talking about my super-fun-filled day at Disney Sea. After that I had a full week of rest while the students at my school did their mid-term exams. I spent most of it sleeping in and relaxing, until Friday, when my host Grandma picked me up at around midday. The last time my Grandma took me out it was to Kamakura, as you could find in a previous post, and this time she had an equally beautiful and Japanese-culture-y place to take me.
On the Saturday morning she woke me up early and dressed me up in a Yukata – a traditional Japanese summer dress. It’s similar to a Kimono, which is worn in the winter, but simpler and easier to put on (although it still requires alot of skill and time). We drove to Senkeien, a stunning old Japanese Garden. It was named after it’s owner, who made it open to the public when he lived there long ago. It was huge, the size of a big park, with a lake, many bridges, shops, pathways, different kinds of trees and flowers and a number of traditional Japanese houses and buildings that you could look inside, or even have your wedding recception in. In fact, while we were there, we saw a just-married couple, who were wearing Wedding Kimonos. We walked around the garden admiring the beautiful scenery and took many pictures (and I was stopped quite a few times by people who wanted to take pictures of me – a foreigner wearing a yukata is a rare sight). Here’s a couple of them;

About half way through our exploration of the garden a lovely old Japanese man came up to us and offered to show us around as an ‘unofficial guide’. He seemed to know the garden very well, and I suppose he must spend alot of time there. He showed us around to a section of the garden that Grandma didn’t know was there, a sort of Chinese area, where there were lots of water lillies and a little old gazeebo that was given to the garden by China, and also a Chinese pottery workshop. It was very serene, and we were lucky with the weather, seeing it has entered the rainy season now (although it was extremely hot wearing the yukata, I had to take it off eventually).
We finished our visit with Senkeien Soba (a special noodle dish supposedly made by Senkeien himself), which was delicious, accompanied by seaweed tea (it’s much better than it sounds).

That evening Grandma, Ken (Grandma’s son) and I drove to a huge warehouse/supermarket place. It was like a Pack’n’save and The Warehouse put together, then doubled (for those of you who know those places). There we bought lamb, potato mash (in a packet!), croissants, a huge packet of Hersheys mini chocolate bars, a super size bag of chips and Nutella! Yum yum yum. (I’m still finishing the Hersheys and chips a month later xD). On the way out we each got a big cup of soft serve ice cream. It was the best! We ate the lamb and mash for dinner, in great New Zealand spirit. Delicious!

The following day was an outing in Tokyo. Ken took me to Azabujuban, which is near my school, and we went to the National Market. The National Market is a little supermarket filled with international food, seeing lots of foreigners live in the area. There we bought Vegemite! Yeeeeahh!! Our next stop was Ginza, which is pretty much the center of Tokyo, and we walked up and down the main street, window shopping in the many stores there. All of it was miles too expensive for me, but it was enjoyable anyway. The Japanese really love their famous brands, like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel etc. There was also a shop there that has apparently been in the same kind of business for 350 years or something – if it’s true that’s pretty impressive. They sold traditional Japanese items, like fans, cards, little wooden toys, designed paper and calligraphy equipment.

After we’d finished in Ginza we took the train to Akihabara, were we met with Anna, who is Ken’s daughter. She’s in her twenties and is an enthusiastic otaku! She took me to three different shops that every otaku must know about. The first was Animate, which I went to last time I was in Akihabara – jam packed with manga, anime, merchandise and drawing equipment – the second was a doujinshi (fanfiction) store. Fanfiction is (in this case) manga written by manga-fans that parody mangas. Alot of it is romance orientated, where a fan will write a fanfic about two characters (and I mean ANY two characters, if you get my drift o_o) in a manga that they think should be in a relationship. I was surprised at how good it was, and how much of it there was. The third place was Jump Store, which is a shop dedicated to selling Jump merchandise. Jump is a publishing company that handles many of the most famous shounen (action) manga, such as Naruto and One Piece.

