6/24-6/28 Home Visit

6/24
Today we had class and watched a movie called The Ballad of Narayama. This movie was about an old Japanese village where, one the people get old enough, their eldest child carries them to Narayama mountain to die alone. It was a pretty weird movie. =x But it showed lots of cultural things about Japan, I suppose. Like family structure and ones responsibility to family as well as community. Yeah...

Theeen was JST which was as uneventful as ever. We learned about mathy terms and used them.

At manga club, I screen tone'd my page. It took about two hours. The little details were difficult. @_@ I left pretty much right after. Then, one of the kids from another school went to GEO (the rental place) with me to see what it was like. Then we went to Katsuya for foods and Marue for groceries. At this point I realized my blog post was due in a half hour!!

I get back and post it up quickly. I think it came out pretty badly. Everyone else's blog from hoshi gumi was looong.

6/25
Today in language class we went over daily kanji, host family phrases, causative, and...other stuff that I don't remember. XD One kid in class, who has been being awful lately, was even more so today. He was just very non responsive and dead in class. And disrespectful. Apparently he's said some awful things outside of class, too. =/

At Rpro (research project class) we learned more about search engines and got feedback on our topics. Mine is solar powered heating. We did a tiny bit of research and that was that.

I went to club for a little and it was mostly reading manga. I left pretty early because there was supposed to be a picnic/bbq thing by the apartments.

At around 6:30 I got to the picnic and there were lots of people and tables and food out. However, we didn't start eating for a while. It was pot luck so most people brought stuff they made. When we did eat, the food was awesome. *_* There was also a variety of juices and tea. It was really nice. But I left soon after because I wasn't really talking to anyone anyway and I got bored quickly.

I proceeded to stay up late doing homework. =x I'm boring.

6/26
This was probably the most interesting day of my week. Got up and dressed, ate, and sat in the lounge for a while doing internet stuff. Ended up going to the self study center because this one kid who isn't even part of the program was in the lounge. Did stoofs and blahblahblah. ~~~~

At 2 pm Jackie and I got picked up by our young host parents. It was raining. Their car was nice and had a...a what..a TV IN THE FRONT??!?!?! That's right. In the little console in the front of the car, upon a button push, a thin screen slides out and up. It was a tv screen. XD Insane! Anyway, the back seat had this cushie, yellow, quilted thing for us to sit on. We made small conversation with Hisae and Hiroshi (Sae and Hiro). What do we do for fun? How often do we study? What do we study? What do we wanna do after graduation? etc. We first went to a book store. Our original plan to swim in the ocean was scrapped since it was raining. The book store they took us to was amazing! It was called Kanazawa Beans. It was huge and white on the inside. Lovely! We found the dictionary section (I needed one) and found a perfect tiny English-Japanese, Japanese-English dictionary. But then we spotted a Hello Kitty dictionary. *_* It was bigger, twice as much in price...but it was leather and pink. XD The only reason I didn't get it was that it didn't have pronunciations, just kanji. =( We then looked at other parts of the book store (notably, manga). So many thiiings! Augh it was beautiful.

After that we went to a place called Don Quixote. This was probably my first real culture shock of Japan. We only visited one floor and it was...insane. Color everywhere. Signs everywhere. STUFF everywhere. And I do mean stuff. Everything ever. Contacts, accessories, ties, bags, wigs, sexy costumes, shoes for both genders, kigurumi, home decorations, toys, appliances, a GROCERY SECTION! All jam packed together on one floor. It was difficult to walk! @_@ I ended up buying myself a nice hello kitty watch for 999 yen because my watch battery died recently and I haven't been able to find one the right size here. Some awesome things I saw: giant HK pillows, Gloomy kigurumi, Eva car accessories (support our troops ribbons, except they were Eva related), skippy peanut butter... XD We didn't go to the other floors, but I hear there is an arcade on the first floor.

Then we went to a grocery store that I do not remember the name of. Outside, there were a bunch of foreigner muscle men. They all had long hair pony tails, were super tan, and had large muscles. I was like "SURFERS? HERE? WHAT?" It was SOOO random. Not American, though. Some random language... Anyway, the grocery store was like Wegmans compared to the Marue that we're used to here. *_* It has everything. Our family picked up what we (me and Jackie) thought would be dinner. But it ended up not being. Anyway, they bought us snacks and drinks for the road since it was a two hour drive to their house.

Two hour drive. I mostly slept but I also played a little bit of Pokemon. At one point we stopped and looked at the ocean since they live nearby.

