The next day, I want early to Tokyo Station to meet our instructors, Michio and Kathryn and catch the shinkansen with them to Osaka. I seem to always get sleepy whenever I ride the shinkansen. We arrived in Osaka and they brought me to the Daitoshi city hall where I met with some people from the education department who dismissed Kathryn and Michio and gave me a rundown of what was happening during my time here. After that, they introduced me to a few more people from the city hall, then we sat around for a while and chatted until my host family came to meet me. My host dad is actually Chinese and my host mom is Japanese. They have two kids, Shinko (F 5 almost 6) and Takeru (M 3). My host parents areboth young, mid 30s and very laidback and friendly and the kids started shy, but are not even close to being shy now and are very energetic. They drove me home, the house is still small by American standards, but I think my room is triple the size of my room in Tokyo. My host father went back to work and the rest of us sat around and talked, gradually the kids got less shy, by evening, they were rolling around on my legs and climbing on me. We had dinner and my parents broke out some Champagne, afterwhich I took a bath and went to bed early.
Wednesday, I went to Chiba again, this time to meet with a friend that I met through Shiori, Sae. We met at a station just before Chiba, and we took a few more trains to a pretty new looking area with big buildings but huge avenues and plants to the point that it barely felt like you were in a city. We walked around the area and went to a huge mall where we did a bit of shopping and browsing. The whole time, we also talked a lot. It was very fun and great when the person you are with has a great sense of humor and seems to understand American jokes somewhat. After walking and talking for about five hours, we went and ate at a shabu shabu restaurant. I am quite sure the shop workers thought we were a couple. We walked back to the station and I had my long ride back to Kokubunji.
The next day, I want early to Tokyo Station to meet our instructors, Michio and Kathryn and catch the shinkansen with them to Osaka. I seem to always get sleepy whenever I ride the shinkansen. We arrived in Osaka and they brought me to the Daitoshi city hall where I met with some people from the education department who dismissed Kathryn and Michio and gave me a rundown of what was happening during my time here. After that, they introduced me to a few more people from the city hall, then we sat around for a while and chatted until my host family came to meet me. My host dad is actually Chinese and my host mom is Japanese. They have two kids, Shinko (F 5 almost 6) and Takeru (M 3). My host parents areboth young, mid 30s and very laidback and friendly and the kids started shy, but are not even close to being shy now and are very energetic. They drove me home, the house is still small by American standards, but I think my room is triple the size of my room in Tokyo. My host father went back to work and the rest of us sat around and talked, gradually the kids got less shy, by evening, they were rolling around on my legs and climbing on me. We had dinner and my parents broke out some Champagne, afterwhich I took a bath and went to bed early.
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So, I lived a very boring life recently.
from the 18th to the 27th, i was going to classes, studying, and working on essays. Then, Monday the 27 and Tuesday the 28th, I had my main two finals, Japanese on Monday and History on Tuesday. Sadly, these two days, I also had the flu, so it was quite tough even just getting to school. The rest of the week, I sat in my bedroom and rested. Friday, we had the final orientation for the cultural practicum. Then I got the refund for my commuter pass, visited with friends, and left. After the orientation, I went to Mitaka and met my brother. I joined him at his English Cram School, for parents' day. It turns out I was there in place of parents because Father had work and Mother was taking care of a sick Manami. The cram school was very interesting, the teachers were both friendly Japanese women with british accents. The younger of the two also invited me to visit the cram school again if I want to. I probably will. Saturday and Sunday, I went with five friends to an onsen in Chiba near the pacific coast. The dinner was amazing and filled two places at the table per person. I had snail for the first time at this onsen! It was actually quite good. We entered the onsen twice and stayed up late talking in the middle of the three rooms. I rested all day monday again. Tuesday, yesterday, I met up with two friends, one Korean guy and a Japanese girl from Meiji University. We met up and traveled to Odaiba. we were going to go to hike Mount Takao, but the weather was supposed to get bad, so we decided not to go. In Odaiba, we wandered, ate fake Mexican food, wandered more, went to an amazing shopping mall made to look like the streets of an old area of Italy. We had gelato at this really unusual mall, then looked briefly through a small car museum. This was quite interesting. After we left the mall, we were going to walk along the waterside park, but it started snowing quite hard. It looks wrong to have a sand beach covered with snow. After walking and taking a few more pictures, we left. Wow, sorry for not posting in so long. I have been occupied by other things and found doing more super long posts flat out scary. I will get back on schedule with one post and will force myself to do it all in a limited time, so this one may be vague and fast, but with this, I will be back on track.