For dinner we went to a little resteraunt where I ate sweet and sour Karaage (chicken balls. No not that kind of–ugh, geez). It was delicious, but I was so full afterwards I could hardly walk. All in all, it was a fun (if tiring) day! Here’s a couple of pictures~

[The watermellon in Japan is absolutely divine. Mmm yum]

[A doll Grandma made for me out of a glove and real Kimono fabric. I called her Aka-chan. Aka means red and chan is like a cute version of ‘miss’, but ‘Aka-chan’ is also the Japanese for ‘Baby’]

A week later, on Sunday the 16th of June (which also happens to be Japanese Father’s Day), Sophie and I (the girl I went to Disney Sea with) went to Harajuku for a day of shopping! In the morning I took the train from my house to Hiyoshi station, then Meguro station, then took the Yamanote line to Harajuku, all by myself, for the first time! Of course I take the train by myself to school every morning, but this was the first time for me going somewhere other than school without someone to help, and I was very proud! Since then I’ve gone to a bunch of other places by myself and I’m discovering that public transport isn’t so scary and difficult afterall, isn’t independance great!

We started the day by looking at second hand shops on Harajuku street, but Sophie didn’t have any cash with her, so we then spent the following three hours (no joke) searching for an ATM that would accept her card, seeing almost no shops in Harajuku take cards (in the end we walked all the way to Aoyama – the next district over – and back). Finally we found one in the center of Harajuku, almost where we started, but it was pretty fun walking around anyway. We saw much more of Harajuku that we would have, and got free samples of Danish cheesecake from a small bakery in Aoyama. We spent the next four hours – until seven o’clock when I had to go home – shopping all around Harajuku. Sophie bought a couple of second hand items, and I bought some things from Takeshita Dori (the main shopping street of Harajuku) including a cap that has ‘BOY’ written across the front and ‘GIRL’ written under the peak. We had dinner at McDonalds, and I was more surprised than I should have been that my Double Cheese Burger tasted exactly the same as it did in NZ..
By the time I got home my feet were killing me, but it was a good day out!

My next topic the Senior One Conference, which was a camp for my year level that took place on Thursday and Friday the 20th and 21st of June. It was called a conference because the idea was to discuss important topics, such as our futures, friendship and (being a Christian school) God. What really happened was we spent most of our time talking, lying on our beds (or in most cases it was lying on each other on one bed) or tearing around the camp building playing tag, a game I thought I would never play again after becoming a teenager. But hey, this is Japan!
For breaks inbetween the playing we listened to an hour long speech each day about something important (goodness knows what) and had delicious meals provided by the camp staff. I think the best thing I gained from the camp was a deeper friendship with my friends, which is always a good thing! On the thursday evening, after using the communial bath, we all got together and played games as classes (there are five classes in Senior one, by the way). One was an egg-and-spoon race with the added difficulty of having to duck under a rope halfway through, and the second was a game where everyone lies down in a circle and links arms, then a few people have to try and break the circle by pulling on the lying-down-people’s legs. It was heaps of fun!
At the end of the second day we took the bus back to school and watched the movie Enchanted on the built-in t.v screens. On the ride there we watched Simon Birch, which I must admid was kinda weird..but it had a good message, I suppose :P
Here are a few photos!

[Outside the camp building, about to head home]

[Some of my closest friends and me being totally crazy]

[My class playing that circle game. I’m in the top right of the picture, wearing my signature purple jumper]

And that concludes the first half of this update. Here’s a temporary parting gift, and a taster for the second half!

[Only in Japan :P]

Boys and Flowers, Sports, Mountains and a Sea of Disney

Okay hi!
So the title may be slightly misleading..but it basically sums up the four fantastic fabulously fun (alliteration!) things I have to talk about in this post.

Warning: Spoiler alert for some of the rides and attractions at Tokyo Disney Sea.

The first is the day of Thursday the 23rd of May. The previous two days I had been staying at Oonishi san’s house because my host family had to go to Osaka on short notice, and so I’d been feeling a little stressed out (although Oonishi san’s house is very relaxing and comfortable! Thank you for taking care of me for those two days! The food was great (๑´ڡ`๑) ). Then on Wednesday afternoon I got a mail (did I mention that they use email on their cellphones here instead of text? Which means there’s internet everywhere..handy..) from Sophie, who’s another exchange student in my chapter from Denmark. At the time she had no school because of exams, and so she invited me to go to an Ikebana class with her the following day! Ikebana is Japanese flower arrangement with the aim of being simple yet beautiful. So I left school just before lunch on Thursday and took the train to Den-en-chofu, where I met Sophie and we had lunch at a French bakery. Sophie’s host Mum then drove us to our Ikebana class and we learnt about balancing the height and proportions of each flower to make it look even and having lots of flowers in the right places and few where it needed to be kept simple. It was very interesting! The end result was a beautiful bouquet of pink and purple flowers and long green leaves like flax, which we were able to take home.

