Last day in Japan T_T

My last day in Japan was full and very emotional, I felt really sad T_T that my journey will come to an end, it wasn’t just a trip to some country , it was much more , an experience of a life time with 53 nice people from 50 different countries , it was a dream that came true for me.

The last day party was really amazing, kumagai san asked some participants to make a performance in front of our Japanese families that were really kind to spend a day with us ^^

When kumagai san asked us “is there is anyone who wants to make a performance??” I was confused , should I make one or not , eventually I thought that it would be very nice if I could sing an arabic song, this way I could feel that I represented my country in some way , so I sang an Arabic song which is called “sahar al layali “ ,it is for a famous Lebanese singer ( Fairouz) , this song was my Egyptian friends( mai san) choice( good choice ^_^).

Of course special thanks to Andres san who really helped me a lot in my performance , he played the guitar along with me ,although Andres san didn’t know the song before , but he could play the song in just 20 minutes , I was really surprised and impressed by him.

My host family told me that they will be busy and that they can’t come to the party, so I wasn’t expecting to see them, but to my surprise they came, and I was really glad and touched especially when akemi san (my Japanese mom) told me that she thought that I will feel lonely seeing all the participant’s host family by their side, I am glad that I met such nice people in my life ^^



The party ^^



Akemi san and her husband ^^

videos of my Japan trip taken by Marco san who’s a creative young man ^^



A book store called "book off ", the best anime shop ever and it has branches all over Japan ^^ and cheap prices ^^



Asakusa/Tokyo , the place where I bought my yukata ^^



Some clips of trips around different parts of tokyo: shibuya, shinjuku, tokyo tower, ikebukuro^^



Marco san said about this video "These may not be the most noisy or high tech places I visited in Japan, but it is the Japan I fell in love with" , I agree with him and for me too these places were the places I fell in love with.

This video made my tears flow thinking of the places I love the most and also the song is the favorite song for kosuke san T_T

By the way, I tried to stay awake the last night in Japan but I couldn’t, my body couldn’t take it, Daniel san tried to wake me up but he couldn’t, I remember when I said good bye to everyone with a big smile in my face but inside my heart tears were flowing, after I said goodbye to everyone, I cried in the bus in my way to the airport, this is an emotion I will never forget T_T

Japan, I love you from the bottom of my heart , and to all the people whose dream is going to Japan , I will tell you that Japan is definitely worth it , so work hard and do your best and Japan will become a reality the same way it became for me.
Yes Japan is a dream, but it’s a dream that can come true, remember that ^^

minna ganbatte kudasai ( do your best everyone) ^^

Wadaiko & a Home visit!!

Minasan, have you ever heard of the word wadaiko before?

I first heard this word when I went to Japan, as I said before the program gave us the chance to choose between 4 different activities that reflect a major part of Japans traditions and culture (Wadaiko, Aikido (material art), Ikebana (flower art), satou (Tea ceremony)), I chose Aikido (I already talked about it ...click here to check it out) and wadaiko.

Wadaiko means Japanese drums, there are different types of Taiko (drums) and different types of performance that can be played (Multi-drum, multi-player, Multi-drum, one player, One drum, multi-player, One drum, one player), wadaiko is a very important and essential part in the Japanese culture because it’s played in festivals( and of course u can imagine the number of festivals Japanese people have ), during my stay in Kansai Japanese language institute, I used to hear wadaiko sound at night , this is because there was a festival everyone was preparing for ( danjiri matsuri , I will talk about it in a later post) , so Japanese people take it seriously and so I did when I played.

So why do Japanese people have a great emphasis on wadaiko this much??