NOTE to Papa: Apparently the only church near my house is presbyterian. Day 108 is the 1st of January, and 125 is today, the 18th. The first three days of New Year's, we had special breakfast food for New Year's. Some I liked, some I did not like. The first, New Year's Day, I went with my host mother, Yuuma (bro), and Manami (sister) to Yokohama. We started off doing a Hatsumode, or the first (Shinto) shrine visit of the new year. It was amazingly crowded. My host mom bought me a charm of protection and good luck called an omamori, and an Omikuji (a fortune that says if you have good or bad luck). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omikuji We also offered a prayer at the shrine and randomly ran into my host mother's sister in law there also doing the Hatsumode. Then we went to a famous building in Yokohama called Landmark Tower. We went to the top and got a great view over Yokohama from probably the tallest building in the area. It was cool. Afterwards, we took the train again and went to my host mother's house, where we met up with my host dad also. there, we are a lot of food (especially sushi that was delivered to the house), people did a very tiny gift exchange, drank beer (I only had one glass, and had other stuff the rest of the time), and chatted a lot. My host mom's parents even gave me Otoshidama (new year's money gift given by adults to children), yay!!! After the party, we went home, at this point it was dark. It was fun, but it was somewhat awkward for me because while some people talked, most people only did for a short time, then spent most of the time talking with others, so I was just sitting there eating for a while, or talking with my host dad. The next day we did more or less the same thing at my host dad's house. The main difference being there were fewer small kids, so it was much quieter and two people, my host dad's sister, her daughter, and a sister in law talked with me the whole time. I had people to talk to the whole time, so I found it a bit more fun and less awkward than the previous day. I left with a book from the parents to try to read, and a loaf of really good bread from another of my host dad's sister's bakery (apparently it is good enough to make the front page of a magazine even). The day after, I slept in a bit and spent the rest of the day doing homework that I probably should have done earlier in the day. Saturday, I joined 2 friends for lunch, then we hung out the rest of the day, until around dinner time, then one left for her job, the other went home to study, and I went home for dinner. Sunday was a Niji event, Mochi-tsuki (making mochi). This is where you manually pound the rice into a thick sticky mush using giant wooden hammers. I have done this before. It is really fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJXv01HPpU (NOTE: we were not professionals and did not have any professionals, so it did not go nearly this fast or smoothly). Most of the rest of my time up until now has been spent studying, hanging out with friends, and eating yummy food. There has not been that much that sticks out as something different, or special worth mentioning besides I met up with friends for lunch twice. The two other bits worth mentioning: Once I had lunch with Mika at a cafe, then afterwards, we went to an empty classroom and corrected each other's essays (I had a Japanese essay and she had an English one, so we just traded), then I helped her study English a bit for a test called the TOEFL. The other time, I met up with Miku (not Mika) for lunch and to wish her a happy birthday. I gave her two gifts, one was a stone hotplate from Seattle with a nice painting of Seattle on it, and the other was a little figure that you attach to your phone. The figure was the Character for Imabari, Bary-san. She seemed to really like it. That pretty much brings me up to date. Nothing too exciting recently besides hanging out with friends. I will call this a good enough update for the whole first half of the month and will try to continue doing posts regularly again; doing a lot at once is no fun. Today, the 30th, I packed and left my hotel and got breakfast at the station. After searching a bit, I noticed a lot of stores were still closed, so I just bought some large good toast with butter, cheese, some seasoning, and some tea on the side. After breakfast, I took my time going to the shinkansen station. There I wandered a bit, and I got an ekiben, or Eki Bento (Train station boxed lunch), I took a long time to choose, but I had time to kill. I then wandered a bit more and headed up to my train platform. I took the train for most of the day. It was a long trip. My bento was delicious. I napped quite a bit and took some pictures. I arrived in Tokyo and transferred to my train home. It was weird seeing so many foreigners and crowds again. I hated it at first, and needed to get used to it again. I returned home and Yuuma and Manami were amazingly happy to see me. I think my ears dies for a moment upon returning. We talked a lot, had dinner, talked a lot more, I showed pictures of my travels, then went back to my room to work on my blog. I worked on my blog for a while, then went to sleep.
