Elliot bucks

In our class we have something called Elliot bucks. It is very different then Mc mulla because there is math involved. The math includes, percentages, fractions, decimals and multiplying them.  This is how it works. You are in a job selling nintendos. You can get to live in these 3 cites below. And Ms. Elliot is the banker. You can get extra money by being good or lose some by being goofy. There is also this thing called lucky dip were you can lose or win money. This is the status for each city...

Tokyo

Salary (every day )- $12
Rent ( every day)- $6
Tax - 20% of Wednesday's earnings
Tax rebate - 40% of Wednesday's earnings
Weekly bonus - 40% weekly total
Income - 40% weekly total
School fees - 50% of Friday's earnings
Selling your nintendo - $6 a week

NYC
Salary (every day )- $10
Rent ( every day)- $4
Tax - 15% of Wednesday's earnings
Tax rebate - 35% of Wednesday's earnings
Weekly bonus - 35% of weekly total
Income - 35% of weekly total
School fees - 45% of fridays earnings
Selling your nintendo - $4 a week

London
Salary (every day )- $8
Rent ( every day)- $4
Tax - 10% of Wednesday's earnings
Tax rebate - 30% of Wednesday's earnings
Weekly bonus - 30% weekly total
Income - 30% weekly total
School fees - 40% of Friday's earnings
Selling your nintendo - $2 a week 

So one day, after the class started this project, my friends and I started working on a comic book. It is called "The Adventure of Chicken". The crew is called MantaroChicken.co. The three people on the team are Manchan, Liam and myself. Liam mostly comes up with the story, Manchan does the drawings. As for me, I suggest things to draw in and add extra funny details. So one day we finally finish ( and it looks great ) after 3 days of recesses. It so happens that free enterprise day is the next day and Liam has a copy machine.

On free enterprise day Liam comes in with the original yellow paper copy of the comic and 3 white paper copies. Manchan comes in with a paper of riddles. I come in with a smile. In independent reading time I walk over and get the hobbit. There are a few good riddles I find before the teacher ( Ms. Elliot ) tells me to stop writing them. Then it is math, time for the money project. The teacher asked us who is doing what. Adam is selling 2 books and a soccer uniform. Alex is selling paper art. James, Yujin and Iichiro are having an auction at 1:15.  And then it is us with riddles, renting a book then an auction for the original copy at 1:25. Then Adam wants to auction off his soccer shirt and the teacher says...NO!

Our riddles where a huge success. Our riddles were, for 1 dollar you get two attempts at a riddle. If you get the answer, you get your money back. We got about $12 from that alone. Then it was James's auction. I went to it and got a really good deal. A toy car for $8. Then it was our auction. There were about 7 people willing to buy the original copy. A girl named Kia dropped out at $3. Then at $50 dollars there were only 3 people left; Erika, Riki and Aiko. Erika dropped out after $70. Riki and Aiko battled until $100. Then Riki dropped out andAiko got it for $100.( Aiko made us sign it after that.) Then we wanted to rent out the non original copy. We were going to rent them for $10 but we only had 3 copies and 4 (well 5 but Kia dropped out at $5) people wanted it so we auctioned those also. We got about $200 total from free enterprise day and I got $67.

We are going to start a new comic series called Sabo-chickens.  The money project was really fun and I hope we continue after winter break.

This week I went to Costco with my friend Thomas and his family. Costco is really far from Tokyo. We went in Thomas's car and drove for about 45 minutes. The place was really big.  Basically your normal Costco. It also had a pizza restaurant.

My friend Thomas and I had our own cart. At first we were allowed to get 2 things at Costco. But then the rule changed to as much as we wanted under a budget - except Thomas's mom never set the budget.

First we got kingsize chips. Then we got spicy chips. Then we got a giant jar of jellybeans. After that Thomas found a big bag full of little boxes, he claimed there are gummies in the boxes. Then we got a big bag of cookies and cream Hershey's and a big bag of butterfingers. We ran into his dad and he suggested we put a few things back. So, we cleared the cart of chips. After a big choice we put the Hershey's back.

Thomas started pushing the cart towards the drinks. He grabbed a 24 pack of Canada Dry and said, "A little help here!" We were walking around for 5 minutes when Thomas said "I don't think my mom would allow the soda, lets put it back," so we walked the whole way back to the drinks and he put it up (with some success). Then we found Thomas's mom and she said, "Put the gummy back". They had a big fuss over the gummy and Thomas finally left it under a pile of apples. We were then left with jelly beans and butterfingers, which were then transferred into Thomas's dad's cart.

Then Thomas's mom gave us lunch money. Thomas said that we should split a piece of pizza. I thought he was crazy - one is not enough for 2 people. He actually got a hot dog and I got a slice of pizza (it was a 4th the size of a M size pizza at Dominos.) There were no empty tables so we sat on the floor and ate. Then we returned home.

Costco was very interesting. It was sort of like a piece of America flew to Japan and Japanese people started working. In all, the experience was good.

I am sick, good or bad?

I was sick this Wednesday through Sunday (maybe Monday?). My cough started about 3 weeks ago. This Wednesday I went to the doctor at the end of school at about  2:50 (school ends at 3:30). Anyway, the doctor said that I had strep. That meant I couldn't go to soccer club that afternoon. Boo hoo. But, it also meant I couldn't do the flu shot that day. Weeee.

I also got to miss school Thursday. No drums or drama. And sick days means no school / no homework = more time for movies and with grandparents.

But... I didn't go to school Friday. That meant no soccer tournament that Saturday. I still didn't feel well so that also meant no rugby tournament that Sunday (today). Still, 3 extra days with my grand parents.

I kind of wish I didn't miss Thursday. On one hand, I missed the writing assessment. On the other hand, I am really disappointed that I missed drama SAFA. We got to do just dance 4, do a lot of games and put on mini plays. I feel bad about missing Taiko class. We had just finished a song and most likely started a new song. Also my mom wanted to see the new song and was disappointed.

Without school or homework, the days were very free. Ok, maybe we did go to a shop on one day. The rest of the time all I did was watch movies, play games and reeeeeeead. But watching movies is good for a change.

(This boy right outside our window is sooooooo distracting. So distracting I am typing about how distracting it is. He is driving up and down right outside our house on one of those 3~5 year olds go karts that goes 2 miles an hour. He is laughing like crazy as if it is fun. To make things worse, it is in a cobblestone street! And the grown up is so loud "there is a car there is a car move.")

On Saturday a team of kids from NIS got on a bus at 7:15 in the morning. But the team was 1 person short. Lucas, not present on the bus. His friends there, including Thomas, Chris and Adam were all wondering, "Where is Lucas?" It turns out they did OK ( not first) but not last.

I also missed the Minato rugby tournament. I think my team was depending on me. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. The rugby started at 10:00 but I was still in my PJ's.

So was being sick good or bad. I don't know?

Mori Tower drawing fancy tech thingy!

On Wednesday I went to Mori Tower with one of my old friends from preschool.

I went with, my friend from preschool, her mom and my mom. They had fall break at their school and came from Osaka. Osaka is the second biggest city in japan. A two hour train ride. It was my mom who suggested the observation deck.

Mori Tower is a very tall building nearby. Nearby as in walking distance from our house. We only went to the 52nd floor, not the offices and restaurants. The place was in the Mori tower observation deck on floor 52. The entrance was in a small building that went up 3 floors or something. Then there was a sky walk to the tower. I think the small building does only one job of an entrance.

They came on this day because they had fall break that weak. They came to tokyo because they had planned a Disney trip the next day. We went on Wednesday because my soccer cub was cancelled because of MS drama.

My favorite activity was the high tech drawing. It was my favorite because I like drawing. The fact that you're drawing can come up, interact with other drawings and dance was even cooler. The room was in an oval shaped, dark room. There were some desks with really small bright lights and a screen on one side. And by one side of the screen there is a smaller desk withe the scanner.
This is how you make the drawing.

