Aya's Life in Boone, North Carolina

at the welcome party at the library.... from left, sophie(england), mariana(brazil), janni(germany), a woman from nigeria, maki(japan), and aya.

at the juliana's farewell party... i gave her a pair of chopsticks with hashioki :) the woman with the pink shirt is juliana.

at the party... from up-left, edwuardo(mexico), vernon(usa), umberto(italy), dennis(russia), izak(korea but canadian), tomoe(japan), rjubica(macedonia), aya, andreas(germany), antonio(spain)

we played some games and it was really fun! i got drunk because of wine though(><) i don't remember about the party very much...

at the bbq place... we played frisbee and voleyball. it was hot but so much fun! i am becoming an active girl! :)

on campus... just chilling :)

at the lobby of LLC... from left, Amanda(USA), Aya(Japan), Umberto(Italy), Andreas(Germany), and Janni(Germany).

this is the group pic of the international students. i guess there are 5 or 6 more exchange students who are not in this picture. kansai gaidai has lots and lots of international students but here in appstate, there are only few.... last week, we kind of sticked together because we spent the time together almost everyday. but since yesterday, classes have started so we are all separated. i feel kind of isolated in the classes(><)
they are the people who have helped the international students with everything since we arrived here in boone. they belong to the group called INTAPP (international appalachian) and they are so nice!! they are kind, friendly, and fun :)

these are the pics that i took in the bar/restaurant called "macado's". they have a lot of sandwiches and the tastes are really good!!! actually we went there twice during this weekend :) and we are going there again tonight... so we have been going there for 3 days! it looks kind of unhealthy but it's really good taste and cheap! i like it!

these are the t-shirts that i bought in the university book store. aren't they cute??
the book store sells tons of appalachian goods and i enjoyed shopping so much! i'm planning to buy some sweat shirts later which says "Appalachian State"!

this is the picture when we went hiking the other day. we only hiked about 30 minutes but the view was amazing!!!! it was tiring but i enjoyed it. the view made me happy. these are some of the international students who went hiking. most of them are from europe, such as france, italy, and germany. and some of them are from mexico and brazil. we are having so much fun!
this is the view i can see from outside the LLC(the dorm i'm living in). you can see that i am in the mountain right?? :) it's gonna be pretty in fall. i can't wait!!



this is the picture of the stairs that i have to go down and up every day. i counted the other day and it was 116!!! it makes me so tired just to go up and down! but i can exercise so it's ok :)

this is my room. i'm living in a dorm called Living Learning Center which all the exchange students are living in. appstate only has about 30 exchange students i think. at least i only know about 20 people. so most of the students living in LLC are american. actually my roommate and suitemates are american and i think it is good because i can practice my english!

when i was in CIE, even though i couldn't speak english well the international students could understand me because they understand japanese. but here, no one can understand japanese so it's really hard to explain something but it's really good for me to practice my english.

i'm going shopping this afternoon. i'm really excited! :)

this is my roommate, hayley. she's been here in boone for 2 years and this is her 3rd year in here. so she knows everything about the dorm!!! she is really nice and she helps me a lot. actually she had a roommate from kansai gaidai about 2 years ago. so this is her 2nd time to live with a student from kansai gaidai. it's amazing!
i have 1 roommate, and 2 suitemates. my dorm is pretty nice i think.

i will write more about my dorm later.

first of all, i wanna thank you guys for coming to see me off at the airport. i was really happy that i was able to see you guys before i left. thank you!!

i am now in Boone, North Carolina. first i arrived in Charlotte, NC and stayed there for 2 nights and then i moved to Boone. i have been here in Boone for about 4 days and i already like it! there is a group called INTAPP which helps the international students with getting stuff and anything. and they made a lot of plans for us so that we are having so much fun thanks to them.

i am doing ok and i haven't got any big troubles. sorry for being late to blog. i hadn't be able to use my laptop till today. but now i can use it so i will blog more about my life in boone, NC!!! please check it out when you have time and leave a comment!!! :)

see ya