Well, as you all know, the first thing a baby hears is the voice of one’s mother heart beat, the sound of wadaiko reassembles the sound of the mother heart beat, this gives the power to whom ever play or listen to the wadaiko amazing sound, I fell in love with wadaiko, my heart beat in a way it didn’t beat before while listening to it the first time( in Miyajima island),and when I started learning it, although my hands started to hurt me after hitting the drum for a long time, but I kept wanting to hit the drum , of course playing with a group of people is what made it more fun , you can feel the powerful spirit that wadaiko have once u start hitting the drums ^^



I think the home stay is a good chance for a Japanese language student, actually it may be the most rewarding and memorable part of an experience abroad, and imparts special insight into the culture and daily life of the host country.

first my Japanese mom akemi san picked me up from kansai center and then we went by her car to different places before we went home, well , she speaks very fast , I was impressed by her , she went to many countries although she is afraid from getting into airplanes , I thought that she was really interesting .

We went to an art museum ^_^ I enjoyed my time there, we were lucky that there was a classical music show at the same day we went there ^^ it was at 1 pm, so we had time to eat lunch before the show.





The Art Museum^^




The Piano they used in the Classical music show ^^

we took a break for lunch (ramen place), now I already told my Japanese mom that I can’t eat ham meat cause I am Muslim, so I expected a ramen without ham in it, but after one spoon of my ramen, she put her hashi (shop sticks) in my ramen and took ham meat from it saying that u can’t eat this right!! Well I was shocked that the ramen had ham in it, so I told her that I can’t even eat something cooked with ham, she accepted it with a huge smile in her face telling me it’s ok ^^ and then instead I ate tempura which is completely safe^^ oishikatta.



The ramen with ham meat in it >_< & Tempura ^_^

Then after that we went back to the art museum to watch the classical music show, although all of the people watching the show were old, but I really enjoyed it ^^

Then we went to her best friend’s house, she wanted to show her the pictures of their recent trip , my Japanese mom traveled a lot, they were really nice to me and was interested to know more about me and my country , also the father tried to talk to me in English , that was cute ^^



Akemi san ( my Japanese okaachan ) , her friend family^^

Anyway , after that we went to a super market to buy groceries because my Japanese mother wanted to cook something special for me ( how nice was that) , anyway , she invited her son and his wife , because it was weekend ( Sunday) ,I met the father , he was really nice , in fact everyone were, I felt that Japanese families are similar to the Arabic one, cause the role of the mother is the same , when the son entered the house he hugged his dad and drank beer with him and his wife and me entered the kitchen to prepare the food( see what I mean >_>) , I really enjoyed the food , the best meal I had in Japan.



Look how cute my Japanese family is ^^

I now have a new family in Japan; this feeling is something that I won’t trade for anything in this world.

Last day in Tokyo ^^

Our last day in Tokyo was interesting, it started early in the morning, we (Aw no mina san) left KitaUrawa center at 8 30 am , and we arrived at our first destination in the schedule which was the Diet Building which is a building where sessions of both the house of Representatives and the house of Councilors meet, The sessions of the house of Representatives take place in the left wing while the sessions of the house of Councilors take place in the right wing, well it’s not as interesting as the places we went before , but still something that is good to know about Japan.



After that we went for lunch, the program took us to a restaurant in Shibuya that serves vegetarian food, I am sorry to say that but I didn’t like the food at all and most of the participants didn’t like it either, the majority of us are non vegetarian and also we couldn’t see the point of taking us to such restaurant (it’s not even Japanese food), but anyway we were all polite when they asked us about our opinion in the food, we should have been honest.



The resturant ^^




Our vegetarian meal ^^

After our pure vegetarian meal ,We arrived at Meji-Jinga Shinto shrine at 1:45 pm which is also located at Shibuya , Meji-Jinga shrine is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, it is visited by many people, especially on new year when people pay their first visits (called “Hatsumoude”).The number of the first visitors to the shrine is the largest in Japan, the view was amazing and also I liked a tree there , I spent most of the time walking near it ( I have no idea why I fell in love with it).