The next day, the 31st, I woke up, had breakfast, and cleaned my room, taking into account a Japanese tradition of cleaning the whole house before the new year. I then played with Yuuma and Manami for a while. Yuuma, my host mom, and I played Shogi for probably a few hours. It was really cool and fun. It is like chess but much more interesting. http://ancientchess.com/page/play-shogi.htm I then continued my blog, had lunch with my family, did more blogging, chatted with friends a lot online, and had dinner. Dinner this day was the traditional Japanese New Year’s Eve dinner, very long soba, symbolizing long life. After that I chilled a bit more and slept. Not the most exciting New Year. The next day, the 29th, I got up, had breakfast with everyone again. Then finished packing as Kyoko and Akane sat at the kotatsu looking half dead after the late night. I felt a bit bad keeping them up, but made it clear the night before that if they want to sleep, they were free to. After I finished packing, we still had a little time to talk, then loaded up the car with all my stuff, then all five of us went to the train station, which actually required two cars because they were all four person cars, the back seat is not wide enough for three across. We went to the station, Father helped my buy tickets for the trains, and we still had some time, so we waited indoors until my train showed up, Father walked me over the trains and transfers that I will be making, then we all chatted for about 10 minutes, until my train arrived, then we went out to the platform, Father bought a little ticket for everyone so the whole family could go out onto the train platform so we could chat until the train left, at this point, I said thank you to everyone (ありがとうございました。お世話になりました。With a deep bow), also, Father told Kyoko to say thank you to me for something too, but I am not quite sure why to be honest. Maybe for helping her and her sister with English, maybe for the gifts I gave, maybe something else… not sure. Anyways, we chatted a little bit more, then said our goodbyes, I got a hug from everyone, probably partly because of a conversation we had about my issues in Japan. It was really nice getting hugs from everyone though. Then I set out on the train, waving until they were out of sight. The first leg of the journey was a series of local trains, which is much much slower than the shinkansen, but allowed me to see the sights. The first train was a standard train and I transferred at Yoshimatsu, then took a special train with nice wood interior and tables, I sadly sat with a bunch of annoying little kids with no parent with them… Also, my suitcase was barely too large for the overhead, so I had to wedge it between my leg and the wall to keep it from rolling around. The train was also very unique because it was going up a steep mountain. It had one area that it gained ground by spiraling up a small mountain then bridging back to the main mountain, and some switchbacks where the train zigzagged up the mountain changing direction. They said we also passed the highest elevation train station in Japan, called Yatake. I had a three hour wait in Hitoyoshi for the next train, so I had lunch there in a very nice restaurant I got a pretty large portion of delicious food and my very own private room in which to eat. My next train, I took some pictures, and fell asleep, transferred at Shin-yatsushiro, and took the shinkansen the rest of the way to Fukuoka. It was mostly tunnels, so I napped. At Fukuoka, Hakata station was honestly quite stressful after the countryside. It was a big city, so was crowded and fast paced again. I left and found my hotel, a capsule hotel. I walked around Hakata station a bit, but it was late at that point, so I just got dinner and returned to my hotel. I also saw some nice illumination. The capsule hotel was interesting, but it was a very narrow room, a bit less than an arm’s width wide and about twice as long with no actual door, but including a locker for my valuables. All in all, I would not complain about the capsule hotel besides a loud guy who was probably drunk. It was not a normal capsule hotel though, it was a “deluxe”, so I did actually have a private space besides my bed-pod.
