The Team of Intercultural Alien Lightbringers

Dear friendsils!
I am sorry for not frequently posting, until now it has been around once every 2 weeks. By now my life has pretty much settled down. There are not earthly shocking adventures to report. My life as a Japanese Exchange student includes a lot of Kendo and Go! This is a path I have chosen myself, and is not in any way typical to exchange students in general. What would be typical for all exchange students in Japan is the strange fact that slowly but surely they get tinier eyes... Mine are still awhole and in tact, but take these 2 exchange student friends of mine, Hyo and Yuchan! (They come from Korea and China) And I don't dare to tell them, but I notice how their eyes are allready looking alike the Japanese ones!! Strange but true...
Today, sunday, I went on a day trip to the fields! "Into the fields!" As a crazy Space Pirate Captain would tell his army of swabs. Not just any fields, but stardust fields! (What?) Nooo! I will let go of any crazy Sky Pirate related thoughts now. I am sorry for confusing the bigger part of the people who are reading this. By bigger I mean most people, it could easily be compared in piles. You have a small pile and then the other is bigger, you see? But the fields in which we laboured were Rice Fields! Indeed! This story involves 'we' and 'laboured' ! "What are these strange words?" You might think. But what if I told you they are English words used to build up sentences, involving subjects and verbs and other complicated grammer. Not so strange now huh! 'We', would be aliens, and would be looked at by Japanese. 'We', would be the 5 AFS Exchange Students from my chapter! For me, they are more then just other Exchange Students, they're also cells and monecules held together by a blob of biology!
How much I like biology class in Japan, which feels just as any other class really! The teacher talks, the children listen, half of them are asleep on their desks, and I am studying the small nuances between the Kanji for Convex and the Kanji for Concave, which I can't seem to keep seperated, since I am not scholared in the photographic arts. But I am not talking about like an Alien Abduction here that would snag us from the soil of the earth, and beam us to the fields of the outer Galaxy rings of the Milkyway. Where we are slaved and need to haul bags of deer antlers from one place to another. No! That is not what I am talking about! I am talking about going to the base! The inner source! The base! How is rice made? I and also you will know it after these few words of enlightment. We drove a tracktor through a rice field, which automatically cutted the rice wheat and seperated the actual rice from the plant. (Yes I conjugate 'cut' in past tense to 'cutted'. It's a tradition I am not to break. It all started out with my YouTube movie in 'Rages of Coo!Lness and Creativity! Pt 1.'.) So to not make things not any more difficult then they already appear to be after rereading, I will introduce to you 4 new members of the holly dolly AFS family!


The first member of this evening is a strong and fearsome enemy for musquitos and bugs alike. He would paint his face American before going into battle, and make trinkets of the wings of all those who have fallen to his rage of fearsomeness.
Already has he appeared in the depths of flooding subways in Nagoya. And today once more I had the honor of being inside his Aura of Retribution. His name goes as the old saying goes. He is the lion, he is stronger than the lion, he is Sean.

The next member of this hicky wicky band of international peacebringers is a tall one. With his unbelievible height he is an artisan in both billiarding his enemies of the table, and screaming any foe into a cloud of depression. His 2 Korean arms are as strong as 3 baseball bats. And his mask of alteration lets even the most native fish sailors think he is one of them. His name goes as that old saying goes. He is the ozon layer, he is higher than the ozon layer, he is Hyo.

The third spot is taken by a female member. Not just any female, but a German multilangual Switchback as a matter of fact! Any figure of speech that would be thrown at her will be countered with a sentence, so full of diffrent languages, that any opposing advisary would immediately pull out his hair with anxiety. She is feared mostly by the league of the kimono wearers, because whenever she would see a kimono she would flatten it with the ground within a second. Her name goes as the old saying goes. She is the wooden spatel, she is languager than the wooden spatel, she is Sophia.

Last in this group is the second girl in the row. One would think of her being the sweet angel, but don't let her appearance fool you! Behind that sweet smile lies a deadly arrow with accuracy like no other! Just like Hyo she wears the mask of alteration, and this in combination with soft and tenderness forms a scientogycally unexplainable Chinese roze of darts. Her name goes as the old saying goes. She is the florenzics, she is zenper than the florenzics, she is Yuchan.

Link the first letters of each name to this picture, and find out who is who!

These 4 comerades, including me myself, are the protectors of interculturality and organisers of further possible alien invasions in Japan. We meet and do crazy things, beyond one's imagination would ever be able to go! Our adventure of today included rice cutting as you already have read, but today also included playing around on empty rice fields, playing amature baseball! We also stood straight on the back of a transport van, with the wind blowing in our hair. After this amazing day filled with rice and a blue heaven we went to the public ofuro! (bath) And it was really lovely! Afterwards we ate dinner in my favourite restaurant! The Sushi-ya! In the beginning Sushi was not all that great for my stomache, but now I have discovered the inner beauty and learned to taste the true essence of it! I totually love Japanese Sushi, which is definately 100 times better than Belgian Sushi. A day to be proud of it was. Other crazy adventures include last week's weekend! When we, the Team of Intercultural Alien Lightbringers, joined forces to seal enveloppes! We spent a whole day sorting letters, pasting addresses, and sealing enveloppes! No words would ever be able to describe how fun that was! My mouth is still sore from all the laughing that day held! AFS organises great things for us! Cutting rice, posting enveloppes... >,< But no! The enveloppes day was actually some voluntairly helping out, and it really was a fun day! Just as fun as the rice cutting which was also really fun! And a few weekends ago we did another awesome trip! That trip to Obara-Mura! But that is something you have already read in a previous post. In that trip however Yuchan wasn't present, so only recently I have found out about her excistance.

I hope you can read beyond the words I have written here and understand that some of the parts were meant as a joke or had serious irony in it. Though I should be more careful, since no one sees my facial expressions. Nothing I write is meant offending in any way for anyone. I really enjoy my year here, don't get me wrong! xD My exchange student friends are already good friends of mine. My 4 friends are already in Japan for a half year, and they leave again in February. Their Japanese has already reached waay higher standards than mine has. I enjoy every activity AFS organises, and no it's not child labour. xD A word of advice to everyone on this globe we call earth: Make your own happiness, think positive!




Now some pictures, stolen from our Japanese AFS Chapter site...

It had to appear someday! A picture of me and a few of my family members. The left picture shows me and my father and mother. Shot just after I had stepped out of the ShinKanSen, and it was the very first time meeting my host parents! The picture on the right shows my host sister to my left side from the viewer's point of view, and a friend of my host sister in pink.

Meet Khaan. Khaan is an exchange student just like me! He has lived with the same family I am living with, and was on vacation in Japan shortly after I arrived. I have mentioned him in a previous post, since I have gone to Nagoya with him. He's a very nice guy!

Here we see a few pictures of the trip to Obara-Mura! You'll notice Yuchan being absent. But it was a lovely day nevertheless!

And this final picture was shot on the day of the enveloppe pasting party. At the sides of the left picture stands our Chapter President and his wife. Long ago they were a host family for Mark, the bloke in yellow. He now appears on this picture along with his Japanese wife! For he is living a life to its fullest in the land of the rising sun. Japan. We had a lovely chat, and I am sure he might help me a great deal in the future, if I were ever to return to Japan! The other members in the right picture can be sorted out yourself, since it's just the good old Team of Intercultural Alien Lightbringers... Hyo had already gone home by that time, since he had an appointment.