Phoenix, Arizona.

I'm in Phoenix, Arizona and staying at a hotel called wig-wam. Brittney Spears and the Black Eyed Pea's once stayed in the same hotel. There is not much to do around here and i am getting really tired of traveling. My dad and brother have spent every morning here golfing while i stay at the hotel relaxing and swimming. it turns out we are cutting our trip a little short and will only be going to half the place's in Europe. We will be home for good on September 5Th, just before grade 7. YEY! the places we will be going to in Europe are:
Ireland,
England,
Scotland,
Holland,
and france.
i miss you all and can't wait to get home.

more Japan projects

2009 was the year I went on a world trip with my family. Japan was one of the many countries we visited. Have you ever been to Japan? These are some of the interesting things I did during my stay. When in Japan I stayed in three different cities. Sagamihara City was the one I stayed in the longest. I also visited Kyoto and Hiroshima.

When in Kyoto we mainly visited temples. We saw three main temples. The golden temple was a large building covered with gold leaf. The silver temple was a wooden building that was supposed to be covered in silver but the politician making it ran out of money and political power before it was covered in silver. The final temple we visited was the wooden temple and was of course made of wood.

In 1945, in World War II, the U.S.A. Army dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Many died. Lots of those who survived died, days, weeks, or even years later from the radiation. Saduko was one of the survivors and lived ten normal years before she became sick and went to the hospital. In the hospital she was diagnosed with leukemia, which she got from the radiation. I’ m a dork. Believing in the old Japanese saying “If a sick person can make 1000 paper cranes that person would be cured” she began making paper cranes as fast as she could. Some days she was too weak to make cranes but others days she made many. Sometimes she made cranes so small she had to fold them with needles. Within each crane she planted a wish to live. She made her 644th and final paper crane and died on October 25, 1955. Each year on “Peace Day,” the Japanese present paper cranes to the statue of her holding a golden crane that was made in memory of her. When we visited Hiroshima we went to a Museum about the bombing and walked through the Peace Gardens.

Japan’s main source of transportation is the train. There are four main types of trains. The Local is a train is the slowest and stops at every stop. The Rapid train goes slightly faster than the Local and stops only at the main stops. The Shinkensen is the fastest and goes as fast as 300 kph. The Shinkensen stops only, at the major stations. The final train is called a Romance train and it speed is between the Rapid and the Shinkensen. Sometimes the trains are busy and other times they are not. You do not want to be on a busy train. They can get so busy that the train conductor has to push people on. You get no room for you elbows when that happens.

The Japanese eat some pretty strange foods. If you have ever been to Japan you would know what I mean. They eat raw fish called sushi. They have rice at every meal including breakfast. They eat cooked seaweed and they also eat squid on a stick. I personally don’t like any of these things but I usually don’t like anything. The Japanese also have different letters and rules of writing. The Japanese characters are, in my opinion, more like art than letters. There is a certain order you have to do the strokes. In the books and notices I saw the letter were written in a vertical order. When reading you would start on the top of the right page (we usually start from the left) and go left reading each column from the top down. That means that the page numbers would go backwards. If I were you I would stick with reading English books.

Japan projects

32 Questions about Japan
By Katie Gray
1.What is the name of the country and where is it located?
Japan is located in western Asia and is made up of a series of small islands.

2.How much rainfall occurs annually, is they’re a rainy season?
Japan gets 55 – 60 inches a year. There is a rainy season. It goes from June-August.

3.Are there distinct seasons? During your stay what season was it?
Japan’s distinct seasons are summer, fall, winter and spring. During our stay the season was spring.

4.What was the average temperature while you were there? What is it on an annual basis?
While we were in Japan the average temperature was 20°c

5.Ethnic Groups - does the community look homogenous or does it have lots of diversity?
98.5% of people are Japanese, 5% Korean, .4% Chinese, and 6% other.

6.Do most people live in small and rural towns or in big cities?
66% of the population live in urban towns.

7.What is the average income?
35474.10 U.S. dollars per year is the average income.

