I made it to Japan with only a little trouble changing airports, almost getting off at the wrong bus stop, but survived in one piece. I flew over with a bunch of other exchange students (on our 13.5 hour flight), who were mostly from New York and Florida, but we were all spread throughout Japan. I arrived at Aomori Airport around 9:00pm and found 2 Rotary people and a really tall Canadian waiting. I spent the 2 hour car ride chatting with the Canadian about Aomori, Japanese culture and such. I was really surprised by how much Japanese I can understand, but my speaking is still terrible. But, I have a whole year to work on that!
My host family is really nice, I have a father, mother and an older host sister who is a college student in Tokyo, but home for the summer holidays. She took me to see Salt and after we did purikura. After some sightseeing with my host father, I attended a rotary dinner (my welcome party!) and watched fireworks for around 2 hours! Afterwords, I was really tired.
On Monday I got my first cell phone! Japanese cell phones really are the best. I also got fitted for my uniform, which I`ll have next week, for now I am using a borrowed one. Today was my first day of school. After arriving super early, I greeted all the teachers and then went to my class. The first class was English writing, where I had to introduce myself and talk about my hometown (in English) and then answer any questions. Next was ancient Japanese which even Japanese people find challenging so as a foreigner, I understood almost nothing. I made my schedule, or at least part of it, and I am arranged to take French, and some traditional Japanese classes (tea ceremony and calligraphy) as well as Japanese classes once the other American gets here. Then we had history which I also understood very little. After I went to another class to do the same thing as first period. All my classmates are really nice and were happy to help show me around. I hope this will be a good year!
I hope to have pictures next week, the current computer won`t read my sd card.
日本が大好き！ (I love Japan!)
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A Year in Japan 
I’m so happy for you, Katie! I’m so glad things are going well for you. I’ll admit I was a little nervous about that bus trip because I was worried about you being on your own, and it makes me feel better knowing that you got there safely.
Your school sounds very interesting. It’s awesome that you can take a calligraphy course, I’ve always found that really cool. But what is the tea ceremony class about? What do you learn in it?
By the way, I decided to get back into blogging too, so if you want to know what’s going on with me and my wonderfully interesting life at home, just drop by here.
Have fun and be safe! We love you and miss you!
What’s purikura?
Inquiring minds want to know!