1. Get the special paper. The paper had an outline of a person. 3 types for a boy and 3 types for a girl. 
2. Draw anything. You could draw anything but you should draw a person.  
3. When you are done you give it to the attendant on duty. They will scan it. Remember, it will only scan the stuff in the lines ( so don't draw a butterfly randomly). 
4. There will be a portal on the side of the screen and your drawing will come out.  
5. Every 5 or so minutes most everyone on the screen dances.  

Before that, on the observation deck, we found, Tokyo tower, sky tree, the crazy shopping centre with a roller coaster on top, my school, our street and Odaiba in the day. When we came out an hour later from the drawing room it was dark and the only thing I saw was the highway with a bajilion lights.

I hope my friend enjoyed. I definitely did. I hope I go again.

Walk/Run/Jog-a-thon

5 and a 1/2 hours ago I participated in the 2014 Nishimachi walk-a-thon. The participating students, if they lived far away still had to come. The goal for this is to raise money for kids that are good students but have no money to pay for school.

The thing is, the circle for running or walking was a public side walk. The location was 2 stops from our house on the train. The area was near the japan rugby stadium, Swallows baseball field, the high school baseball field and the old Olympic stadium.

We walked around for 1 hour. I started with my friend William and somehow found girls from my grade, Aiko and Haruka. Before we found Aiko and Haruka, William and I did something funny. My dad stopped to tie his shoes but we started running. After 20 minutes he found us by taking the cheat route (a road cutting through the half). But later Haruka, Aiko and I ditched William. And then while Aiko and I were waiting Haruka ditched us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the laps I did a mix of running, jogging and walking. When I was ditching I sprinted. The rest of the time I jogged and walked. At 4 checkpoints around the 1.3 kilometer loop the teachers handed out stickers. Some of them were, my 日本語 Japanese teacher, my homeroom teacher and the other 5th grade teacher. I got 18 stickers in all = 4 and 1/2 laps ( in an hour that is OK ).

After the walking there was a raffle. In short, I won yay woohoooo. 5$ gift card at Baskin Robbins. Then my family and Williams family went down to the nearby festival to eat. We ate food. The food was good. My favorite was the Castella balls. Basically pancake batter munchkins but with no sugar or that kind of crazy stuff.

Walk-a-thon was really fun. My one issue was that one of the soccer tournaments was on the same day so I didn't get to go. I hope that next year the soccer tournament is not on the same day.
 

Trick or Treating

I went trick or treating with my friend, his brother, his brothers friends and I, ルカース .  Ohh, and the moms.
The costumes were a magician, Lego mini figure, a skeleton, ninja and a gorilla.

Comment what you think I was.

The trick or treating was done all in a small residents area. We started at a park. We worked our way down by the school. There was a really good (really busy)  house that someone from school used to live in that gave out giant Cheetos things (talk about them later). Then we made a big loop and came back to my neighborhood.  Our neighborhood had a reputation for being good and crowded but people did not like the crowds so it was not too bad. There were a lot of kids somewhat orderly. The thing is the grown ups dressed up a lot. Most of the people were Japanese and I did not know they celebrated it in Japan. The best costumes I saw where Grew's minions and whoever was the Gorilla ( definitely not me ). When you see it without the mask people are like what is that? When you put the mask on it looks like a gorilla.

We started and met at the park at about 5:30 and got back to the house at 7:00 and helped my dad hand out candy.

Different. First off, you don't ring doorbells. If you can get candy the people will be outside the door handing it out. Secondly, not every houses gave out candy. It felt like only 6% of the houses gave out candy. Thirdly, the candy is different. I barley got any chocolate. I got a lot of いちごみるくmeaning strawberry milk (hard candy). But I got some American candy. I got gummy bears and Swedish fish. The size of the candy was disappointing also. I almost never got fun size and only one Twix. The only things I got king size was giant (slightly spicy) Cheetos. That may sound good except they are salami flavored!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Halloween was fun and very... unusual. It shall be remembered.

Bali

This fall break my family and I went to Bali. The resort was really nice and big. Usually you room number is 3 numbers right? 415 say and 4 is fourth floor and 15 is the room number. In this resort ours was 3415, 3 standing for building 3. And it had a spa, kids club,  (mini) soccer field, tennis courts, beach, a lot of pools, pool table and a temple. Our room was really nice. It had 2 floors and 2 TVs and 2 beds. There were also really good restaurants at the resort.

My favorite activity in the resort was body surfing. Body surfing is like surfing but a bit different. For one you never stand up and the board is small. I find it more exiting because you go faster and it is easier. A lot of places near the US don't have good waves but Bali is different. In Bali the tricky part is getting out from the beach to the lineup because there are too many good waves. The good waves push you back so you have to dive through it.

My favorite activity out of the resort was the monkey forest. If you are thinking of taking a walk in a forest and you can hear monkeys, you are in for a surprise. You walk on pre-made paths and can see monkey temples built in the 11th century. Most of all there are lots of monkeys many hundreds of monkeys, that you can see on the paths, in trees, and even on people ( if they have a banana). There are these temples that people can not go in but the monkeys can. The only person not attacked was the banana lady, she had a big stick and slingshot. The bad things about the monkeys are they steal stuff. For example one lady was holding a banana and a monkey climbed up her and ripped her earring out and swallowed it!

My favorite restaurant was the Japanese restaurant called Ko. The food was okay but the cooking was awesome. The place was really far from the resort but was part of the resort. The sign was next to the kids club but you had to go down a long passage. The food was cooked in front of you. To start the grillish thing the person puts some liquid on it and lights it on fire. The best part for me was the the fried rice. I didn't get it but the making was really cool. He would make the rice and vegetables normally but the egg was fun to watch. The cook would make a omelet thing and roll it up. Then he would take 2 spatula things and slice off a bit if the egg so it shoots at the rice pile. Then another. Then another.  Then another. Then another. Then another. He would let up clap faster or slower and he would go faster or slower. I had fried chicken and shrimp balls.

Bali was fun and I hope to come next year.

First ever Nishimachi family math night.

I witnessed the first ever Nishimachi family math night. It was set up by Ms. Chida, the curriculum councilor. She was talking about it at all the assemblies.

First when I got there (gym) I was late because of taiko. Some of my friends were already there, but at my table, it was only me and another boy. Then, my mom found another girl and another boy (not in that order), so we got added people. There were so many snacks like cookies and smarties and chips.

Numbers
At first, we just played with the pipe cleaners and straws that were on the table.  Then we were picking a number, and mine was 19. We had to explain why you chose that number and a really annoying girl (who picked 50.32) said "It makes me look smart. " Except my other friend had exponents! Hahahahaha. There was a competition to see who had the biggest number won by someone with infinity.


Building shapes
One of the activities we did was use the pipe cleaners and straws to make any shape. Sounds easy right? At first it was just making a nice triangular prism but... We ran out of straws ( A minor disappointment). At first my shape looked really neat but try making a perfect shape with pre bent  pipe cleaners. Some of the shapes represented peoples personalities. My friend had a perfect cube and some other girls had a perfect pyramid. One girl's shape kept evolving. It will be a hat. It will now be a boat. No, now it will be a mobile.  My shape looked like this.

Word Problem
After that, Ms. Chida gave all the tables a word problem. Sound easy right? Only if you have done a related problem. A family of 3 children and 8 adults are on a private island. A sail boat took them but they must row back to the mainland.  The row boat can hold up to 1 adult or 2 children. Hint. 1 child can row by himself. How many trips back and forth to get back to the main land. Please comment what you think the answer is. The way my table did it was using diagrams. We used shapes as islands, cookies as adults and smarties as kids. After we solved it we had a free for all of eat the snacks.

I can't wait for next one. I wish there will be a family science night. With explosions!