Today, the 28th, I was able to sleep in! I slept until about 9ish, which was perfect because both Akane and Kyoko slept until almost exactly the same time. We had breakfast and chilled for a while, then at me request, Kyoko and I go for a walk. At first Kyoko seemed a bit reluctant and kept saying there was nothing to show me, but she ended up giving me a pretty decent tour of the area within easy walking distance of her house within the time limit we were realistically given (not a real time limit, but at a specific time, dad had one last plan for me). She started walking we to some rice fields about 1 to 2 minutes from her house. She talked about how how elementary and middle school children would help farmers a day or two during planting season planting around all the edges of the paddies by hand. She also told me about a river that she and her friends would play in during the summer. After this, she kept insisting there was nothing else to show me, but we kept walking. She showed me shops that are popular among students, houses some friends lived in, and pointed out how many houses in the area have two houses, the main house, and the smaller house where the grandparents live. She also pointed out her elementary school, library, a temple, etc. After a rough start, she seemed to really enjoy showing me around her hometown. Sadly all the stores were closed for the weekend. Eventually Father called Kyoko and we met up with him at a park. At this point, Kyoko mentions an annoying little bit of Japanese mindset of, anyone that sees one girl and one boy together will assume they are together, but it may be slightly different for me because I am not Japanese. It was an interesting observation and something I had never thought of before. Father came along, and picked us up, and we went to see a small farm where they raise cows for auction. He did this because I mentioned that I had never been to a place where they raise cows and showed interested when he mentioned going to see one. It was very interesting to see how they raise cows in Japan. It was especially interesting for me, with my interest in and classes about environmental science. After this, we chilled around the house for most of the rest of the day. All five of us, Akane, Father, mother, Kyoko, and I, then played games for several hours after this. We played cards again and Uno, both American and Japanese rules. It was very fun. We took a lunch break part way through this, then continued playing again and chat a lot. Father took a nap at the kotatsu and the rest of us continue playing. Around 5:00, Kyoko and I walked to a restaurant called Joyful. At Joyful, we met up with 5 more of the Japanese high school students that went to Seattle. There we had dinner together, chatted, etc. The rest of the group was supposed to have showed up, but either they or their parents were busy and could not make it. While at the restaurant, I noticed that a lot of the other customers were staring at me, especially when I walked over to get my drink. Also a friend, Eiryu, told me that two of his friends wanted to talk to me, so I went over to talk to these two girls for a while, partly in English and partly in Japanese. It was a bit awkward, especially because a LOT of people were staring at me as we talked. I felt uncomfortable. Toward the end of the meal, I gave a small gift to everyone, some Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s from the US. One girl, Ryoko, almost forgot her gift, so I ran out to the parking lot to give it to her, she was really happy that I did, then I gave her mom waiting in the car an awkward bow before returning to the restaurant. Kyoko and I stayed until everyone else left. It was really fun seeing everyone again, but it was very sad that not everyone could show up. Especially that the one from the group that I message most often did not show up. I will admit, of the 11 or so that went to Seattle, two of the three guys are antisocial and never meshed with the rest of the group, and actually, did not give anyone their contact info. They were very separated from the group, so those two were not too much of a sacrifice. After everyone left, Kyoko called her mom to drive us back home again (it was dark, so she did not want to walk). Back home, Father did a small trumpet performance for me as we sat around the Kotatsu. Then he and I talked about Boy Scout stuff a bit, he was a boy scout too. I took a bath, and when I returned, the girls were watching a love related show on TV, so I watched with them a bit while Father was in the bath. When he returned, he kept joking about no interested and making a stink about it. We all chilled around and chatted more, then after father went to bed, the girls and I continued talking late into the night. At some point, we decided that it would be good to sleep, but it was my last night, so I really wanted to stay up talking longer. At some point, we talked a bit about love stuff, espeiclaly the girls asking about love and dating stuff in the US, me returning the question, and us talking about differences and similarities. That was quite interesting, but I felt uncomfortable talking about such things when Father was around. We also talked about money differences a bit for the heck of it. We ended up all deciding to go to sleep around 2am. I was way more sad than I expected. I was only at their house for a few days, but really felt comfortable there, and like they were family. I felt comfortable enough to joke around with them, and really very close to them by the end. I was almost wanting to cry, and would have if I did not hate crying so much. I loved my time with Kyoko’s family, but my time there felt way too short.
The next day, the 27th, we woke up early, around 6am, before the sun rose. Then Father, Akane, Kyoko, and I set out for our long drive. We grabbed some bread and sandwiches for breakfast to eat in the car from a conbini, then continued on. (https://maps.google.com/) Kyoko’s house is near Miyakonojo, Miyazaki, and we drove around the huge bay that cuts Kagoshima in half. Our first stop was a scenic overlook over Kagoshima City, but it was cloudy, so we could not see the city too well, nor the volcano which overlooks the city from the other side of the bay (the big lobe in the middle of the bay). I then ended up falling asleep in the car, as did Kyoko. We drove on further, and when we were not sleeping, we werea all talking the whole time, including trying to teach me a Kagoshima dialect. Dialects are really hard. We next stopped at an old village where all of the houses dated more or less back to the Edo period or so, as far as I am aware. The houses were beautiful and all very old buildings. Some buildings you could enter, and some not, but I think all were still currently lived in (slightly like the Pueblo Settlement that my parents and I visited over the summer). Each house also had a small beautiful garden. It was very windy, and raining slightly, but we borrowed umbrellas from one of the people living in the town. We Took shelter also when a bit of sleet fell. It was very interesting. After this, we continued on, they were telling me that at some point, we were going to an onsen, a special one, but they refused to tell me what kind of onsen it would be, so of course, after failing to get them to say it, my imagination was wandering as to what kind of onsen it could possibly be. I was at a loss. After the village, we drove to Chiran, and ate some bread in the car to tide us over until lunch. We arrived in Chiran.
