Last time I finished talking about some of the Japanese holidays. At the end of the holidays everything returned back to normal here. People go back to work and school and the beginning of this New Year has finally settled. In school everything was pretty much the same, except for a chorus competition we had in the school where all the classes compete against each other, I didn’t really feel like singing and no one in my class had the courage to volunteer to be the conductor so I offered to do it. The competition went pretty well the whole school practiced for like 2 months, during lunch hour or after school for and I thought my class did pretty good but we didn’t win, but oh well now I know how it feels like to be a conductor. Other than that sadly the third year students (Seniors) stopped going to school so they could dedicate themselves to study for the college entrance exams. And just last week they had the graduation ceremony, which was just the principal reading everyone’s name and giving them a paper. And the only family members that went to the graduation were mostly the mothers of the students, probably because the fathers were working or something.

Also this week there are the final year tests for the students so I’m excused from school so I took the advantage and I went skiing in Nagano with some foreign exchange friends in a place where the 1998 Olympics were held and there was an onsen (popular places in Japan that are like outdoor natural Jacuzzi made by earthquakes opening the earth) famous for its bathing monkeys, we didn’t go to an onsen but we did get to see some of the monkeys while we were skiing. I was considering trying the snowboard but because we were only going to ski one day and I have already skied like once or twice in my life I went on skis and was able to go on the Olympic trails and make some ramps even though I fell pretty bad a couple of times, but how many people can say they have scars from doing an Olympic skiing course. Also just last month I took my Kendo test and passed so now I hold the first license in Kendo.

Also a couple weeks ago my rotary counselor took me on a drive with his family for 3 hours away from my city first to go see a waterfall were "Wazabi"(that spicy green sauce in Japanese restaurants)is grown and processed where we ate wazabi ice cream which was surprisingly good. Then he took me to see the famous Japanese cherry blossom, it’s still a little early in the year but it is a fast kind of cherry blossom and it was in "full bloom", and that was incredible. I finally understand why the Japanese appreciate those flowers so much and make picnics filled with drinking and karaoke under those trees. We walked along the trees and ate a whole bunch of carnival food they were selling by the park like cherry blossom ice cream, and barbequed octopus, and other things. I have also been taking advantage of these test vacations I get to go to a whole lot of places, I’ve been going to Tokyo a lot, and I went to Nikko the place where Japans most famous emperor is buried, and just today I went with my host father to a volcanic mountain where eggs are cooked in the mountains boiling water and for some reason they turn black on the outside but I have to say they were pretty good. And I still have another half a week of vacation so we’ll see where that takes me.

And now it is finally starting to get warm in Japan so Ill be able to start going to the beach soon and maybe Ill try some surfing because my city is supposed be the place where surfing started in Japan, and the place where the first surf shop in Japan was ever made so as soon as I can get in the water I’m going.

Ok that’s it for now I wish the best to all you other guys around the world, and congratulation to the new outbounds start preparing from here on for the best year of your lives.