Nishimachi Food Fair 2014

Food fair is a fair of food. It is at my school once a year. Most of the exciting stuff is in the court-yard, as in food, but there is stuff on the roof and in classrooms. Most people were from Nishimachi but some people were local.

9:00 ~ 9:30: Got there

9:30 ~ 10:00 Taiko practice
The songs I played where Seven Stars,  Buchiawase, and Nebuta. You know Nebuta. Buchiawase is a song where you jump around and play. Seven Stars you will see.

10:00 ~ 10:30 Taiko performance

Seven Stars at Food Fair


10:30 ~ 11:00 Played games on others iPads.

11:00 ~ 12:00 Coke booth
Grade 5 had a chance to work the coke booth. The shifts were: 10 to 11, 11 to 12, 12 to 1, and 1 to 2. I was with Keenan, Mackay and Ryo. My friend Keenan was working the whole day! We did something funny when my cooler hid all the coke and Keenan hid the Fanta, and then said "Last Coke of the century."

12:00 ~ 1:00 Tag+eat

1:00 ~ 3:00 Tag+snack

3:00 ~ 3:30 ish run from Aya and Ellen
This was because Thomas, Mackay and I had bought fake hair and Aya and Ellen where chasing us with their iPhones on camera. They had a hard job because they had to guard the main stairs, other stairs on all floors. They never got a good picture.

All in all, Food fair was fun and will be memorable. Can't wait till next year.

Kazuno

I came back from Kazuno this friday. Kazuno is this house that the school owns in the mountains. We  go there for 2 nights and three days.  On this Kazuno trip we did pottery, tie-dye, a lot of games,  and went to a giant park. The sleep arrangements where the same: the boys got the bunks and the girls got the tatami. Tatami is smooth, woven straw mat. They slept on futons, pullout beds. I was going to bunk with a new kid but there were more beds then we needed so I was not with anyone.

My favorite day was the last day. The park. The park was called 子どものくに。ko do mo no ku ni means kid land kodomo meaning kid. The park was so big.  Do you know brickyard park? The size was about 3 times that.  They had the strangest equitment you might ever see. For one, they had a slide about 40 feet long. It was made of spinning bars so you can go really fast. They also have a trampoline. It was white with a slight shape of 2 mountains and a valley.  Or maybe the wooden pyramid was the most interesting. There where 2 ropes attached to the top so you could mountain climb.

I think there most interesting thing was the extra bouncers. There were 6 in all, 2 red, 2 blue, 2 green. They are these poles of material that was solid yet springy. There was a pair of bike handles at the top. You jump and hang on and the thing comes down with you.  Then you jump again and the thing makes you go really high. Just don't let go. The red are the lowest, then the blue and then the green. I only saw two people get the green, Erika and Keenan. Erika is the second tallest in the grade and Keenan just climbed.  I could only reach red and blue.

Last Kazuno blog I said I would never forget it and now this makes 2 times.

Fall block party

Today we had a fall block party! Even though  I say fall it was still 80 degrees.

I came a bit late because of my Rugby class. There were already some kids there. There were a lot of kids after a while. I even saw someone from school come for a bit. There were so many people.

The party was on our neighborhood street. Our apartment is on the 1st floor, in the middle of the street, so the party was basically right outside our door. The neighbors were cooking outside right across the street. I think there was one big grill, and a lot of food! Like 2 buffet tables worth!

There is music playing (too much I think). The music is coming from the party room, that no one is actually in. (Did I mention the neighborhood has a party room?). The music is very loud, I can still hear it inside while I am writing this!

At the party, I mostly did the water gun fight. I don't have a real water gun, so I brought the spray bottle I use to clean the dinning room table. Someone else at the party, the guy who suggested the water gun fight, had already brought out a bajillion water guns, so everyone stole my bottle and gave me the worst type of gun or a broken one.

Before the water gun fight, I was a servant. People set up a little camp with chairs and cars in the garage. My friend Jonathan and I where riding our bikes to and from the food tables getting snacks and stuff. I did this because it helped the others and I was kind of hungry. Other people were taking poisonous berries, calling them tomatoes and squashing them with a spoon (What?!?!).

I had a lot of fun at the party but my shirt was really wet. I wish in the winter block party there is snow so we can have a snowball fight. Snow is rare in とうきょう.Tokyo.

The End!

Taiko

Yesterday I went to (and preformed at) friendship day at the American compound. I went with my mom and dad but met with family friends. The American compound is where the employees of the American embassy live.  The performance time was really short but the time I spent there was a good 3 hours and thirty minutes there. The performance was thirty of those minutes.  The other 3 hours were Practicing, setting up the drums, putting them back and doing the last paragraph.

The songs I played where, river piece, winter passion and Nebuta daiko (again). Technically I was not  going to do river piece until the second to last possible second. Luckily  I did the base note for river piece not the song. The base note is only hitting the middle at an even pace. For winter passion I think I did really bad. I kept forgetting what part I was on. That was expected by me because it is hard and it was my first time preforming it.                    

Link to Taiko Video - Winter Passion

                                                                                    
Nebuta was almost the same as last time. Almost. There was a pro flutist that was playing the whole time. He came from somewhere around Mt Fuji. Anyway , he had a solo that made the song 5 minutes longer.

After the Blue sky ( not ) performance it started to rain.  I got in line for the long (foot long) fries but there where 2 lines and I was in the wrong one ( how do you say "french fry' in Japanese ?) Soon I got in the right line and got the sold out fries . The cheese garlic fries where really good!!!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately we had ridden our bikes and had to ride home with no umbrella.

StuCo elections

This month at Nishimachi we are going to have StuCo elections. StuCo stands for student council. The members of StuCo do lots of stuff. For example, they set up fundraisers and organize spirit weeks. So, why do we need elections. 5th grade students can be president or vice president. This year, so many people wanted to enter so we had an elimination round.

Now that you have the background info, I will go back in time. My friend Mackay is running for president.  When he came over one day, I helped him make posters. I said I would vote for him. I did. The next day at recess I helped him put up the posters. Some other posters were not as good. One poster was really a cutout poster from a movie. One of his is Harry Potter but his face glued on top  of Harry's. Another one was a box that said "go ahead, take a peak and you will find what you seek". There is cloth and under it says Vote for ---, vote for success.  I think that is rude because in my mind I think Vote for ---, Vote for the only person that will actually do you good.  Another person's speech and posters were really good but he did not make it.

Preliminary votes
All of 5th and 4th grade came into our classroom ( why our's ) . The 11 candidets stood up and recited their speech. I would either vote for one of 3 of my friends. I voted for Mackay because his speech was good, and he is my friend, and I helped with his posters. The voting was done by ballots and each had a pic of all the people. The thing is, the copy was so bad I might have voted for someone else. The day after, we got the results. Mackay did not make it. The person with the box poster made it and the Harry Potter poster dude made it. I think most people voted based on friends not speeches.

Earthquake!!!!!! ( drill )

This Friday we had an earthquake drill at school. At first we were innocently reading in the classroom when a voice ( the headmaster's )  said, "Teachers and students, we are experiencing a very severe earthquake." I knew it was coming. It was on the schedule. It was 5 minutes late.

We all crouched under our desks and waited. Finally our teacher, Ms. Elliot said, " You should get your helmets on." Everyone at the same time reached behind themselves, under their chairs and under the net and pulled out a helmet, and put it on. After our helmet was secure, we retreated under our desks again.

Finally ( after about 15-20  minutes ) the headmaster announced they did a safety check and we should go to  safer area. The elementary kids go to the gym. The middle schoolers go to the MPR and the 5th graders go to the same place as their sibling, if they have a sibling, or if not we go to the library.