Does anyone know what was at Chiran? The answser: A Japanese flight school, especially for officers and younger volunteer pilots which, toward the end of the war, became a main airbase for Kamikaze operations. Sadly, no pictures inside, but it was quite sobering, especially reading the wills and final letters of the pilots, most of whom were between 17 and 25 and, if not for the war, would have been Japan’s best and brightest people. It did not help that many had also been engaged or had a pregnant wife when they went on their assignment. It was the kind of place that you do not talk louder than a wisper. After the museum, we drove on and got lunch from what is sort of like a farmer’s market with a restaurant on the second floor. The food was awesome, sadly, I do not remember what it was called. After lunch, we drove for another 30 to 45 minutes, to Ibusuki Onsen, near as far south as you can get (again, try seeing a map). It was a very rare type of onsen, a sand bath. This onsen formed underground near the beach, so you cannot easily get to the water, but the steam rises through the sand of the beach. I have not done any research, but natural sand baths are very very rare, found only in Kyushu from what I have heard. The onsen was amazing. It was kinda cold outside, but the sand was very nice and hot. It was a mixed sandbath, because it was outside and everyone was in light cotton kimonos called Yukata. It was hard to converse though, so we all just laid there enjoying it. After the sand bath, we separated by gender and entered a standard onsen area, washed, bathed, and entered the onsen. After the onsen, we returned home, slept a little bit in the car, but again, spent a lot of the time chatting. Father also pretended to be falling asleep, scaring Kyoko and her sister, it was very funny, for me and Father. We took the ferry back across the bay to Sakurajima from which we drove. They were cute little car ferries that looked like very old style riverboats. We went out and took some pictures from the top deck, then went inside and sat if front until we got to the other side. About half way across, we noticed an off color cloud rising from the top of the volcano. It was very tiny, but the volcano was erupting. We got across, and they were all teasing me about being so close to an erupting volcano, and saying it would be cool if it turned into a larger eruption. We stopped to take some pictures, but we were standing downwind of a volcano erupting, so did not dally for too long. We took some pictures and walked around a bit. There was no dirt or anything, just a lot of volcanic rock debris and ash and it smelled of sulfur. As we were there, ash started falling, so we went back to the car, it is really bad to get volcanic ash in your eye. We then returned home after that. Mother and father traded out part way home, as Father was going to a Nomikai for work. We returned home. We had Shabu shabu for dinner. I think I have already explained Shabu shabu, right? Anyways, we had many veggies, beef, and black pork (really famous in Japan and from Kagoshima (about on par with Kobe Beef) which I later found out is super high quality and expensive). After shabu shabu, we also had ramen. After dinner, Mother, Kyoko, Akane, and I played several rounds of cards, they taught me a few new games, and I did the same. It was quite fun. Then we played Super Mario on Wii for a while, swapping the controllers around as people took a bath (we had just been to the onsen, but had also just been in a cloud of volcanic ash). Kyoko’s family had very interesting bath salts (bath salts or the like are very common in Japan because baths are so common and they are good for your skin), anyways, their bath salt was made from onsen water, so it caused the water to take a slight red tinge, have the mineral content of a hot spring, and smell like an onsen. Some people do not like that smell, but Kyoko’s family does apparently, as do I. Akane and I were a very good team for Mario. It was very fun. As we were playing, Father returned. He just watched, did not want to play. After a while, Father went to bed. We played a bit more, then just chatted for a while longer before bed. Assume all of the days that I am at Kyoko’s house, we talk a LOT. Both normal conversation and explainations of what things are, why, how they work etc. I am almost constantly talking with Kyoko, her sister, or her parents, 90% of the time in Japanese.