Then we got to the house. It was huge and very very classic Japanese. They had sliding doors, a little shrine inside, a family shrine(?) that was almost all gold, tons of traditional paintings and even Japanese style dolls. But then they also had modern stuff like very modern toilets and I saw a power rangers figurine. XD We were brought to the tatami living room and saw that there were LITERALLY stacks upon stacks of okinomiyaki waiting for us. *____* OMG YUUUM!! We ended up waiting quite a while because the main table had to actually be sat. But we met Hisae's mother, father, and grandmother who are all very nice. The mother and grandmother had made dinner. The father reminded me of a crazy old american father. In the living room was a picture from Hisae and Hiroshi's wedding. They had a traditional Japanese style wedding JUST under a year ago. ^^ So beautiful! Hiro, who is very young and kinda looks like a punk, chatted with Jackie and I while we waited for food. He likes going out a lot, it seems.

For dinner, we had rice with beans, a DELICIOUS soup with potatoes and meat, and okinomiyaki of course. OMG it was all so good. <3 <3 <3 the Okinomiyaki had octopus in it that the mother had bought/caught THAT DAY I believe. We got to see Hisae cut up the rest of it for leftovers after dinner. =x It was a whole little octopus. Crazy! Apparently they walk to the ocean so...fresh fish all the time! Most of the conversation during dinner was a little awkward cause speaking is hard for both of us. But we managed. =D

The mother and grandmother were both nervous, Hisae said, because they've never had a foreigner over before. X3 After dinner was cleared away (we got to keep our leftovers!!!), we had cherries and pineapple for dessert. I showed them a picture of my family and they were very excited and I explained who everyone was n stuff. Then we chatted more. And then Hiro unleashed his secret.

When we met him the first time, he told us he had only been to Hawaii when he was young and that was it. Apparently, he's been living in America for 10 years, teaching, and knows English fluently. He lives in Kansas with Hisae. =x WTF! XD He explained that they decided to not tell us so we could have a "real Japanese family" experience. We both appreciated it, I think, since that was the point. But on the ride home we spoke all English. He said it was easier for him to express himself using English sometimes.

We gave them our presents just before we left at around 9:30. They LOOOOOVED everything! Lots of "sugoi" all around. Jackie and I were all giggly. XD They gave us our okinomiyaki and we were on our way back to KIT.

Apparently, Hisae and Hiroshi met because they both used to skate board a lot. And Hiro heard about the program through his father since KIT had been asking lots of employees if they'd be willing to host people. Lucky us! They showed us to onsen places on the way back that would be good to go to.

And that was that! =D

6/27
Today, there was a little freak out in the morning since Sam, Susan, and Marie (who all had the same host family) never returned the night before. We eventually found out they were staying overnight. Luckies!! =D

Today I stayed in pretty much all day. It was boring.

I did got out later to Marue and then watched part of Akira with Derek since he'd never seen it before and that is just WRONG!

6/28
Today I got up at the wonderful hour of 10 am since class started an hour later than usual today. *_* At Rpro, we did a weird "rap" thing with a new tongue twister. I think I've learned 4 now. Then we went over how to talk about figures, graphs, and tables in Japanese. Then we did research on our project.

A scary thing happened. This one kid, the one with the bad attitude from before, came to sit next to me since we have similar topics and the teacher said we could all work together if we wanted. Well, I work alone. And I told him so. Anyway...later in the class he just crumpled his progress report (we have to fill out a project progress report every class) and tossed it on the floor. At the end of class, one of the teachers came over to ask us all for our papers. He didn't say anything and she asked him for it. And he said "Ja ne" which is really informal like "later" and she was like whaaaat? And she kept asking him for the paper, really nicely and asking if he was done. And he said that he was "done with Japan" and then walked away.... It was super tense and really scary. @_@;;;;

Lunch time I had my okinomiyaki leftovers and then went to the library to study for the next class. In language class today we had a quiz and learned how to write letters to people. And then we wrote a thank you letter to our host family. I hope they like mine. =x I also hope Jackie's and mine aren't too similar since we have exactly the same things to talk about. XD During one of the breaks, Suda-sensei showed us that, on the 11th floor of the library, it is girl's only!! You have to have a female ID to get in. And the whole floor is just for girls. It's open and beautiful. Very colorful, comfy chairs. Tables for studying, small rooms with internet, a printer, and TONS of magazines! The bathroom had purple carpet and the main part is just a huge long counter with TONS of three-section mirrors and stools for doing makeup. XD And it has three western style new fancy toilets. INSANITY!! This place was like a girls-only paradise. I can't wait to go back! lol But it's only open 8:30 to 10 at night.

I tried to go back later, but my ID didn't work. I haven't been able to print, either. I wonder if they're related? I let a teacher know so hopefully it will get taken care of.

I tried to go to manga club today, but they basically shooed me out. They have the school fair or whatevs coming up and most of the room was taken up by a large wooden thing they were painting. XD

I came back and finished Akira and have basically been bored and doing not much since then. Lazy day~

-Sara