Aya's Life in Boone, North Carolina

i only have less than 4 months left before i go back home. im so excited about going back, but at the same time i feel sad when i think about leaving here US. im planning to leave for japan in the beginning of May.

by the way, my friend here is coming to japan this May!!! she is planning to stay at my place for about 3 weeks. she was gonna come to japan with a program which ASU made for business majors, but she is not a business major and it was way too expensive so she ended up staying at my place. anyways im so excited!!!! :)




this is my friend Josie, who is coming to japan!!!
i hope some of you guys can meet her and hang out with her! she is awesome★

hey guys!! how are you doing? i went to Spain to visit my friend over the winter break. i first met him up here in Boone, NC and then he left here at the end of October so i hadnt seen him for 2 months. it was really nice seeing him again :)

Alicante
i mainly stayed in Alicante where my friend lived. it was just beautiful!! they have a beach, castle, good restaurants....etc. and the perfect weather★ i loved it!!



this was taken in a castle. i met a japanese group there and they were from Osaka. i could easily recognize that because of the middle-aged women wearing a pink jacket and stuff like that. it was just so funny. they were the typical women in osaka(i think you know what i mean if you are from osaka)

Madrid
we made a short trip to Madrid and stayed there for 2 days.
first off, we went to watch a football game of Real Madrid. it was so much fun though they lost. we got the tickets for 30 euro and the seats on the 3rd row from the front. all the superstars were just right there and i could see their faces clearly!








the home stadium of Real Madrid.
Zidane(no idea how to spell...ジダン),
Roberto Carlos, and David Beckham.
Ronaldo was there too!







we also went to a huge park, museum, and Plaza Mayor. Madrid was pretty. i liked it a lot. they have a lot of old stuff but at the same time they have subways and other transportation so it was really convenient.

prado museum,

a huge park(forgot the name...),

↓Plaza Mayor
Christmas

i went to have dinner with my friend's family and relatives for Christmas. i had a lot of fun!!! they were just so nice. and i ate a lot of yummy food ;)

and the santa claus came to the house to give children presents!!!! everybody was like "Papa Noel, Papa Noel!!!!" which means santa claus. i wished i were a child so that i could get a present ;-)

at the last night we went to the beach again after dinner. we wrote wishes on a piece of paper and floated the papers to the sea. i hope my wishes will come true★ミ

i was in Spain for 3 weeks but i still have more and more places that i wanna go. im sure that i'll come back to spain someday!!!

i hope yall had a great break! :)

the title of this post means "our encounter can be the last or the first one of our future encounter," in spanish. those are the words for people who are leaving or who already left.

last weekend, we had a farewell party for those who are leaving here App. it was so much fun but at the same time sad... BUT i do believe that i will be able to meet them again in the future, because i actually met a couple of my int'l friends i made in japan here in the US!
since the world is small, its not that hard to meet someone in a different country as long as you keep in touch with them.

Umberto, from ITALY. i enjoyed talking to him in italian :) thanks emi for teachin me some italian. by the way, his japanese pronounciation is..... PERFECT!!!! probably better than mine><

Lasse from GERMANY. he's not actually leaving US but going to UNC Greensboro, which is 2 hours far from here Boone :)

Yuri from MEXICO. she was like a mother :) she takes care of like everyone. she is my 3rd mexican friend that i made in my whole life. she made me more interested in spanish!!

Sophie from ENGLAND. she has a strong british accent and i had hard time understanding what she was saying when i first met her. but it was great that i could hear some british english here in Southern :)

i will miss them so much, and i dont know what it will be like when May comes because that time EVERYONE is leaving here... and im also leaving... to be honest, im so excited about going back home in May but at the same time im sad about leaving... ><

by the way im going to Spain for winter break!!! i will stay there for about 3 weeks!!!! im so excited. i will post some pics after i get back!!!

YALL HAVE A GREAT BREAK!!!!!! hasta luego!!! ^0^

hey guys!!! i went to NYC with a bunch of int'ls over thanksgiving break. it was.... AWESOME!!!

me with the statue of liberty

as you can see from the pic, the day i went to see the statue of liberty was ridiculously cold!!!!! it was much colder than Boone where i'm studyin...

she is my sweet friend, jodie. as some of you guys know, she studied at Kansai Gaidai for a semester last year. i hadn't seen her for almost a year so it was really nice seeing her again ;)

there was a thanksgiving parade on 24th on broadway. can you see a lady with a black jacket in the center of the pic? she is Yumi from Puffy. they were in the parade!!!! i dont like them very much but Yumi chan was really cute. Ami chan was on the other side.

YOSHINOYA
i went to YOSHINOYA in NYC!!!! i had beef bowl♪ it tasted good and i went there twice during my stay in NYC.

i only stayed in NYC for about 4 days and it was not enough at all.... i still have more and more places to visit in NYC. i will definitely go back!!!!

I ♥ NY

on friday night, there was a first basketball game at ASU. since i know 2 of the players, i went to watch the game with my friends. they were awesome!!!! they were so cool. i had so much fun with watching them playing in the game★ and of course, we won!!!

!!!!! JAPAN!!!!!


and on saturday night, we had International Cafe. free food from all over the world♪ i was gonna cook some japanese food with 2 other japanese exchange students and a japanese teacher, but the japanese teacher did the whole thing for us and we just served the food. thanks a lot sensei :) i enjoyed the time with other int'ls eating food from other countries. i liked german and french food!!!

im ready for NYC now!!! i will blog about my trip to NYC after i get back★ it'll be awesome!!!

has any of ya'll ever seen a guy like him in CIE or on campus???
last friday i was drinking at my friend's place and then some guys came in and we were kind of introducing each other. the guy on the pic asked me "which part of japan are you from?" so i said, "im from osaka." then, he said "my twin brother studies in osaka now." so i asked him "which school!?" then he was like "uhhhh kansa....." and me and the other girl on the pic were like "kansai gaidai!?!?!?!" and he said "yes!!!!!"
that was amazing!!!!!!! and his twin brother is not from App but from Texas Christian University and now he's studying at kansai gaidai. what a small world!!!!! i still cant believe it!!!

the marching band
saturday was homecoming and there was a parade in the morning and a football game in the afternoon. i joined the parade and i got on the float wearing yukata! but Boone was freaking cold and my legs were freezing... their colors were really weird... but anyway it was fun!!! we were like masako-sama (we kept waving our hands to the people on both sides of the road)


Yosef (Appalachian's main character or something like that...)

this year's theme was "Aloha Appalachian." so everyone was wearing something hawaiian. we were wearing lei, which made me wanna go to hawaii again :)

me with a surfboard... i really wanna try surfing someday maybe next year!! at first sight it looks really warm but look at my hands! im wearing gloves!!! i was frozen. but im pretty much sure that this is gonna be one of my great experiences in the states!!!