This is the tree I fell in love with ^^




Meji-Jinga Shrine ^^

After a very long day, we arrived at Haneda airport, it was time for us to leave Tokyo T_T, we enjoyed JAL airline flight^^ and we came back to our home, Kansai Japanese language center /Osaka^^

Yappari home sweet Home ^^





Haneda Airport

Next time, I am going to post about my Home visit and wadaiko (Japanese drum), so tanoshimi ni ^^

One Year Anniversary ^^

Today , I am celebrating two things , I am celebrating my birthday and also the birth of my blog , wow , I can’t believe that it has been a year since I started this blog , time flies fast O_O.

I started blogging when I turned 21, at that time I didn’t know that this blog will be a major part in my life, this blog means the world to me, how can it not be when this blog witnessed the tough , sad and also the happy ,amazing , joyful days of my life , I posted various topics about me , my dreams , my friends , my family, Japanese events , trips and much more .

a lot of things have happened this year , I went thought a lot , I achieved SOME OF my dreams , I won the 12th Japanese speech contest which was a huge thing for me , I went to Japan and I can’t believe until now that I actually went to the land of my dreams.

During this year, I met a lot of people, I made friends all around the world, and I realized how lucky I am to have the friends that I do have now, This make me wanna treasure the people that I love the most in my life (my family, bmb , my friends and all the people that do care about me.

A lot of people supported me and without their support I Couldn’t do anything (my best friend in this life (my mom ),the person who love me the most in life( my sister rawand) , Timoor sensei , kikuchi sensei ,my second sister alaa , my friend and my sis farah and many friends that I can’t live without ), looking back to this year , I am glad that I made the decision to learn Japanese language , it gave me better friends , a new life , basically it gave me things that I didn’t even dream of T_T

I started blogging a year ago, many people entered my blog from different countries, sometimes I didn’t believe the numbers of people entering the blog every day, despite all this, numbers are meaningless to me, if my posts reached someone and made him passionate about something in his/her life, this means the world to me, the most important thing to me is the impact of blogging to whom ever read this blog^^

I really have no idea what the future hides for me, and for this blog, having this thought, I feel scared of the future, it’s so unpredictable, but I believe that Allah has a plan for me and I feel the blessing and the love of Allah every single day , so the best thing I can do is carry on with my life having big faith in ALLAH and of course the people I love and (enshaalla)carry on with my posting that has became part of me, I hope that my vision reached all people viewing my page , after all my blogs name is Rua’s Vision , It’s about my life in Jordan and my passion for Japan ,facing many challenges that is in my way in achieving my dreams^-^ this is the description of my blog and it will remain this way.

I would like to thank all the people viewing, reading and commenting on my blog , and to those who have read, commented, encouraged and challenged me to write better subjects every time since I started my first entry .

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for everything T_T

The banners of my blog since I started ... click to enlarge ^^

My free day in Tokyo <東京ディズニーランド> 9/9/1009 ^^

Hi minna ^_^

The free day was a big chance to discover the places that each of the participants (AW no minasan) dreamt of before coming to Tokyo, some wanted to go to Tokyo tower and Shibuya , most of them wanted to go to Akihabara ,well, for me the best thing ever was going to Disney land and hanging with my Japanese friends that I met in Jordan through a program called JMESC (Japan Middle East Student conference 2008 & 2009).

I wanted to go to Disney land since I have been a child , for some people Disney land is considered so childish, but for me ,it’s like a fantasy world that I really wanted to explore ^_^

My day started really early , I woke up at 7 am, I met Taruto san which is one of my Japanese friends that I also met at the JMESC 2008 , he picked me up from Urawa Institute which is located in Kita Urawa prefecture, and he treated me to a nice breakfast from star box ( such a nice guy T_T Thank you Taruto san ) , after that we rode the train and reached Tokyo station where Emi chan and Remi chan ( also participants of the JMESC 2009 )were waiting for me , after that Taruto san had to go (he had daigaku ( university ) ) , and then we continued our plan , we took 2 trains to Disney land which is located in Chiba ^^ ( There is Disney land and Disney sea , I wanted to enter both of them but I had to choose , so I chose the Childish one which is Disney land \(^.^)/ ).

