Long rest of the story

Kyoto was amazingly enough, very hot but in a way dry. Maybe it was because Osaka is so humid and I have finally gotten used to it. It will be nice to be in dry heat again when I get back to Idaho though. So, continuing on. So I have been to quite a few Anime stores while Ive been here too. Final Fantasy Advent Children comes out on September 14...here. Dang! I cant wait for it to come out in the US! They sell lots of little anime figures too! Its really awesome! So the weekend after the Himeji Castle, Saturday we went to the Earthquake site. It is a place where they remember the horrible earthquake that happened 10 years ago. It was quite interesting. Then we went to England Hill. This place was really interesting! It is a place made up to look some what like the English country side. It was quite amusing. Here we saw Koalas, Emu, Pelicans, little talking birds, you could hold a rabbit, it had a tortise, geese, sheep,etc. Then we took a little bus to the other half of the park. The cool part about the bus was that it didnt have a driver! It drove its self and there was a stuffed koala in the drivers seat! So we got to the otherside, we did some archery. That was a lot of fun, Im thinking of taking it up and actually learning how to do it. Then we played the throw-the-ball-at-a-board-of-numbers game. My host father kept telling Hiroko, Okasan, and I to through like this, and that, and like a pitcher. So Okasan got 1 number, Hiroko and I each got 5 and then came Otosans turn to throw. After 9 balls he hadnt hit a single one. It was really funny. Then we went to the sheep pen and the baaaed at us and we baaaed at them. By the way, no England like park is complete without the 6 foot tall Pikachu. It was very random and I got a picture! On Sunday was switch host families day. We took my heavy suitcase on the train to Umeda which was about 2 hours away. Then we met Rie in a crowded mall and had some scones in a local restuarant for lunch. It was really good. Then Rie and I lugged my heavy suit case to the bus station and on to the bus! This was quite the task, let me tell you what! So we got home and I was greeted by my new host parents who are really nice. Later on I met my host brother as well. I share Ries room right now (incase you cant tell, Ries computer doesnt have a apostraphe button) Her house is very cute! So Monday I go to school and everything and come home but Rie had Drivers ed so I was to have dinner alone with the family. This was quite awkward. It was my host mom and brother for the beginning and they stared at me in complete silence while we ate. They didnt talk to each other and what little they did talk was to me. It was really scary! Then my host father came home and was showing me the map of the way to get to school and such, it kinda broke the ice which was nice. Dinners after that got a lot better and now everything is pretty comfortable. I love how they make me feel like Im a part of the family here. Wednesday my host family brought me to their friends english class. It is taught by this 29 year old German girl named Chris. She is fluent in German, English and Japanese. It was a lot of fun, the class consisted of 4 older Japanese ladies. They liked my voice and said I was cute. One thing Ive noticed that people comment on is that my legs are so long. They are so amazed that my legs are so long, they like to compare leg lengths with me, its really funny. Anyway. On friday, Stephanie, Rachel, Hollie, Rie, Yuko (Stephanies host sister) and I went shopping. We went to the Hello Kitty store that has a 4 ft tall Hello Kitty and the store is 3 stories tall with a huge light blue jeweled tree in the middle. We found some interesting Japanese boys and took pictures because they had such an interesting style. Then we asked a boy to pose who was wearing a shirt that said Im afraid of Americans on it. After we split up, Rie took me to an Anime store in the train station. I was looking at figures and I hadnt seen Rie in a little while. Then some random Japanese guy says Hi Shandi! I looked at him kinda confussed but trying to be nice and I said hi how are you. Then he told me he didnt speak english very well. Well I found out this random guy was Ries friend Yoshi who plays the Sanshin. His actually a pretty cool guy and he likes Berserk and lots of other anime. Saturday we went to Osaka castle (inside this time) and it was beautiful. It was Rie, my host mom and I. Then we went to the Osaka history museum and the Shintennoji. At all the historical sites I have been too they always have a stamp thing where you get a brocheure and somewhere in the site you can stamp it. It reminds me of the Moogle stamps on FFCrystal Chronicles. I got one at the top of Himeji Castle and one in Osaka Castle. I should have gotten the ones in Kyoto but for some reason I didnt. After sightseeing we went shopping. We went to an Anime store that was an entire floor on the mall! It was awesome! I heard there is a 3 story anime shop and I want to go there! Sunday, Rie took me out with her friends, Shoko and Aiko. Yoshi was supposed to join us but didnt end up coming. So we went to Namcoland and ate Gyoza. Then we went looking for a bowling alley but all the ones we went to had a 2 hour wait. They are actually really cool, they have lights all over the place and play cool music videos at the end of the lanes. So we ended up going to this place which has 4 floors of amusement. We bought a ticket for 1300 yen and we could play as long as we wanted. They had darts, pool, tennis, ping pong, batting cages, tons of arcade machines, and the best part was they had huge shelves of manga and near these shelves were nice leather recliners and some leather reclining massage chairs! It was so nice! We read some manga for a while and played darts, tennis, ping pong and arcade games. Rie and I played a shooter vampire game. It was pretty cool, it was in english with Japanese subtitles. We played some DDR and a tamborene game like DDR but in your hand. It was so cool! That night I had a terrible nightmare that all the exchange students and I were running from zombies and then I was a zombie and for some reason the group was keeping me with them. I attack Su Li too! It was scary! So Monday was when I posted last. Monday at my cooking class we made Yaki tori, Rice balls, Tamago yaki, and wine jelly. We made pretty bentos with them. It was awesome! Then they had a little birthday celebration for Deborahs and my birthdays. It was really nice. Today we did Calligraphy. I made a Hana kanji paper for my host mom. She liked it! This place is awesome I cant believe how fast the time is going! On Sunday I leave here at 4:30 PM and I get into Seattle at 12:55. Im going to meet Monique there! Yay! BTW Monique, where do you want to meet? So Ill be back in Boise by 6:30 PM. Its like it only took me 2 hours! I wish!!!!!! I will try to update again soon but hopefully not this long!