I waited in the library for 16? minutes before my mom picked me up. The thing is, it was about 2:30 when I was picked (which is an hour early) up so my friend came over.  This friend was telling me what had happened. He had been chosen to be "injured" and this is what happened. He got a paper stapled around his arm earlier that said, "A poster-board hit my arm and it's bleeding". Another injury was that plaster dust fell in someone's eye. Mackay the poster kid / friend said he got bandaged and got his blood pressure taken. The other kid, Asako had fake eyedrops put in ( but she has glasses?! ).

I think that zë drill taught everyone about earthquakes except it wasn't good for the parents because they knew there was a drill. My mom said, and I quote, "I made sure not to plan anything between 2:00 and 3:30". In a real earthquake, you don't know when it will happen.

Azabumatsuri

Last sunday I went to Azabumatsuri. ( A ZA BU MA tsu RI) あざぶまつり

Who: Me

My mom, dad, family friends, me and a bunch of strangers where there (and we saw some friends from the neighborhood) .

What: a festival

Basically the whole town is having a sidewalk sale. It was so crowded you could barley move. The thing is , it was a really hot day and everyones body temp around you made you burn. The good thing is there is basically vending machines on every block and there are a lot of drink vendors except the drink vendors only sold beer. I lived.

When: Last sunday

It officially starts at three but when we went at 2:30 it was jam packed. We stayed till 4:30 and could move about 3 meters in 5 minuets if you are lucky. The fair was right by our street so we had to go through it to get home. The fair should end around 12:00 am.

Where: Azabujuban

Right in-between our house and the station. Very inconvenient .

Why: why not and to celebrate summer

Now, I have a reason for " why not" there was enough crowds to last 5% of your life.


What we did:

We went to the kids area. The first thing I did ( aside getting tickets ) was cork gun shooting. You know those toy guns where you pump something and a cork on a string pops out ? Well this was that in a mutated way. There was no string,  there was a trigger, and there was a reload system. I won a box of candy cigarets and a tiny bottle of mini candy. 

The next game I did was a ring toss except it was not on pegs it was on little holes in a vertical fabric. Then my family friend did it and he got it in four. 

We where about to leave when I saw a fun game. You get a paper net and try to scoop out goldfish from a giant bucket. The thing is, after a bit the paper net breaks so it is hard. I earned 2 fish.

The festival was really fun but crowded. If I can help it , I won't go again.

Ice bucket challenge

1. Does anyone not know what the ice bucket challenge is? It is where you dump some quantity of ice water on yourself or have someone dump it on you.

2. Has anyone done it?
I have.

3. Does anyone not know what ALS it is? It is a sickness that causes you to not be able to control your body.  

http://www.alsa.org/about-als/what-is-als.html
http://kidshealth.org/kid/grownup/conditions/als.html#

Actually I participated 3 times, in different ways.

The 1st time, I poured ice water on the person. This was my family's friend Meghan. We did it at our hotel when we were in the US. We did it on the patio outside the pool, and then right after we jumped into the hot tub. It has a funny story plot - first a tiny cup, then a medium bucket, and then a big bucket!

The 2nd time my cousin Zach and his girlfriend Olivia were doing it at the same time. My Dad and my other cousin Jason dumped the cooler on them. When they turned around I splashed both of them with cups. I hit Zach in the tattoo. The cooler pouring was uneven, so Zach didn't get wet enough, so I think he needs to do it again!

Finally, on the 3rd time it was me! I got nominated by my friend Joe in Atlanta. I did this one back in Japan, on our patio, in the hammock. I don't think it went that well, because in the video the hammock kind of closed up on me, when I covered my eyes. But still it was really cold! After 5 minutes though after I dried off, it wasn't so cold. I was satisfied that I finally got to do it, because I really wanted to.

Today I decided to write about it in my blog, but then I asked "What is ALS?" I went to Google to check and this is what I found. It is a sickness that causes you to not be able to control your body. It attacks the nerves cells in your brain and spine. Your brain can't talk to your muscles anymore, so basically you start not being able to move. You can still understand things, like people talking, because your thinking is OK. Still, it is very serious.

When I learned this I felt like the challenge was not fun anymore. I started to feel it wasn't appropriate to have a fun activity for something so serious. I felt a little tricked.

I think the 1st person should have told what ALS was before he made the challenge. Maybe a better way is to challenge someone to Google ALS first, and then do the ice bucket. I think a lot of people doing the challenge are kids or even grown-ups who don't know what ALS is. I think the raising money is a good thing, but the awareness didn't go up as much. So now I learned what ALS was and how serious it is, and I think that should also be a part of the challenge, to tell more people about it.

Magi Quest

In the past 2 weeks i went to magi quest twice. One time with just my mom and once with my friend Kaz. Magi Quest is a place in Tokyo Dome (Tokyo Dome is 7 stops on the subway from our house with no transfers). There are Magi Quests around the world, but the Tokyo one is the biggest.


Magi Quest is a big indoor place where you use a wand interact with "creatures" and try to become a Master Magi.

In Magi Quest there are different clans, Warrior, Woodsy, Trixter, Shadow, and Majestic. Each clan has a different section, Warrior = 1/2 castle, Woodsy = treehouse, Trixter = maze, Shadow = dungeon and majestic = 1/2 of castle. There were big stones in the middle with commuters on it where you can get quests. On one side was the castle. Behind the castle was the dungeon. Behind the castle on the second floor was the maze. On the other side of the stones was the tree house on the second floor.*

All the things you talk to are on a screen. Like dragons, trolls and master magi.The wands are really cool. I have a dragon head topper on my wand. When I shake it, it lights up.  With your wand you can make things open, move and make noise. The best thing is you don't lose your progress. The whole magi quest thing is inside.

I really like the maze. There where many illusions like mirrors and slanted floors. There was a harp that played itself too. My least favorite part was the dungeon. There was a sleeping dragon, the king troll, skeletons, eyeballs in a box and some weird room that hisses.


The goal is to finish the dragon adventure where you fight the dragon. To do that you must do the other adventurers. The other adventures are Pixie, Duel master, Unicorn and king troll. You help the Pixie, you listen to the Duel master, I don't know what you do for the unicorn and you fight the king troll.  To do the adventures you need runes. A rune is a stone with a symbol on it that gives you power. To get runes you must do quests which you get at the stones in the middle.


I want to go again. I only finished one adventure. The Pixie. This place is a place where you can come again and again and it will still be fun.

*If you go to one not in Tokyo the red stuff might not be like this.

Disney Sea

This week I went to DisneySea. It was not that Mickey (there wasn't that many characters) and has more rides. Here are some of the rides.

Favorite - My favorite ride was Journey to the Center of the Earth. The ride was based on the book and the movie. We get in this big line and wait a longgggggg time (about 40 minutes, but with a fast pass it was about 10) and then you get in this crazy elevator with a bunch of other people and go down really fast into another line. Then to get in the ride you get in to a mine cart that looks like this...

First we go all happy through a crystal cavern with a bunch of fake gems. Then we go into blackness. We come out in a magical forest with plants that look like brains and birds etc etc... Then we go into blackness again and come out by a big tree in a lightning storm ( but I don't know how there is lightning underground ) .  We go straight into a black room filled with things that look like eggs. The last room we go through is home to a thing that looks like a giant spider crossed with a Dino. Then there is a blast of fire ( I always sat on the wrong side ) and we shoot up. We come to the real world go down and do this again a lot.

Least favorite - My least favorite ride was Aquatopia. My dad and I went alone. You get in this bumper-car thing, only in water. We basically just spin around, move somewhere and stop. Then out of nowhere a hose sprays you. We do this pattern again. Then we go back to the dock and we got out. We got soaked! This was a bad ride for the day because it was really cold and drizzling, and we did not dry fast.

