Day 19 : Good bye Japan!

ホストファミリーの皆様ありがとうございました！

Thank you so much ！We appreciate it very much!

Cheemeng wont the Hiyoshigi

with Hostfamily

These two guys (Mr. Komaki and Takamura)have been helping our Japan since 2000!

Last minasan (everyone) time  at Haneda (Tokyo ) Airport

Day18: TokyoSkytree and free time in Tokyo

Tokyo Skytree! Evan, Erin, Alex ,Douachee and Maixia went up to the Tokyo Sky tree.

From the top

Then LAST free time!

Douachee: I met up with my Japanese friend, Yuzuki. We caught up with each other and ate a cute parfait at a Cafe.

Ada: At the bottom of the Tokyo Sky Tree was the Kirby Cafe, with an adorable statue outside of Kirby and Waddle Dee !

LaurenWe went to a store where you can buy figures to assemble yourself. I bought a hatsune miku one that looks like a robot! I'm excited to get to build it myself.

Cael:I hung out with Lauren’s host family and even helped cook

April :I stayed in Kasukabe and hung out with Jet’s host family. We went shopping, cooked lunch together and played lots of games!

Timmy:We went to a mall and walk lots a clothing and anime figures. We also walked around Shibuya again and saw lots of cool posters and ate Kebabs.

Cheemeng:We went to a karaoke and sang many different songs from Backstreet Boy to Wonder Direction to Queens to Kpop songs.Also ate kebab and fries but they were long and crispy. But a little salty.

Jet:We went to a mall and walk lots a clothing and anime figures. We also walked around Shibuya again and saw lots of cool posters and ate Kebabs.

We went to a store where you can buy figures to assemble yourself. I bought a hatsune miku one that looks like a robot! I'm excited to get to build it myself.Pls use this image and not the other one

Erin: Alex, Evan and I went to the Nintendo store, the pokemon center, and the capcom store in shibuya.

Evan:A small group of 5 of us went to the sky tree then Alex, Erin and I all went to Shibuya to go to the Nintendo, Capcom and Pokemon store. I got to make a custom shirt at the Pokemon Center!

Maixia: Douachee and I went to Korean Town in Shin-Okubo where we both had lunch at a K-pop restaurant which was really tasty! We then split up and I got to go on a haul where I bought some good k-pop photos (about 500-800 yen)

Day17: Hostfamily day again

Sunday We spent time with hostfamily. 

Jet: We played water guns outside. It was a very hot day

Douachee:We went to otome road and saw a lot of cosplayers. There was a huge animate store and I bought some manga

CheeMeng: We watched my host sister perform Yosakoi at Waseda University.

Timmy:We made homemade gyoza which I think tasted better than any that I’ve had at restaurants.

Collin:We ate some lunch at a local restaurant and then went hiking together in the Ryuokyo Valley.

April, Mia Xia and I all did hanabi in the afternoon and wore yukatas.

Erin, April and I had fun together in the evening doing hanabi and playing the watermelon game (where you try to hit the watermelon while blindfolded).

Gage:me and my host family went out to eat at an all-you-can-eat type restaurant where they serve you different pizzas.

Alex:We went to a huge shopping mall. We did some shopping, ate food and went to an arcade.

April:For lunch my host family and I went to a nice restaurant and had yakiniku, where you order which types of meat you want and grill it yourself at the table! It was very yummy.

Evan:We went to Jaxa and got to see so much history on Japans endeavors in space! It was very fun!

Lauren:My host families got me a miku cake!! We had a nice dinner together and took lots of group photos.

Ada: My host family and I went to a bakery and picked out some different specialty breads! Indoor seating was closed so we walked to a nearby mall and sat outside to eat.  We all had a great time! Thank you very much for the hostfamily!

Day16: Asakusa and Akihabara

Today's breakfast is Mr. Doughnut !

Akihabara (Many shops and establishments devoted to anime and manga are dispersed among the electronic stores in the district)report!

Erin and Alex: There was an intersection that a whole bunch of billboards on the buildings when we were walking to book off. Akihabara had a lot of anime and tech stores on every street. We went to a 6 story book off too!!!

Ada: Inside the Akiba information center was a gallery of artwork from La Rose de Versailles. Pictures weren't allowed but the art was very beautiful!