I had a blast in Disney land, I was jumping, laughing and acting like a child , after all Disney land is a place where you forget reality, I enjoyed it and what made it more fun that I shared it with my friends ( Emi chan & Remi chan , arigatou T_T).



Disney land entrance ^_^ all the decorations were about Halloween because it was the next day ^^





The best ride ever, its theme was about space ,we couldn’t see the track because it was so dark, it was interesting and fun, this what made us ride it twice^^




This was a musical kawaii (cute) show , minni oh! minni ^^

I wanted to stay till night in Disney land and watch the amazing hanabi ( Fireworks ) but we had to go to Shinjuku because I wanted to meet my friends ^^ .We left Disney land at 5:00 pm and headed to Shinjuku which is a major commercial and administrative center, housing the busiest train station in the world (Shinjuku Station).

After that, we arrived at Shinjuku station, I was shocked to see a lot of my friends, I thought that its gonna be hard for them to come since 2 of them had started working and the others are university students (I felt glad and happy that I had such friends, although we didn’t meet for a whole year, they came for me, I will never forget the way I felt that day, I am blessed ^^).

I was hungry so we went searching for food that doesn’t contain buta ( ham meat ) , I really wanted to eat okonomiyaki but most of the resturants cook okonomiyaki with ham oil so its dame( not allowed ) for me to eat , since I am a Muslim girl , but eventually we found a store where you can cook your own okonomiyaki ( which is by the way more exciting ) ^^.

After a very oishii (Delicious) meal, we went to a karaoke box and we had fun (everybody sang, I miss karaoke T_T I wanna have one in Jordan).



Okonomiyaki ingrediants ^^




Okonomiyaki , oishii T_T

I left 11 pm because I had to catch a train, I arrived safely and I found the place this time although I was close of getting lost T_T

What a fun day … the next time I go to Japan, I wanna try Disney sea ^_^

Next post …my last day in Tokyo T_T wait and see what will happen ^_^

Tokyo …wow O, O 8/9/52009

I will make 3 posts of Tokyo trip , because we spent 3 whole days in Tokyo , and it’s impossible to post all the things I did in only one post ^^

As I said before in my previous post , we arrived at Hiroshima airport and left Hiroshima by plane JAL , it took one hour until we reached Haneda airport , I always wanted to travel by JAL airlines so I was really excited , the amazing thing was seeing mountain fuji ( fuji san)from the airplane window , we didn’t have the time to go there , but seeing it from the airplane was just amazing , it was surrounded by clouds, it was like Fujisan was floating T_T ( I will go to fuji san next time I go to Japan) ^^



We arrived at the Japanese language institute /Urawa which is located in an area called kitaUrawa , it’s not Tokyo , it takes 40 minute to reach Akihabara, 60 minutes to reach Harajuku ,and 70 minutes to reach Tokyo tower , so Tokyo was far from the institute area but the train made everything easy for us.



A ramen store…I went there with mai san (Egypt) , J san ( Poland)and Daniel san( Bulgaria) the same day I arrived to Kita Urawa ( The Japanese language institute) , it was really interesting when I was explaining for them that I don’t want ham meat in my ramen , all the people in the restaurant was involved in the discussion for some reason O_O afterwards we sang karaoke in the restaurant , what a nice evening ^_^

The next day (8/9/2009), we gathered at the lobby of the institute, and we headed to Tsukiji shijou(Tsukiji fish market ), which is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in Japan and also one of the largest wholesale food markets of any kind.

The market is located in Tsukiji in central Tokyo. The inner market ( jonai shijou) is the licensed wholesale market, where the auctions and most of the processing of the fish take place, and where licensed wholesale dealers operate small stalls. The “outer market” ( jogai shijou) is a mixture of wholesale and retail shops that sell Japanese Kitchen tools, restaurant supplies , groceries, and seafood, and many restaurants, especially sushi restaurants, most of the shops in the outer market close by the early afternoons, and in the inner market even earlier.