Weirdest - The weirdest ride was Indiana Jones - The Temple of the Crystal Skull. First we go into a weird line. The line was in a temple with skeletons everywhere. The roller coaster car looks like a Jeep. When we found the treasure we got blasted ( by light ) . Then when we tried to cross a bridge an eyeball came out of nowhere and blasted right in front of us. When we came back to that spot we saw the eyeball was part of a giant face and we saw it blast some other Jeep. Then we went down this weird black tunnel and there was this face that yelled something in Japanese and red fog came from its mouth and .................

................. we spun around again. The last and most weird thing was when we went down this tunnel and Indiana Jones was hanging by a rope. Then a bolder came crashing down so our Jeep went back and down a hidden passage. When it went light again there was a hole in the wall with a cracked bolder and Indiana Jones standing there.

Disney sea was really fun except for the rain and Aquatopia. You should come.

Robots

A week ago I went to the museum of future science with my friend Ryo. There was too much to describe so I will only talk about the robots.

The first robot we saw was Asimo. He was human (ish) looking but he was all white and his face was all black. He could walk and run and hop and a lot of other things. One time he even did sign- language to a song. The sitting space was so empty that we could lay down but by the time that the show started it was jam packed.

The next robot we saw was a lady robot. The lady robot looked really much more like a real person. It was more detailed than Asimo and had hair and nails and all those tiny details. I saw a video of the person it was modeled off, dipping their arm in goo that hardened, like a wax hand. They did this for the whole face. Its skin was like rubber. There was a demonstration where it talked. It was asking questions and answering  questions. Then this guy stepped out of a box as big as a bathroom stall ( though not as smelly ) which was the control center. The guy was making it talk, move its head and change expressions. Then everyone got to control it for 3 minuets.

The next robot was a baby robot. It was like a baby but with no legs. The baby robot had barely any human details. It had no fingers. No eye lashes, no eyebrows to make it look human. The face had none of those details but it had a mouth, nose and 2 eyes. The body just looked like a white blob. We got to control that one too. This one moved its head and hugged.

Ryo and I controlled both robots. First I did the lady ( my mom called me lucy ). I really messed up because I did not press the button on the top of the head set so I could not move my (robot) head and I could not change expressions. Then I did the baby. I learned from my mistakes so I did better. The baby did not seem to be moving its head though.

The last robot was more like a remote control car but it was different. It looked like a dome 1 1/2 feet long with 4 wheels on each side. The wheels where not on one long axle per 2 wheels, it was a short axle per one wheel. First the controller drove it around. Then it went higher. The slanted wheels went straight. Then it did something even weirder. It balanced on 4 wheels and the other 4 turned onto the axle and then so did the other 4. Then it walked around like a spider ( see video below ) .

This place was really fun to go to and if you come to Japan you should go there. In the far future if you see these thing as cars or adopted robots remember they were all part of this museum.

Ninja restaurant

I went to a ninja restaurant a longggggggg time ago (it was only a week ago but it seems like a long time ago) for my birthday dinner.

The ninja restaurant is in Akasaka. When you walk by the outside it looks like a black ridgy wall. The waiters and waitresses were all wearing black or navy blue and have a cloth over their mouth (therefore looking like a ninja). The entrance was a small room with nowhere to go. The greeter called a ninja from a secret door by clapping and he came out. He led us through another secret door and through the "path of training ". There were little displays of ninja and traditional Japanese stuff. One of them was golden statues in a pond. Then there was this river (with glass over it). The guy/ninja snapped and a drawbridge came down. The inside was like a maze with low stone walls surrounding tables so it looked like a village. We got to the main part/ninja village and was assigned a house/table. We had to find a hidden button to call the ninjas to order something else. The hidden button was under the table by the wall.

The food was really interesting. I had the kids meal. It was 4 pieces of sushi, kara age (fried chicken), tempura (shrimp fried in batter), mini hotdogs with ketchup, and a ninja star cracker. The interesting part was my parents food. The appetizer was ninja star shaped crackers. They came on a dried plant with a duck liver paste. My dad had a turban shell bomb for his course. The shell was there on a platter and the waitress lights these two things on fire. Then she blows on them and the shell catches fire. The soup was really interesting. They came and made it at our table. First the waitress cut leafy vegetables into two bamboo cups. Then she poured cold soup that looked like liquid cheese into a big pot made out of bamboo. Then she dropped two very hot stones into the pot and let the soup cook. When the stones touched the soup, it made a lot of steam and hissing sound. Then we had dessert. The staff came out and sang happy birthday etc etc but it was good. Then I got my birthday strawberry. I got a medium sized box with smoke coming out of the cracks. Inside the box was a ninja towel present. The smoke was coming from dry ice hidden in the box. I had my strawberry and mango cake. My dad had a cheesecake (looked like a frog ). My mom had mango roll cake with a snowman ninja on top.

After that a magician came to our table. He was also a comedian. First he turned a 10 yen coin into a 100 yen coin in my hand. Then he did this long trick with a puffy ball. He made me squeeze it in my hand and then it turned into two balls. Then he asked me how many I want, and I wanted 7, he repeated the process you see above except for seven balls there was one big one. The final trick was a card trick. He did "pick a card any card" on me but he kept stopping me picking the card to be funny. Finally he said any card but he pushed a card out and I took a different one. It was 9 of clubs. He said to write your name on it with this "small" pen so I did. He put the card on the bottom of the deck, snapped and it was on the top. He did this again. Then he did it but said people think it will be on the top but they are wrong. It was 3 of diamonds. Then he did the same thing again but the card was in his headband.

When we left the waitress came out and had two signs. She yelled out in the middle of the street even though we were far. One said thank you and the other said happy birthday. They were ninja-y scrolls.

Rugby game 日本 たい イタリー

I went to a rugby game in Aoyama-ichome, a station two stops from home on the Oedo line. The game was Japan vs Italy. It was a lot like football but different.

Same -

The rugby field is about the same size as the football field. Like American  football there is a field goal thing on each end of the field. The balls are the same shape and teams can tackle in both sports.

The players of rugby and football both try to score by getting the ball to the other end of the field. In rugby a "try" is like a touchdown. A try is 5 points and the followup conversion kick is 2 points, a total of 7,  like football's touchdown + extra point.


Not the same -

Players can only pass backwards or sideways in rugby, but they can pass any number of times.  In american football the clock stops so much after a play, but in rugby the clock never stops (except for a really serious injury) so the play keeps going. There is no hiking in rugby and people pile up on you, then they just slip the ball out of the pile to a teammate. Sometimes people run strait to the tackle then slip the ball out.

In America you have 4 attempts to go 10 yards. In rugby you have infinite turns to go the whole way, until you score or lose the ball. When the ball goes out there is a throw in. Sometimes the teams will lift someone up to catch the ball which is cool that it worked.


Penalties are very different also. After a minor penalty in rugby, they have scrum. A scrum is where players from both teams get in a circle shape and the ball is rolled into the circle. The teams push against each other to get the ball to their teammates. Rugby players get sent off the field if they do a major foul. They come back after 10 minutes, but until then it is 14 on 15.

Players wear no gear in rugby. Making it a more dangerous sport in my opinion. In rugby there is no offensive or defensive players, everyone plays both for basically the whole game, with only a few sub players.

At the end of the game, the alarm sounded but the players had to finish the scrum/play. They finally did, and Japan won!

I hope to see rugby again and that because of this win Japan made the top 10 teams.

ぼくの おたんじょうび おめでとう （my birthday party)

I had my birthday party at spo-cha (I mentioned this place, the big arcade, in Jan 11 blog: Odaiba City.) . I had a small but all day party. I invited Mackay, Josh, Thomas from nishimachi, and Me, ルーカス　ウィレット.

My favorite thing was the cake. We had cake back at my house. We ordered it from an ice-cream shop in Roppongi called Cold stone. It was an ice-cream cake, cookies and cream. I thought it would be cookies and cream ice-cream and cake/cookies. It was actually cookies/cake and vanilla ice cream. The cake was really good but the slices were big.