But the fun didn’t finish there! Afterwards Sophie’s Mum had to take a class (she’s an English teacher at Keio University – which is a pretty prestigious university in Tokyo), so we tagged along! We were both still in our school uniforms at this point, and all the university students were in mufti (their own clothes) so as you can imagine, being two foreigners in Japanese school uniforms, we got a few stares..but that’s nothing new. Actually I’m not really allowed to wear my school uniform outside of school..shhh ( ･`ω･´) So the class was split into four groups, and throughout the lesson Sophie and I rotated seperately around the groups, talking to the students, answering their questions and asking some of our own. It was really fun! We talked about our hobbies, what we were hoping to be when we were older (one guy said “go on a diet” when I asked what he wanted to do when he left uni, haha xD). And there were boys! Such a foreign concept for my All-Girls-School mind! One of them said I looked like Britney Spears! (Patrica you’re not alone!! Ugh!). So that was very interesting. I was surprised that all of them were practically fluent, because it’s mandatory to take English at Keio.

Then at the end of the day there was one final surprise! After the class was over Sophie’s Host Mum announced that we were going to eat dinner at an Itallian restaraunt, and that two of the boys from her class would be joining us! She still had some work to clear up, so she gave us instructions to catch a taxi to the restaraunt and said she would meet us there later. Thankfully Sophie is a professional smalltalker so  the atmosphere was kept light and funny, and we chatted more about our home countries (Denmark and New Zealand) and how they’re so different from Japan (actually Denmark and New Zealand are kinda similar I think). Netty and Yasu (the uni boys) are both seniors and both want to be Trading Company Employees when they’ve finished university, so that they can travel and live abroad. Apparently it’s a reasonably common career for Keio students, and actually Netty already has a job in a company.
So once Sohpie’s Mum arrived we started eating the first of a four course dinner! Two starters (nibbles then pasta and risotto), the main course (various meats including delicious lamb) and dessert (some kind of cake). I was so stuffed by the end, there was no way I could have finished it all. Sophie’s host mum ended up giving portions of her food to Netty and Yasu to eat, but somehow Sophie managed to eat all of her food.. (O_O);; and the waiter there who served us was so cool! He could speak Japanese, English and Itallian, and he kept making these random jokes that had us cracking up. All in all the day was so fun and a nice break from every-day life (・∀・)

Between then and now nothing much out of the ordinary happened. During class one day I was so bored I drew up a floor plan of entire school, then at the beginning of last week I caught a cold and had to take two days off school. Apparently it’s very common for exchage students to get sick around the two month point, and anyway it wasn’t very bad, I’m just shaking off the remainder of a cough now. I’ve been a bit slack on keeping up with my diary recently, and have been writing about days two days later, but it’s fine..
At the moment there’s another exchange student at my school. Her name is Tabitha, she’s from England and she’s here for a month. Her mother is Japanese, which is why she’s interested in Japan. She’s also joined the Kendo club, but I haven’t had a chance to practise with her yet because there’s no club during exam period (which lasts two weeks – last week and this week. I get this week off school).
I also mentioned in a previous post (I think) that every wednesday I spend an hour with the school councillor, Shiotani Sensei. My visits to her are always fun. The week before last we went into the Chapel to investigate the three windows at the back of the stage which, from where I sit during morning service, look fake. There’s always this weird blue light shining from the bottom that never moves. It turns out they’re real! But the wall is fake! There’s a gap then a real wall behind it with another window, which is where the light comes from, presumably so you can get from one side of backstage to the other without being seen. Last week during my visit there we went searching for a staircase that leads to the roof. I was curious if it was possible to get onto the roof, because so many buildings in Japan have a roof exit, and in Manga there’s always a scene on a school rooftop. Turns out the only way to get onto the roof is by an outside ladder (which you’d have to jump to get onto) that leads onto the Gym roof. I think it’s just an emergency exit ladder. But from my classroom I can see that the university building (I think thats what it is) that’s part of my school has a roof exit. Ahh iina~ (I envy them~).

