travel diary: days 6, 7, and 8

wow, i cant believe its been a whole week already! o: 

its been a busy few days and i haven't had much energy to write or do anything past 7pm really X_X;; maybe its my medicine? or maybe just normal to be tired after running around all day lol

day 6 had a bit of a miscommunication between me and our host mom, she had to attend to some business when we had plans to meet up for lunch, but i only heard about it twice removed and translated through my mom who does not speak japanese at all so we ended up kinda wandering around this street for a while. we bought some american ingredients to make dinner that night, which was a big success! it was a bacon, corn, potato, onion, and a little bit of cream soup! it was yummy :) and they thought so too! it was kind of a funny cultural exchange since JP meals usually have a lot of little dishes, while american foods (or at least what my family is used to) just has one big dish/meal. 

dont really have many pictures from today so enjoy the pikachu vending machine.

day 7 was another shopping day~

we started off waking to the subway station that went sooo far underground, and even under a whole river! im so thankful for google maps that tells me exactly what train line i need to be on lol (altho i think that reading those subway maps isnt as hard as it looks) but we made our way to the airport to exhange some more of our american monies in to yen. then back to the famous hakata station 

its a huuuuuuuuuge shopping mall on top of a railway station! we did a little shopping at the pokemon center there, but most of the stores were fancy clothing which was too expensive for us lol. altho, we did find a store that sold clothes that are in a wider variety of sizes (im not going to comment on japanese sizes bc that would be a mile long) but the woman there was so nice, she encouraged us to try stuff on and picked out a few things that she thought would look good on us. it was so uplifting... but the clothes were so expensive, so i said that we would come back again. i really hope we can!! then after some more wandering i made a quick stop at the animu store to get some gifts for people (and myself) then finally back home again. i was soooo tired after this for some reason so as soon as i laid down for a quick nap i ended up sleeping the whole night lol

some of the haul hehe (the nene and honami were free for buying pjsk merch! :>)

day 8 was super cool! i visited my first shrine today :)

before anything fun we did some cleaning around the house and laundry at the small laundromat across the street, the lady there recognized us and she was super nice as usual <3 i think i want to her her a little gift before we leave~ while the laundry was drying, i walked down to daiso (the dollar store) to see if they had the really cute miku retro diner stuff, and the did! i bought the whole set of rubber keychains >:) there were others left so i didnt feel bad for taking one of each lol

once that was finished, we headed to the konbini for lunch, but dont trust all the people that say you have to eat konbini food it uh. made me sick LOL so um not gonna do that again, sorry 7/11 sausage and pasta premade meal. anyway... 

there is a famous site nearby where we are staying, two rocks that are tied together with a giant rope that has been there for hundreds of years and a white torii in the water between the rocks and the beach. it was nice seeing the water, even if i am used to it at home~ 

there were a couple of annoying people at the beach who were in the water standing in the middle of the torii (which is not something you should do) so we just had to stand there and wait for them to move like :| :| :| but eventually they did move and we got some nice pictures~

then around the island a little bit is sakurai shrine, and it was really beautiful! there were a few other people there but it was nice and quiet. i made a little prayer and pulled a fortune which was "future luck" so im taking that as a good sign of things to come :) 

there is a special kind of book you can get at shrines that is full of blank pages and you can take them to shrines and pay a small fee for a person to write the name of the shrine, the date you visited, and a red stamp. (called goshuincho if you are curious!)

so i got my first book and first stamp :) im so happy! i hope to get lots and lots of stamps~

on our way home, i spotted a big plume of smoke in the distance, then later tonight on the news it turns out there was a fire at a scrapyard and it was the same smoke we saw earlier... i hope everyone there is okay :( 

altho it was nice to see the mountains to and from the shrine, there were so many trees and i'm not used to seeing mountains at all so it was special to me.

so much stuff these last few days, and to reflect briefly on the first week being in japan:

i think i said this a little before but its so revealing that my japanese isnt as good as i want it to be, and i think having a year off from actively studying really made me take a big step back in my abilities. on the other hand, i havent had to really use any advanced japanese skills either. usually my interactions with people are a few words and a smile.

also, i want to find a job here, and i got a lead the other day but it didn't turn out. at least i wasnt sitting around hoping for a miracle for long. but i will be patient and keep my head high! this is my dream! i wont give up!! 

i guess that concludes this entry! maybe ill keep this format of one entry every 3 days, maybe 2? so look forward to that :)