My second favorite thing was the 4 player Pac man at spo-cha.  Everyone had their own guy to control. Every time a whole set of dots where eaten more would appear. The ghosts were not a problem, your friends were. When they eat a big dot they can eat the ghosts and you. It was really exiting. The game was really fun. 

The worst part was when we had a Nerf gun fight at my house. Josh wanted to be on his own team and he was sneaking around the house. He would lock himself in the bathroom until we went away. Then he would sneak around, if he heard us he would come back and lock himself in again. Over all we caught him in the mud room. So it was funny. 

The second worst part was when we were in the arcade at spo-cha. We could race with mini motorcycles which would have been best. We had all the forms ready when the guy asked my mom if she was all of our parents. He needed the parent to sign so we could not do it. 

Over all my birthday party was a success.  I can't wait until my next birthday!

Tag Rugby

Why?

This summer I have to do something to practice my Japanese. Since I am not in school I might forget it, and my parents say the best way to learn is to use it. My choices were to go to actual Japanese school, a private tutor, or other activity in Japanese, and that's it.

What we did

So I chose 'other activity'. The activity I chose was tag (flag) rugby. Basically the park district for the place we live organizes a tag rugby group on Sunday mornings at 10am. We go to 4 different schools a month to use their fields. The fields are artificial turf, not real grass.

First the class warms up with passing the rugby ball and playing monkey in the middle games. A rugby ball is like a football, but bouncy. Next we got into groups of 5 and do relay races to keep warming up and practice passing the ball. Then we got our belts and flags on (like capture the flag flags) and started playing games.

The first drill/game was where everyone just runs around trying to grab other peoples' flags. The second drill/game was where a couple of kids in the class had rugby balls and everyone else tried to pull their flag, to get the ball. If you pull someone's flag then you get the ball and people will start chasing you!

Then we organized into actual teams and started playing half court rugby. Both kids and grown-ups were playing. My team was only kids.  My team was good. We played two games against 2 different teams. We won both games! A touchdown is called a 'try' in rugby. I scored a lot in both games.

What I thought

Tag rugby was really fun. It was my first time ever playing rugby so I learned about the game and rules (you can only pass backwards, you can kick forwards, when you get " tackled " you have to pass and you must put the ball down to score). I also did get to practice my Japanese. The kids and coaches were all Japanese and spoke only Japanese. The communication was hard but I figured it out by using the Japanese I already know and hand-signing. They were very nice and we all had fun. I want to keep doing it - I was going to do it today but... the school where we were supposed to play at was having Sports Day (remember my blog about Sports Day?) so we couldn't use the field. Boo hoo. I hope it won't be cancelled next week!

Compared to other sports, rugby is the most like handball. I like it because you get to run around and chase people. I think I will keep playing even after I go back to school in the fall.

candy

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

So my family and I went to Tokyo eki (station ) and there was this cool candy shop called Pappabubble. The shop made sucking candies with designs in them.

First the candy workers had this big pot of liquid and they poured it on a flat surface. The liquid was really hot but it cooled really fast. Two workers had to keep stirring it. When they poured it a little spilled out and 10 seconds later one of the workers had to use a spatula to get it off.

Suddenly one worker added sour powder to part of it and the yellow goop turned orange. Then the other guy added an ingredient that looked liked strawberry jam to a different section and it turned red. Then they split it into 3 pieces - red, orange and yellow. 

Then they split the orange into 6 pieces and made long triangular prisms. It didn't look to hard to do.

One of the guys took the yellow part and flung it around a hook, then pulled and stretched it. He did this again and again about 50 times. Each time he did it it got lighter and fluffier. When he was done it was white.  

While we were watching the yellow piece, another worker did something to the red part, and it turned orange (I didn't really see what they did). Then they put all the parts together so it looked like an orange slice. They rolled up the white stuff up so it was in between the triangular pieces, and then wrapped it all up in the last orange section. It was as thick as my head!

Here is the link to a video:

(this is not the candy we saw, but it shows the shop and how they roll it)

We were wondering how it was going to get small. Maybe they would put it in the oven like a shrink dink? 

Instead they stretched it.  By now a third person had come to help.  The first guy had to stretch and stretch it out. The second had to cut it into even slices. The third person  rolled the slices so they are round. Then the second person cut it up to the right size. 

We got to try a sample of the just made candy. It was still warm but hard. I will remember this for a while.

Sports day

The whole school had Sports Day last Friday from 9 - 3. Sports Day is like Field Day at Kipling but there are only two teams - Blue and White. The parents were also on teams. I was Blue.

When we sat we might have lollies taped to our seat. I did not have one.We did it at an olympic sized park, which was actually in the Olympics like 50 years ago! It was big but looked really empty. Some of it seemed really old too.


We started out with the tug of war! The tug of war was my favorite. Each grade goes one at a time. When 4th grade did it blue won really fast. I thought we were going to win because we had 2 really strong people. We didn't have a strategy, we just pulled as hard as we can. The parents did a tug of war too, and my Mom did it.  But it was not fair, because white had a lot of people and blue didn't have that many.

The 400 meter run was my least favorite event. It was really tiring. It was not as bad as the 800 meter because in the 800 I just jogged. We had to stay in our lanes. It was on a real Olympic track so there were 8 rows. It was one lap around the track.

I was best at the centipede race. The centipede race is where teams of 4 strap their feet onto a pair of long skis, that have four straps each. Teams must cooperate to go around a cone and get back to the finish line first. My team was "sugoi jozu" (very good). My team was me, Gabi, Adam and a girl.


The javelin was my worst event. The javelin was actually just a really giant foam rocket (like 3 feet long). You try and throw the javelin as far as you can. My throw did not go very far because it went sideways :(. My friend Keenan won because his went really really really far. But Keenan was on the white team!

 Blue team one 1500 some to 1300 some. Sports day was really fun.

Kazuno- day 2

On a really long field trip 4th grade went way out far (3 hours) from Tokyo. We stayed in a house called kazuno for 2 nights. On the second day this is what we did...


We went to the insect farm for most of the day. It was a really big place but not all of it had exhibits. The most exiting part was the butterfly museum. Half of the kids made crafts and the rest saw live insects in glass boxes, then we switched. The craft was a foam butterfly that was flat with a paperclip on the head. The back was curved up a little so when you dropped it from a height it would glide down. The insects in the glass boxes were amazing. There were beetles 5 inches long and tiny ones too. The tiny water insects were cool. They swam around so fast. For lunch we settled down in a big clearing. My table and the other one by us yelled the greeting to everyone (they were kind of far). The greeting is  みんなさんごいよいわいですか？　　　でわみんなさんごいしょに？
　　　　　　   mi n na sa n go  i yo i  wa i  de su ka              de wa mi n na sa n go i sho ni
Which means "Everybody are you ready?"  "Everybody say at the same time"

After that we played a big game of cops and robbers. I made a big alliance with Thomas, Liam and a lot of others. The whole park was the boundaries. Then we went back to kazuno.

At about 8:30 that night we made a campfire. We had two groups that did two separate activities. One group roasted s' mores and the other played flashlight games. The s'mores were normal and good. The flashlight games were hide and seek and sharks and minnows. The hide and seek was 1on1 and you had to find your partner with your flashlight. The shark had an easy job. They had to use their flashlight to find the minnows where ever they are. The minnows had a hard time trying to escape from the flash light. And what's a campfire without a ghost story? Ms. Eliot told the one... "The one was about 4 young adults in a car. Their car broke down in a night like this one. They found a house with a fire just like this one by the mountains just like Kazuno is. They knocked and out came...a little boy about 10. They asked where are your parent but the little boy hadn't seen his parents for so long. He invited them in and made them a bed and hot coco. When they woke up he was not there. They started the car (somehow it was working) and went to the gas station. They told the worker about the boy. The worker said that there used to be a boy. He died in the fire 50 years ago...." At that point all the girls screamed and waved there flashlights everywhere (they didn't find anything though). Then Ms. Eliot said she would say something scarier and if you did not want to hear it go stand over there. Most people thought it would be like and the house was this one or something like that. The scary part was ... it was time to go to bed and the scariest ghosts are the teachers you kept up all night.