8.What is Japan’s population?
127 million people is Japan’s population.

9.What kind of food are they known for?
Rice, sushi, pork, chicken, noodles.

10.What are the primary industries?
Not much agriculture, manufacturing… motor vehicles electronic equipment, machine tools, ships, chemicals and processed foods

11.What does a typical house of a local person look like?
Many small rooms and on the outside of the house it looks like a small Canadian house.

12.Wealth Distribution - Do you see examples of very rich and very poor people, or does it look like most people have the same standard of living?

13.What kind of music do you hear playing
You don’t hear any music.

14.What kind of sports do the kids play?
The kids play baseball, soccer and many other sports we have in Canada.

15.Are the Japanese known for a special type of arts or crafts?
Ikebana, calligraphy, kabuki, haiku, origami, tea ceremony

16.Television - did they have satellite with lots of choice or not?
All Japanese Channels.

17.How does the food compare to Canada?
Very different foods.

18.What kind of Meat do you see in the grocery stores
Sushi, fish, chicken and pork and beef

19.What new food did you try that you never had before
Rice

20.Does Dad like the wine in the country or does he drink something else?
No Japanese wine but Japanese beer

21.What is the currency name? Do they also use $U.S.?
Yen is the currency name and no they don’t use us dollars

22.What is the conversion to $U.S.
98 yen to the us dollar

23.How much does it cost to buy fish and chips?
No fish and chips but fish and rice!

24.Americanization - do you see examples of things from home?
McDonalds, star bucks, English

25.Are there any unique animals, birds and or marine life that you saw?
No!

26.Describe the most interesting thing you saw or did.
We saw a sign that said beware you might see a wild squirrel

27.What is the main language spoken?
Japanese

28.List a few key phrases and their meaning of words that you learned.
Hi = yes kinichiwa = hi

29.What is the thing you will remember most about this part of the trip?
The candy shop in Tokyo hands

30.What was the favourite activity you did on this part of the trip?
Seeing the Temples in Kyoto and seeing the Paper cranes in Hiroshima.

31.Would you want to come back here again?
Not really, to long a plane ride but, maybe.

1000 paper cranes!

I'm in Hiroshima where in the year 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped by the u.s.a in world war two. Many (too many) died. Others that survived the dropping of the bomb died minutes, days or even years later from radiation. a girl named Sadako, survived when the bomb dropped. This is the story i am going to tell you about now.

A thousand paper cranes
Sadako was 2 when the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. She survived. Ten happy years later she became sick. She went to the hospital where she was diagnosed with Leukemia.A cancer that was caused by the radiation. she started to make paper cranes following an old Japanese superstition that said "a sick person will be cured if they can make 1000 paper cranes." she made as many paper cranes as she could but some days she was too weak to make any. she made some cranes so small she had to use a needle to fold them. within each paper crane she planted a wish to live. the last crane she made was her 644Th crane. she died October 25, 1995. At her funeral her family handed out her paper cranes to all that attended. after her death her classmates finished her 1000 paper cranes. In 1958 a statue of Saduko holding a golden crane was built. Every August 6, "peace day", people gather from all over the world and present paper cranes to the statue in memory of her.

Today we went to a kite festival, where they flew the worlds largest kite. Every year they paint different symbols on the kite. The symbols are usually wishes of the local people and they vote what symbols to put on it each year.
There was a cotton candy stand where they sold white cotton candy. There was another stand that you used a BB-gun to shoot a prize off of a shelf. Another stand was selling goldfish. For 3$ you got a blue ring with a handle (sort of like the thing you use to blow bubbles) with a paper over the ring that you used to pick up the gold fish. You got as many goldfish as you could get before the paper breaks. Another stand sold bouncy balls. For 3$ you could get a huge spoon full of bouncy balls ( it was the kind of spoon you use to serve soup). I did the bouncy ball one and got 6 bouncy balls. there was drummers there to entertain. It was very interesting to watch how well they played. They were not pounding the drums like they would in a marching band but more like they were having contests to see who could hit the drum the hardest.