Timmy: There were a lot of cool anime and manga stuff there. Lots of stores, figures, dvd’s, and restaurants available.

Jet:We ate at a maid cafe. The place was very cute and the maids entertained us.

Douachee : GiGO is an arcade that we went to and Evan beat me at a rhythm game.

April : We ate at Mos burger ( a famous Japanese burger shop) After lunch, Alex, Erin and I went to an arcade.   We came back to the first hostfamily. It has been 10 days since we left the family.  We have a lot of story to tell!

Day 15: Back to Tokyo,Giburi Museum and Karaoke

We left Hiroshima at 6 am to be back to Tokyo by Shinkansen 

Ada: At 6:20am we boarded the Hikari 500 shinkansen, or bullet train bound for Tokyo. In five hours, we traveled over 800 kilometers, or roughly 500 miles. When I looked on a map, I realized we had practically traveled across the entire main island and back! Riding the bullet train is very fun, you can see little towns nestled into forests, large cities, and the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, all in mere seconds. After arriving back in Tokyo, we dropped off our backpacks at the Tokyo W Inn. It feels great to have a literal weight lifted from your shoulders.

at the Giburi Museum

Lauren:After getting off of the shinkansen (bullet train), we went to the Studio Ghibli museum. Studio Ghibli is a popular Japanese animation studio, known for films such as My Neighbor Totoro.

The museum had exhibits based off of locations in their films, and featured concept art, sketches and animations. There was also a gift shop where we could get plushies of our favorite Studio Ghibli characters!

 My favorite part was seeing the giant robot replica on the roof.

Cael: After the thinking museum we went to cooking street, a street known for its cookware. Unfortunately we got there when a lot of the shops were closed. After that we went to an informal restaurant. We had fried chicken, pizza, gyoza, cheese sticks with seaweed, fries, and sausages. We talked about our favorite parts of the trip such as our favorite place we went as a group, our favorite Japanese foods, and our favorite place we went with our host families. Then we talked about what surprises us most about Japan, such as places in smaller towns not taking credit cards.

After all that we went and sang karaoke with songs such as piano man, forget you, September  ,and we didn’t start the fire. After that we were all pretty tired so after a quick conbini (convince store) stop and shower it was right to bed

at Karaoke Box

in Asakusa -Senso-ji temple

Day 14 Hiroshima peace park , Miyajima Island and Okonomiyaki Restaurant

 Hiroshima peace park!

April:This morning we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

In front of Sadako Statue

These places are made in memorial for those lost in the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and those who were lost due to the aftermath.

The museum contains articles of clothing and personal objects from those effected. It also contains art pieces and photographs of the bombing.

Cael tried a raw egg with rice.

We had a nice group lunch at Japanese restaurant ( Otyoya-Gohan)

"Alex? Where are you?" -Evan. "In front of you." -Me. "Where's that??" -Evan. "I don't know, maybe go forward?!" -Me. That was the string quotes we got while going through a pitch black tunnel at a shrine on the Miyajima island. We took a ferry to get here and the island itself was very tourist friendly. There were lots of shops around selling Japanese souvenirs, and a surprising amount of stores selling swords. I ended up buying a pair of chopsticks with my name engraved on them.

at Itukushima Shrine

What a great view ! We could walk through the Shrine gate. We try to enjoy the Miyajima to maximum effect by checking our Miyajima tide table for when we can see the great shrine gate. 

Then ,Daishyo-in(大聖院）

. There were two shrines on the island that we visited, one being more traditional, and the other being a little more fun. The second shrine had the dark tunnel, a temple high up on a hill with a great view, and mist makers throughout. Our island visit was very fun.

Mai Xia:  After visiting the shrines and going through the streets that has lots of souvenirs on the Miyajima island.

 We then headed towards Hiroshima to go eat Okonomiyaki. All of us got the same Okonomiyaki that had bean sprouts, sliced cabbage, pork, and soba noodles in between the egg and flour mixture. 

As sensei had reserved seats for us, we got to see the chefs cook us our Okonomiyaki! Their skills were amazing as they continued cooking the Okonomiyaki. Not only were their skills great, the Okonomiyaki was great as well. It was tasty and the seasonings that were put into the ingredients made it even more delicious!

 After finishing the Okonomiyaki, we then headed towards our free time before calling it a night.