Kazuno will always be memorable.

Hong Kong-Ocean Park

Last week me and my family went to Hong Kong for 4 days. My favorite place was Ocean Park. Ocean Park is kind of like an amusement park and zoo combined. It was on Hong Kong Island, up on mountains. This is some of what we did.

Rides

• The first ride we went on was the Dragon. The dragon is a mild roller coaster. It was fun but my head hurt from it being banged around. 
• The Abyss was a drop from high up. You could see the other islands of hong kong (we were already on a mountain).The drop was fun but not that scary.
• The Eagle was basically a spinny ride. You are in a cart (looks like an eagle) that spins in a group while your group spins the opposite way.  It went up in the air. 
• The Crazy Galley is one of those giant swings shaped like a boat. I sat in almost the back row. 

Animals

• The pandas were really interesting. When it was feeding time the panda would go inside and the zookeepers would lay a trail of food leading to a pile of bamboo. The panda came back out and ate all of the vegetables but did not eat the bamboo as far as I saw. I don't think his eyes are that good and his nose was blocked out by all of the vegetables so he thought there was more around kept looking for them.

• The walrus were in the cold arctic room. The building was really cold. When you looked from the underwater tank they did interesting stuff. One of them came in floating on his back then flipped (underwater) and headed back the same way.
• The goldfish had a surprisingly big area. There were so many types. The weirdest one was the bubble eyed ones. Their eyes had a big blob under it. 

Ocean Park was really fun with all the rides and animals.  The park was better than other parks I'd been to because it had animals and rides. There was a good view because of the mountain and that was interesting also. If you are in Hong Kong I recommend Ocean Park.

Family festival

Yesterday I went to ISSH ( international school of sacred heart) for a festival. There were taiko performances, games and food stands. I was playing taiko. 

The taiko performance was really fun. My three songs were Nebuta daiko, Running horse (pony part) and Chichibu. For me in Nebuta I was just doing the base note.  For pony there are 2 parts, The big horse and pony. The pony takes up two drums and the big horse is only one drum. You can do partner pony with two people with three drums. My partner was Allen from 5th grade. For chichibu we performed sitting down and had to use giant sticks. 

The games were really fun. I did the games with my friends from school William and Angus. We were trying to get 5 tokens each so we could each buy a telescope. The game we did most was a putting game. The telescope was really bad quality. 

The food was really good. There were different booths that had a different country's food. There were so many to choose from, for example Turkey, Canada, Korea, China, Australia and New Zealand. The weird thing is, Hawaii was a totally separate booth from America. I had a Japanese food called spam musubi from the Hawaii booth. I also had pancakes with maple syrup and chocolate syrup from Canada. The festival was really fun.

Kanjis!

I am learning kanjis in Japanese class! Last week I learned 12 kanji in a week, and 5 this week. A kanji is a type of Japanese writing but it came from China. Some kanjis stand for two or three normal letters. There is one symbol for a two symbol word. For example one is Ichi. Written いち in normal or hiragana,  一 in kanji. Ichi is one because there is one line.

2 is  二,  2 lines and same for three (三). A harder kanji is halu meaning spring.  It would be  はる in Hiragana, but with kanjis it is  春.

This kanji is much more difficult then the kanji for ichi.

Continued from last week ...

いぬ　の　かんじ　は、犬
dog       's     kanji        is      犬.


ねこ　の　かんじ　は、猫

cat        's      kanji       is      猫


にわとり　の　かんじ　は、鶏
chicken        's      kanji        is     鶏




Thanks

Mini Japanese lesson.

First off you have to know what dog is. You never know when you will need to say dog in Japanese.
い　ぬ is dog. The first thing is i. It is pronounced ee. The next thingy is nu. It is pronounced nuu. So dog is inu.

Ok I got that out of the way hmmmm... for the people who like cats.
ね　こ is cat. The first letter is ne and pronounced ne. The next is ko pronounced ko.

Oh and Sam is going to say what is chicken so chicken is　にわとり. I will say the letters in order, ni, wa, to ri. They are pronounced nee, wa, toe, ree.

Before Henry asks what a penguin is I will tell you... ペンギン The first is pe the next and last are n and the one that I did not say is gi.

Impress the other classes                     and pay me 10$s.

Thomas's Birthday party

ト-マスのおたんじょび。This means Thomas's birthday. Thomas is a friend of mine from school.

First I went to T.A.C. ( Tokyo american club) to meet my friend Mackay. T.A.C. is a fun, fancy fortress. We played basket ball. Then we went to Thomas's house. There were 9 boys at the party. After that we went back to T.A.C. and did bowling. The most funny thing was when Adam did a great shot and was celebrating but one pin did not fall and he grabbed his head and fell to his knees.

After that we played soccer outside. The goals and field were miniature. There were already kids out side so we did a game. The kids from Thomas's party + some other kid vs everyone else. Our team was so much better against the 5th and 6th graders. The score was 4-2.

For dinner we got pizza at Pizza Strada, which is a restaurant within walking distance. The pizza was so good. I got pepperoni. We played telephone and that was really funny. Mine was　めがねくわすよ！This translates to "I'll break your glasses!"

We went to Thomas's house last and watched a movie. It was called Groundhogs Day. This guy gets stuck on Groundhogs day. It got kind of boring after the 3rd day so I went and did a balloon fight. We got balloons in each hand and whacked people. At the end we were doing soccer penalty kicks with balloons. Thomas's party was really fun.

Recommendations if you come to tokyo

1. Food

The best restaurant I think is a burger place in Roppongi hills. It is a really close walk to our house. The place is a bit fancy but is good. Another good thing is that most of the workers speak english. The serving size is the right size. The fries are excellent. They are skinny and salted.The problem is it is a really long wait.
The best snack would have to be メ　ロ　ン　　パ　ン pastry.

                                                      me   lo     n         pa     n
Okay so you are most likely thinking melon? But it has absolutly nothing to do with melons. (I have no idea where they got melons from.  Maybe the shape?) There are so many flavors. My favorate is the chocolate one from Lawsons. Lawsons is like 7-11. It is weird that out of all the fancy bakeries the conveence store has the best melon pan.  It is cut in half and has chocolate cream and chocolate chips in it.

2. Sight seeing

The Tokyo sky tree is really fun to go to. It is really tall. The funny thing is the elevator takes you up to the 300some floor as fast as a regular elevator  takes you up 30 floors. It is really not fun that the down elevators don't go as fast. Technically if the down elevators went that fast it would be a roller coster but that would be fine with me. At the top you can look down and even though you are really high up you can see individual people. Sometimes.

When you are at the sky tree you might as well go to asakusa. Asakusa is a temple \ shopping street. The temple itself is not that interesting but the shops have some good stuff.  They make samurai letter openers, wooden swords, doll pens and dog kimonos. Kimonos are like fancy robes. Just remember not to go in every shop or you won't get to the temple.

Birthday party

Yesterday I went to an amusement park for my friends birthday. His name is Adam and he is the same kid from the sumo. The other invited kids were Davide, Thomas, Kaz, Dan, Adam and Adam's older sister Maya.

My dad was taking me to his house and every thing goes amazing... ly wrong. First google map goes wrong, second the building  numbers are confusing and last my mom is on a train so her phone has to be on on vibrate so we can't call her. We end up coming back home to get Adam's dad's phone number. When we finally get there we get in 2 taxies and go to an amusement park at Tokyo Dome.