My next main topic is Saturday the 1st of June (pinch and a punch for the first of the month!). This was the beginning of the weekend just past, a really busy and fun-filled weekend for me. Saturday was the Day of Midori’s School’s Sports Festival. In Japan a sports festival is a huge event for a school. It’s kinda like athletics day, but usually only involves relay running and a bunch of Japanese Sports games that the whole school gets invloved in. During these days you can really see the Japanese fighting spirit and team work. They really give it their all; each team wears t-shirts and head bands of their colour, they paint banners, flags, come up with cheer dances and chants and everyone is so enthusiastic. The day was really hot and me, my host Mum, host Dad and host Grandma were sitting out in the sun on a picnic mat the whole day watching the events.
For some more context: Midori’s school is a Junior high school, which includes three years from ages 12 to 14. There’s a senior high school attatched but the two schools have nothing to do with one another and the students do not have to go from the junior high school to the senior high school, although most do. (My school, Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin, is a combined junior and senior high school). Midori is a third year, so in her last year of Junior high, and this was her last sports festival for this school. The third years wore custom printed t-shirts and also performed an extra cheer dance infront of everyone to encourage their koohai (younger year level students). There are four classes in the school – class A, B, C and D – and each had a colour – Yellow, Red, Blue and Green respectively. Midori is in class A, Yellow team.
The day started off with the students all warming up, then singing the Japanse national anthem. Then next up was the first year relays, then second years, then third years. Midori is in the Track and Field club, so she can run really fast! It was impressive! Although still Yellow ended up coming last at the end of the relays..
Over the day they played lots of really cool games, with two teams versing one another at a time, then the losers versing and the winners versing. There were variations of tug of war; one where the students had to start out by hoolahoop skipping or sack racing to a certain point then running to the center of the field and teaming up to tug a number of short ropes to their team’s side. Another where there were three long ropes and the girls had to battle against one another, then a third where the boys had to start out lying face down on their side of the field then sprint to the middle when the gun fired and tug the small ropes back to their sides. In the end yellow team was the best at tug of war and it pushed them up to third place.
Another game was a race, where at one end of the field there was a group holding up a pole with a flag on the top and at the other end there was a group that had to get one guy from there to the other side without him touching the ground, where he would then have to climb the pole and snatch the flag. The guy would walk across the other’s backs as they kept running around to make a continuous path for him. It was impressive how well it worked, and the walking guys only fell off a couple of times.

The third game was kinda like bullrush. One team wore tags on their shorts and their aim was to get to the other side of the field and steal the opposing team’s frisbees, which were in a line on the ground, while the defending team had to try a protect their frisbees by snatching the opponent’s tags. Once a person had lost both their tags they were out. They also did a variation on this game, where while the teams were running around stealing frisbees and snatching tags, there were teams of four on the sidelines doing something else. One guy would be lifted up by the other three guys, like he was sitting on a horse, and he had an extra long bandana tied around his head. The two teams of four would approach each other, then the whistle would blow and the guys standing up would try and grab each other’s bandanas. Each fight was over really quickly, and often ended in a draw, but I was surprised at how they launched themsleves at the opponent, not afraid of falling down. Another thing the Japanese school sports festival shows is loyalty and trust to one’s team mates, which was really inspiring for me.
Later in the year I’ll go to the sports festivals of my fellow exchange student’s schools, and my own will be held on the 12th of October, so I’m really looking forward to it!

The following day, Sunday the 2nd of June, I went hiking with the AFS Toyko chapter. We climbed Mt. Takao, and were joined by the Japanese students who’ll be going on their exchanges from this summer (although my next family’s host brother wasn’t there. Did I mention about that? I found out that my next host family has a sister in uni and a brother my age who is going to Equador just before I arrive, so I may or may not meet him. Apparently he’s really into playing soccer). The previous night Sophie stayed over at my house, so we caught the train to Shinjuku station in the morning to meet up with everyone else. Mt. Takao was so beautiful and refreshing and the hiking wasn’t very hard. I took lots of photos but they’re all on my camera!
While we were walking I talked to the Japanese students a bit and most of them are going to America, and they all have very good English. I had lunch with the girls and Helena, who’s from Iceland, and we became good friends. I had a squished sandwich and a slice of cake for lunch..so I scabbed some food off other people. Ufufufu.
I think my favorite part of the day was when we reached the summit of Mt. Takao and there was a beautiful shrine with Tengu (Japanese gods with bird wings and beaks) statues. From the top of the mountain you could look out over Tokyo, it was amazing..
We then took the chairlift back down the mountain (and they didn’t have safety bars over them, scary..) then the train home. On the train I slept a bit and listened to three of the boys arguing about whether Superman or Goku (from Dragonball Z) would win in a fight (personally I think Goku would own Superman :P).
Here are some photos! Sorry for the quality again (=_=;)

(A Sign! The Japanese reads “Takao San” which means Mt. Takao)

(AFS Tokyo Chapter!)

