日本での一年間 = One Year In Japan: Sunday, January 31 & Monday, February 1, 2010-

What a way to mark the milestone halfway point of my exchange year in Japan. Yesterday I woke up at six in the morning in order to visit Tokyo’s exciting Disney Sea with some of my Rotary friends. Think of Disneyland with a big canal running through the middle of it. I enjoyed a full day of rides, food, laughter, and crowds; what more would you expect from perhaps the most well known international business aimed at entertaining the world’s little ones (yet is one that often ends up amusing the rest of us too)?! I marveled in the incredible name that Disney has become. I have been to Disneyland in California once before, but it’s a different experience once you’re a little bit older. I am glad I was able to go with friends who were so fun loving and young at heart (like my good friend Chisaki in the picture on the right!).

Highlights of the day included a myriad of fast and flashy rides and attractions, a fun dinner in Aladdin’s middle-eastern castle, the Japanese word games we played while waiting in line or on the train, and an illuminated nighttime boat ride through the canal. The park is an entirely different place after dark. The place is nearly as well lit as the daytime, but instead there are rainbows of color cast around from all corners of the tiny Disney realm. I got back home around 11 at night, meaning it was definitely a full day.

The fact that it was my halfway point in Japan provoked a whole flurry of emotions. I sat alone on the train ride back home after waving good-bye to the Rotary kids and it was a much needed twenty minutes just to think. I feel as if I’ve learned so much about myself in the past five and a half months. Parts of it have been absolutely unbelievable, but somewhere deep down inside of me I’m happy to have it behind all me. I struggled much more than I thought I would being away from home, learning to swim for myself even when the current was pushing against me, finally realizing that life can feel a lot like the Titanic sometimes, vast and limitless yet indisputably mortal. Luckily there’s plenty of lifejackets here in real life, people like my family, Sam Weaver, Miki, the Rotary students, Oshima-Sensei, the Kobayashi’s, and more and more people who I am still getting to know. I am glad that I still have five and a half months to experience that.

There’s a giant snowstorm outside right now, and by that I mean an inch or two of snow and a strong wind. Apparently I might not have school tomorrow! Haha, oh the life of never going to school. Now on Friday I’m going to a gift show in Tokyo with Sumie and Hiroshi (my host parents who are the bomb) and we’re going to spend a fun day snatching up as many giveaways as possible. I’m hoping for the traditional American versions of free rulers, free meatballs, free coloring books, backscratchers, and especially bumper stickers (something I have been surprised to find very few of in Japan) I’ll try to stop by before then.

Lines, Lines, Lines!

There were eight of us there. Max and I were the only two current exchange students that could go, but the rest were all either Rotex (past exchange students) or Outbounds (next year's exchangers)

Chisaki and Mioto on the Aladdin Merry-Go-Round (don't worry it was a double decker merry-go-round so it was cool enough for old kids to ride it too...kinda)