In my country, I read about this market at a magazine called ”Nipponia”( I was really sad when I heard from mikami sensei that this magazine is not going to be published anymore ).I liked Tsukiji market a lot ,The main reason for that is that I just love looking and touching fish ( Don’t ask me why!!!) , The market was really busy , and it was somewhat dangerous to walk without paying attention to the passing vehicles.

Kosuke san ( The trainee at the kansai institute ) told me that the market owners will be very busy so don’t expect them to be that nice , actually I think that they were really nice , one of the owners saw that I was interested in his crabs ( kani ) , so he brought the biggest kani(crab) in his shop and let me hold it , so I thought that this was really nice of him,infact he let us all hold it and take pictures with it , how nice was that!! T_T, I will remember the smell of Tsukiji market, it will always remain with me ^_^



Outer Market ^^





Kosuke san Holding the crab ( see how nice the owner was , he let us hold the crab ) ^_^



This is the kani store (crab shop) I told you about in tsujiki market^^ The owner was really nice ^_^



After that we headed to Asahi Shimbun, which is one of Japan’s leading daily newspapers that is published and edited by the Asahi Shimbun Company .its headquarters is located in central Tokyo area. The paper is the second most circulated in the industry, next to yomiuri shimbun.
I don’t have a lot if pictures of Asahi Shimbun because photos were not allowed there.




Daniel san ( I actully got alone with him , althought most of the time we were arguing , but I enjoyed it T_T)




The last stage of making Asahi newspapers ^_^



Alisher san and Our guide in Asahi shimbun ^_^( cute pic ne )

We left Asahi Shimbun at 12:30 pm and headed to Sensoji Temple , we arrived at 1:00 pm.
Sensoji temple is a very popular Buddhist temple that is located in Asakusa, it’s one of Tokyo’s few districts, which have preserved a certain atmosphere of the old Tokyo, Sensoji temple is Asakusa’s main attraction and also it’s the oldest temple in Tokyo , it was built in the 7th century.

Near the temple there is a street that is called “Nakamise Dori” ,it’s about 300m long and there are many small shops along the way. This street is one of the oldest shopping districts where you can buy souvenirs and see people cooking sweets like kaminari okashi ( “Thunder sweets”) sweet , crispy snack made of Japanese rice), and others.

I bought a yukata from there (Asakusa) , I can’t wait to wear it here in Jordan ^_^





Sensoji Temple ^_^




Nakamise Dori street , The place where I bought the yukata ^_^

After this amazing busy day, we went back to The Japanese language institute /Urawa , I talked with my Japanese friend (Emi chan )and decided a place where we can meet ,Emi chan came to Jordan in a program called (Jmesc/ Japan Middle East Student Conference 2009) , I really wanted to meet her and all my Japanese friends that participated in the same program ^^ , other people in our group (Aw no minasan) went to shinjuku , but instead I went to Akihabara to meet Emi chan ,Takako chan ( I love her a lot , she was an exchange student in Jordan, she used to study Arabic) and Remi chan ( I didn’t know her before, she is really nice and kawaii), I was really happy that I met my friends again and also because I was walking in Akihabara , which is a well known place for selling electrical devices (actually a lot of people in our group (Aw no minasan) bought electrical dictionary from there ), also it is the place for people addicted to anime or manga( anime no otaku no tokoro ^^).









YES this is AKIHABARA O,O

After that I went back to the institute, it took me 40 minutes from Akihabara, although I was lost in my way back but I really had fun (In case you’re wondering, I found the place eventually with the help of a very nice guy ).

This was my first Day at Tokyo, very busy and fun ^^

Next …I am going to post about my free day at Tokyo…T_T … so wait for the next post ^_^