(Tengu Statues and some..tombstones..I think..?)

(The summit of Mt. Takao, a view out over Tokyo..kinda)

(The Chairlift back down the mountain)

The last day, Monday the 3rd of June, was the funnest of all. Me, Sophie, Midori and my Host Mum Yoshino, went to Tokyo Disney Sea!!! It was incredible! TDC is like Disney Land, but Japan is the only place that has a Disney Sea (it’s more water-based than Land).
We got up at 5.30 in the morning and Drove to TDC by 8.00 to get in line for the opening at 8.30, because the earlier you get there the more rides you can go on. Fortunately we were there during a weekday, but it’s insanely busy on the weekends and public/school holidays. In the afternoon the lines to the rides can get up to four hours long! Unlike little old Rainbows End in New Zealand TDC has a clock outside every ride showing how long the line is, and they offer a ton of different flavors of popcorn (caramel, apple cinnamon, salt, etc) to eat while you’re waiting in line. You can also get a ‘fastpass’, which is a ticket that you get for a particular ride which allows you to come back a few hours later and go down the fast lane.
So when we got in the gates Midori and I ran to ‘The Mysterious Island’ to get fastpasses for the ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ ride. Then seeing the line was only 10 minutes long at that time we decided to ride it too. What was cool was that even the line was part of the attraction, to keep people from getting bored and leaving I suppose. It was a line through an underground cavern, with cabinets of drilling instruments and plans, with the lights dim and flickering and huge metal drill columns to keep the roof up. At one point we had to go in an elevator that went down, and the line continued from there, on a ramp that was supported above a smoky abyss that seemed to continue into the earth forever.
I think the best thing about TDC wasn’t even the rides, it was the actual theme park. They had created a whole world, and every little detail was payed attention to. They really didn’t cut corners with the decorating. They built entire volcanoes and mountains for the Mysterious Isaland (Journey to the Center of the Earth), oceans, ships and docks for Port Discovery, a cruise ship and a castle for American Waterfront, palaces and an Arabian bazaar for the Arabian Coast (Aladin), pyramids, a plane wreck, anicent ruins and jungle for the River Delta (Indiana Jones), a huge coral reef and ‘underwater’ world for Mermaid Lagoon (The Little Mermaid) and entire towns for each area. It was so elaborate and perfect, not a thing looked out of place. Even the staff costumes were fitting. It felt like I was in the game Kingdom Hearts! For those of you who know it :D
As for the actual Journey to the Center of the Earth ride, it was great! It was a kind of roller coaster down into the earth, and we rode past glowing plants and weird creatures and at one point a huge animatronic (thats a word right?) dragon monster thing that looked so real and huge and everyone screamed when it roared and clawed at the car, then we raced through the dark around corners and there was fire and lightning and one really fast downhill drop. Uwaa it was fantastic.

After that ride Midori and I met with Sophie again and walked to the attraction called Tower of Terror in the American Waterfront. It’s like The Fear Fall in Rainbows end but 1000 times more amazing. I never wanted to go on the fear fall ’cause I was a wuss, but when I did go on it it was fun! And this was even better! The line was already an hour long by that point, but Yoshino had held a place in line so we got to jump to the front. This attraction was based on Lord Hightower and his possessed Totem pole thing, and the line went through his house where he had ancient collections from all over the world – sarcophagi from Egypt, tons of crates with ‘danger’ or ‘do not drop’ written on them, artifacts in boxes, and this huge stone goblin’s head thing that was hanging from the roof by chains. And the place was really run-down. There was dust everywhere, the floor and walls were broken in places, staircases were falling apart, windows smashed, lights flickering. It created great atmosphere. Eventually we got into the elevator and were seated, and the cage started shaking and shot up (everyone screamed) and the doors opened to show a mirror, then a screen with the possessed totem pole talking about something in Japanese, then it shot to the very top and you could see out over the park through a huge smashed window, then — shooo! It dropped suddenly, and stopped suddenly, and went up again, and dropped all the way down. Ahaha it was so fun! Your legs and arms lifted into the air, and everyone screamed everytime it dropped. It think screaming makes rides like that even more fun.