My favorite ride was the thunder dolphin. I have no idea where dolphin came from. It was really scary because it goes almost straight up and then straight down and if thats not enough you go through a hole in a building! Well that alone is not scary but it seems like you will hit your head. The first time on this ride Dan and Adam did not want to go on the second time Dan tried and the third time was the same people went on as the second time.

Another fun activity was the trampoline \ bungie jumping. You go so high! I thought I was going to kick the instructor in the head. Davide was doing flips and every time he did not do the flip fast enough the helper would catch the rope so he could finish the flip. The trampoline was really fun!



I will always remember Tokyo Dome.

taiko

Ta 　i　 ko
た　い　こ is a japanese drum that I play. I had a preformence yesterday and it was soooo long. I was watching and performing for 5 hours! My songs where ,

nebuta daiko,
ねぶた　だいこ
taiko train,
たいこトレイン
Echo of the ocean,

running horse
and

chichibu yataibayashi
ちちぶ　やたいばやし

Nebuta is the easiest and chichibu is the hardest. It is difficult because it is long, more complicated and a lot of the parts sound alike so you don't know what you're on. Also, you have to sit down, lean back and play half the time. And it is really fast. So fast!

This is the link to chichibu on Youtube.

I am in the black sitting position. There were fifty-some players.

We had the lower level and the highest preform the first songs, nebuta, t-train, winter passion, ninja bayashi, echo, and running horse. After that a pro taiko group came and played for a really long time. They were really good. Once they did a marching band. Then the intermediate and advanced group played, chichibu, elephant and two other songs. The taiko performance was really fun.

Kidzania

I went to Kidzania. Kidzania is like a mini Tokyo where kids can sign up to work someplace. You can get kidzos (fake money) by working or you can spend them. I went with Ryo's birthday group and we divided into 2 teams. Mine was me , Ryo, Kaz and Dan.

First our group signed up for airplane pilot. You have to fly an image of a plane through colored rings.   It was fun and I was a terrible pilot. I got a picture taken in the pilot outfit but it was so uncomfortable.


Next we where consultants and you go around and write anything down you see about one shop. We were consultants for the newspaper shop.


After that Ryo rented a car. Dan could not because he forgot his drivers license and me and Kaz could not because we have never been. We took the test and our picture and got the license  Another job was chemist. We looked at germs through a microscope. Then we made a mini presentation and then got yakuruto. Yakuruto is a milk like drink.

Our final job was working at a TV station. There were 2 people that did a lot of talking, 3 people that hardly talked, and 2 camera people and one director. I was a person that hardly ever talked.

On the train ride back me and Yugin were fencing with empty water bottles. Over all the trip was fun.

Ski trip

Last week Wednesday through Friday (for me) 4th and 5th grade went on a ski trip.

The skiing itself was very fun even if my group only went down the real hill half the time. My group was for beginers that have never skied in there lives so we started on the tiny hill. In my group was Thomas (for a bit), Adam, Josh, Dan, Angus, Ken (for a bit) and myself, ルカス. Thomas moved up after the first day and Ken was moved down to our group half way through.

After the night activities we drink hot coco and preform skits. 5th graders preformed the first night and 4th graders the second. My skit was really funny. 4 astronauts find a dude watching TV on Neptune and we end up taking it. My favorite skit (not mine) was Ricky's. 3 guys go into Dumpling Castle and talk about their jobs. One created a new sport one stopped roads and one poked the holes in doughnuts. They get fortune balloons and this is what they say. 1 You will die after you pop this balloon, and he dies. 2 You will die after he dies, and he dies. 3 You will die after Flint eats his cookie, and he dies!!

We had to get to the resort by the shinkansen (しんかんせん）. The shinkansen is called the bullet train for it's speed and shape. On the way there my room talked about what our skit would look like. On the way bak Yujin and Adam played Uno.             The ski trip was so fun.

Danger!

Very very extremely badly out of this world bad news report!!!! There is 2 inches of snow ( well like a half foot but still not a lot) run for your lives the world is ending! Actually false alarm but it is snowing and that is how some people act. Snow has covered the news. Not literally like cameras are white but on almost every news report you see snow. "The train is an hour delayed". "It took me 9 hours to get to the airport" etc etc… On the other hand when there is an earthquake people sleep right through it where as Chicago people would be screaming (maybe ).

Setsubun (se tsu BU n) せ se つ tsu ぶ bu ん n

Setsubun is a holiday at the beginning of spring (well sort of ) on feb third.
On setsubun we watched sumo wrestlers that came to our school. Earlier that week the gym teacher came to our class and picked 3 people to sumo the wrestler. The winners were me, Adam and Thea. We went against the smaller guy and see how it went…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEbfXn9dUEY

 There are onis ( demons ) that dance around and NIS had a big oni  cut out that you throw beans at. You yell ”　　おにわそと。ふくわうち。                                                                                                                                 translation        o  ni wa so to.  fu ku wa u chi.
 That means demons get out. Good luck come in. After each grade go's the new teachers dressed as onis and come out and dance with brooms. Because many of the kids missed the oni's mouth I joked to my friend that they will sweep up the mess with the brooms. Setsubun was really fun

tokyo legoland

Everything was almost the same. The only difference was it was in Japanese and the mini land was of Tokyo. There was a mini tokyo tower, sky tree and evan the tall building that is near our apartment building called Mori tower. At "night" everything lit up but that is the same. The different part is there was a projected image of fireworks on one wall. There was also this Sumo arena. Sumo is japan's kind of wrestling. There was these two buttons and the sumo dudes were on poles that could move. One person was at each button and they pushed as rapidly a posable and the minifigures moves back and forth. The 4d movie was the same movie as the US but in Japanese. On the knight ride were you shoot animated trolls I beat my dad by 45 points. Legoland was so fun

prees a botton and pop Godzila is there

BBQ

Yesterday ( friday for you ) our block had a grill lunch. It was only planned to go until 12 but there were still kids after 5:00. At first all the kids were doing a sword fight and one kid had a nerf bow and arrow. Most of the kids are younger then me. I was chasing them all around and up the stairs and they hid in there apartment. When the kids got there hands on party poppers there were ribbons every where and some kids decorated the trees. Then sometime after that there came along a nine year old. There was this cool game that involved racing plastic cars. One person would sit in it and another would push them. That sport was really fun. When I left some of the kids where trying to light a fire withe the ribbons and a light. That will always be memorable.

sea shipment \ omochisuki

I'll get to the food in a moment.
This weekend the sea shipment came so we have so much stuff in the house. 93 boxes and we still haven't unpacked it all yet. There were three workers and one of them spoke english. They had rolled a lenghth of cardbord on every wall and put alot of  carppet on the floor. Almost every inch on the kitchen was covered in pots and pans when my dad was unpacking ( thank god I was not there ).
_________________________________________________________________________________

Omochisuki is a festival where you make mochi. You steam it pound it and then eat it. The only thing that was bad it that there was a grown up helping pound. Me and my friend Keenin finished the batch of. I tryed 2 pecies of mochi, the plain one and annko. I did not like it. After that we played baddmitten withe our hagoita. I lost my fether ball because of Thomas. One of my sides was Snoopy and the other side was not finished. Literly I mean I did not start it becaues I came in when we were in the middle of the project.

odaiba city



We went to odiaba and went to this big arcade. Before that we saw the mini statu of liberty. It was mini but it was still huge.

After we checked in we had to wait one hour and 40 min. We had lunch at this sushi place (luke it is not spelled susie) ... ( and andrew). It came on a convayer belt but you could make an order on the ipad and it comes on a flat train... with no wasabie.

Finaly we got to go in the arcade (sorry no pics) and they had every thing. Arcade games, tennis, soccer, basketball and vollyball, ping-pong courts. They even had a robot bucking bronko. There was this cool floor that had light print as a 1 on 1 soccer game.

These are two sights we saw on the train ride back. Both cool lit up.