I know everytime I post something on this blog, I end up talking about how late it is, how busy I´ve been, and a lots of excuses about why I haven´t posted anything in such a long time. This time, I feel like it´s pretty damn justified. After coming home from the ski trip over a month ago (yikes that is a long time), I have changed families, started schools and adjusted to a much more active school schedule, Rotary meetings and such, plus kyudo practice everyday in preparation for my examination, plus a whole load of other things. Anyway, I had a bit of down time today, so I decided to write for my blog. This is mostly about the Rotary ski trip that I went to in March. It was a blast!
A few days before the ski trip, I met up with Azuki, one of the outbounds in my district, to hang out in Nagoya. Azuki is going to Norway (since then we also learned she´s coming to my town), so we also spent some time studying Norwegian. She had gotten ahold of Norwegian textbooks written in Japanese, which I didn´t even know existed. We also did a lot of shopping, and eating.
Sometimes when shopping you find things that you can´t NOT take pictures with said thing. I was really tempted to buy this banana, it was so soft. Luckily, I realised my money could be spent better.
Purikura. Standard. I wrote Norwegian on some of them this time.
The day before the ski trip, I spent the night at Emma´s place in Gero. We went karaoke-ing, and to the onsen, as is our tradition. We woke up early the next day so the boss could drive us to meet up with the others. I thought that everybody was gonna catch the bus at the same place and ride together, but apparently everyone was already on the bus and were heading to pick us up, cause we live in the boonies and all that. When we got on the bus, there were so many exchange students and I felt really overwhelmed. Luckily, I soon made friends with the kids from the other districts, and we spent the whole three hours bus ride singing loudly and dancing. It was a good time.
Once we arrived in Hakuba (where the 1998 winter Olympics where held), we met even more exchange students. After some mingling, we got checked in and headed straight to the slopes. Honestly, I was quite tired from all the singing/shouting I did on the bus, but I was pumped to go snowboarding.
Shenanigans on the shuttlebus
Group photo of all the exchange students in our ski gear.
We soon got split into snowboarders and skiers. Then further split into groups based on our level. There only six other people in the advanced snowboard group with me. It was a great way to get to know people. Especially since the gondola lift to the top took like fifteen hours. The hill was awesome, and it was so much fun going with other snowboarders for once. I learned loads of tricks.
After a opening ceremony thing with speeches, we watched this hip hop dance performance by a local dance school. The dancers performed in the snow! I go t cold just by looking at it. Afterwards we had dinner and played bingo.
Things got pretty rowdy, which can be expected when you gather over a hundred teenagers from around the world. After dinner and playing a few games, we disappeared into the rooms and did god knows what. Needless to say we were up way past our bedtimes.
We got up early the next day to hit the slopes, and because "sleeping in" isn´t in Rotary´s vocabulary. We got lots of runs in, and even though I must admit I face planted a bunch of times, I really think my snowboarding skills improved lots. I even managed to land a few jumps.
After skiing/snowboarding all day, Beth and I decided to leave for the hotel early. We were getting pretty tired, and some time in the onsen to relax sounded really nice. The rotarians didn´t exactly approve, but oh well.
At dinner, we had to sit with our districts. I really wanted to socialise with the other exchange students, but dinner time proved to be hilarious. Emma and Jacob were going back in forth doing hilarious impersonations during the whole dinner, and I swear I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. The older rotarians looked pretty confused and annoyed, but we didn´t pay much attention to that.
The rest of the night we pretty much ran around the hotel, playing games and just had a great time getting to know all the other exchangies.
"Quick Nobu, do a cool pose"
An even cooler pose
After a while I ended up hanging out with some of the Japanese kids in Nobu and Atsuki´s room, we played this game called "King" which was basically like truth or dare, minus truth. We ended up doing a lot of stereotypical shoujo manga type things. Basically lots of hand holding, kab-don-ing, hugs, proposals, and other cute things. It was hilarious.
When we finally went to bed, it was nearly four in the morning. Oops.
The next morning we woke up, had breakfast, packed up our things and chilled in the lobby. We traded a lot of pins at this point. I couldn´t believe how fast the trip had flown by.
The European girls. Norway, Germany, Italy, and France represent.
One last group photo
My District 2630 peeps
We really got into the flag holding
For those wondering why I´m holding the Norwegian flag the wrong way, I didn´t realize until it was too late.
After saying goodbye to half of the exchange students, the Gifu and Aichi prefecture crew headed towards Matsumoto castle to do some sightseeing.
It was a very cool castle. I went inside too but the pictures were dark and not very interesting.
A cool red bridge and some sakura trees about to bloom
Modeling skills on point
When we got out again there was this guy dressed up as a samurai.
We didn´t have much time to roam around the castle, and we also had to organise lunch for ourselves with the allowance Rotary gave us. Everybody seemed to forget we where on a tight schedule, so Nobu and I had to make sure everybody got something to eat and made it to the bus, luckily it waited for us.
The whole bus ride back was spent sleeping/listening to music, but we also found time to play some games. I think this picture was taken when we were playing a game were you couldn´t show your teeth or something. I lost really fast. Soon enough we reached the bus stop where Emma, Nobu, and I got on, so it was time for us to leave. I honestly wanted to stay on the bus longer to hang out with my new friends, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
We had an hour long car ride back to Gero where Emma and I ended up laughing the whole way. Mostly because of over tiredness, but also because we´re pretty funny. I ended up spending the night at Emma´s place again, and of course we went to the onsen.
It was an awesome trip, I made so many new friends and laughed so much. I only wish I got a little more sleep, because I was so exhausted the next few days, which made packing up for my move so much harder. I had so much fun, and I´m definitely gonna keep in contact with everybody I met. Exchange students really are awesome people.
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