(The four of us with the Tower of Terror in the background)

At the end of the Tower of Terror we bought some Minnie Mouse headbands from the store. That’s another thing that’s different about TDC, they have stores attatched to the end of pretty much every ride packed full of Disney Merchandise, then at the entrance/exit to the park they have a whole town dedicated to shops. When you go to Disney you have to wear something Disney – a t-shirt, head band, glasses, hat, whatever. Everyone does. We bought headbands, which actually weren’t very expensive. When I think about it, Disney must make an insane amount of money every day..but then, it would cost an insane amount of money to keep the place running. It’s genious :D

(Headbands :D)

We next went back to Journey to the center of the earth and used our fast passes (by that time the line was an hour and 40 minutes long) to get on quickly. It was even better a second time around. Then we walked to the River Delta to get fastpasses for the Temple of the Crystal Skull ride, which we could use after 2.30pm.

(A pyramid!)

We had lunch at the Yucatan Base Camp Grill (a super fatty meat patty covered in gravy and cheese sauce, rice, vegies, salad and vanilla icecream. Omg best lunch of my life) then explored the rest of the park. We rode the Caravan Carousel in the Arabian Coast (a merry-go-round) and saw Mickey and Minnie performing a show in the palace courtyard.

(Caravan Carousel)

(Mickey and Minnie)

(The Palace at the Arabian Coast)

Then looked around Mermaid Lagoon and in Ariel’s Playground where we befriended a bored little boy who decied to give us a tour of the place, it was funny xD

(The outside of Mermaid Lagoon)

(The inside of Mermaid Lagoon)

(Prince Charming in Ariel’s Playground xD)

Then went on Aquatopia at Port Discovery (which was the most pointless ride ever, but also the most halarious. It was a boat that spun around and jerked forward and backward around rocks and whirlpools on a few inches of water. Haha, Sophie and I couldn’t stop laughing). We also ate iceblocks while lining up for that ride, because it was only half an hour long, and there was a group of tween boys behind us in line trying to muster up the courage to talk to us (which they never did), which we thought was cute until Midori later told us that they had been taking to each other about how Sophie and I were so cute and pretty but Midori was just plain and ugly, and then we felt like running them over with our retarted twirling boat. Argh, it makes me so mad.

(This random twirling structure at Port Discovery, and you can see the Mysterious Island’s Volcano on the right)

(Iceblock!)

Then it was time to go to the Temple of the Crystal Skull! On the way we bought Caramel popcorn, which was delicious..they have these special disney-themed buckets that you can buy, which are kinda expensive, but you can also bring previously bought ones and refills are pretty cheap.

(Yummmmm)

It actually turned out that Temple of the Crystal Skull was one of the scary rides, not a fast roller coaster one, which had I known I would have run away..but I didn’t and I ended up riding it.

(Me pissing my pants. This is the best picture ever, ecpecially seeing Yoshino on the right actually managed to pose..kinda creepily..and we were lucky(?!) to get front row seats! At this point there was a huge boulder threatening to roll off a ledge in front of us and squish us, I was pretty freaked out)

In the end it was actually really fun though, and I’ve resolved to ride all of the scary rides at Rainbows End next time I go in New Zealand. I think that’s the Log Flume and the Gold Mine one..
And that was the last ride we went on! I would have loved to ride the Raging Spirits Roller Coaster in the River Delta that had a 360 degree loop, but the line was 2 hours long m(_ _;)m oh well, next time!
We then took the Disney Sea Electric Railway from Port Discovery to American Waterfront, where we filled one of our popcorn buckets with Apple Cinnamon Popcorn, and had afternoon tea at the Teddy Roosevelt lounge, which was on the cruiseship! The food (beef sandwich and chocolate cake) was delicious. After that we went shopping for half an hour at the shopping town and I bought a new case for my train pass with Donald and Daisy Duck on it plus a bag of candy for my school friends (it seems to be that if you go to Disney Land/Sea you’re expected to buy souvenirs for your friends. It was really cheap though, like $5).

(At the end of our awesome day)

Then, at 4.00, it was time to go! On the way home Sophie, Midori and I took Purikura as a memory to keep of our day, then had dinner at a totally legitimate Ramen bar! Y’know, like the ones you see in Manga, which are slightly down from street level, with curtains across the door and you sit at the bar and slurp your ramen which the chef made right in front of you. Wow it was delicious. That night I got to bed so early, I was wrecked..

Aaand that was the end of my totally awesome weekend! Now I have a week of school during exams, and my host Grandma might take me someplace.
I’ll leave everyone with the best two commercials on the planet!
The Western one!
The Japanese one!

Bye! ♡