On the 26th, I woke up on my own and quickly turned off my alarm before it rang, it was supposed to go off in about 3 minutes. Father was off at work for the first half of the day. We had breakfast, then almost immediately afterwards, I skyped with my family for about an hour. After that we went and did laundry at a coin laundry place, so we could make use of the driers there. It took about 30 minutes, so we sat around and chatted. It was at this point that I asked Kyoko about why her mom does not eat with the rest of the family. She explained that that was how her mom preferred to do it. It is a much more traditional way of doing it that has mostly died out all over Japan, but apparently her mom preferred the more traditional stuff. The laundry finished, and we went home. At this point, we snacked on Mikan and sat at the kotatsu. Mother then drove Akane to the juku (cram school) so it was just Kyoko and I for a bit, but we just sat around eating mikan and chatting. Mom came home, and we had lunch and chatted more. Then Father came home partway through lunch and joined us. After lunch, Father, Mother, Kyoko, and I went for drive. We stopped by what should have been a waterfall if there had been enough rain recently, but there had not been, so it was just some exposed cliff. Then we went down a road that was totally not wide enough to be a two way street. We went to a huge and very very deep cave in the woods with a small shrine near the entrance and bats inside made by an underground river. We walked around a bit, but did not go too deep because it was dark and could be dangerous. After the cave we went to a shrine at the top of a mountain. It was Very dramatic and misty, which was even cooler because the shrine was named Misty Island Shrine. I got a small charm as a gift from Father, a small carved rooster for my birth year. We walked around the shrine a bit and they explained some aspects of the shrine. After this we continued our drive, if we had time, we were going to go to an onsen, but we did not, so instead we saw a large waterfall which was actually hot spring water, so had a really nice color and a sulfurous smell. We then went to a town that had so many hot springs, the storm drains steamed and smelled of sulfur. We went and sat in a hot spring foot bath. Our feet were amazingly smooth afterwards. We then got some snacks to eat on the way home and some eggs that were hardboiled in the hot spring water, which actually affects the smell and flavor of the egg. Probably the best hardboiled egg I have ever had. We then returned home and Father left not long after to teach trumpet and soon after that Akane returned. We had Takoyaki for dinner. It was really awesome, again, Mother kept bringing out more and more food, but she actually sat at the table with us as we ate, but barely ate anything. Then we talked a lot. Father returned home about an hour after dinner. We all went to sleep a bit early because we had an early day tomorrow. On Christmas, I got up early had a pretty impressive breakfast at my hotel, they carried my luggage out to the street for me, then stood and saw me off until I was around the corner. I made my train to Miyazaki, barely. It was a really cool looking black deasel train and rode it for three hours. There were many tunnels, so views were limited, but it was a very good ride. I transferred at Miyazaki, and took a local train to Nishimiyakonojo, which took about an hour. I was met at the station platform around 1pm by Kyoko, a Japanese high school girl that I met in Seattle over the summer. I volunteered at a small study abroad company by helping with the welcome lunch, the farewell lunch, a tour of Seattle, and two day trips around Seattle, the group was about 10 students. I asked them if I could stay at anyone’s house, and Kyoko, of course with her parents, agreed to put up with me for a few days. She walked me to where her mother was also waiting. First shock, no trains, and buses only every hour or so, so everyone drives. Her mother drove us to a Shochu factory (a very special, and famous type of Japanese alcohol made almost only in Kagoshima) where we got lunch, pizza and they had me choose a bread too, but we did not eat the bread, they explained that it was for lunch the next day. There were actually many things that shocked me when I was Kagoshima Prefecture staying with Kyoko’s family. According to Kyoko, there are only about two foreigners in the area and both are English teachers, so it was very interesting seeing everyone’s reactions to me. Kyoko’s mother then drove us to meet the grandparents of both sides of the family, because they apparently wanted to meet the foreigner. Kyoko’s dad’s parents chatted with me, and offered me coffee and senbei (rice crackers) to go with it, then ignored me when I said I did not need it, so I got a cup of coffee and senbei. I thought it was very interesting; they had Kyoko go in to help make the coffee with Grandma, then when they brought out the coffee and senbei, there were only two for Kyoko’s grandfather and me. Then the women sat to the side, still part of the conversation, but seemingly holding back and only saying things when the conversation lagged to keep most of the conversation between the Grandfather and me. I guess those in the countryside, despite being much more open and free spirited than those of Tokyo, are more traditional. After that, we visited the other side of the family. Kyoko’s mother’s mother’s first reaction upon seeing me (not knowing that I know Japanese), was “Oh, we have a strange customer coming today,” and, “Oh, Kyoko, you got a boyfriend?” After visiting the grandparents and generally showing me off to the family, Kyoko’s mother (I am getting tired of tying Kyoko’s mother/father, so I will just call them mother and father as I did when I was there (お母さん&お父さん)). Mother took us, Kyoko and me to a famous statue of a samurai on the top of a hill overlooking Soo. We walked around, while there I made the observation that she seemed very easy going and happy-go-lucky, so very easy to get along with. She actually reminded me of a mother of one of my friends from elementary school in a very good way. After that we visited the city’s department of education and I was introduced to the person that works with Megumi on the Japan side for organizing the study abroad program. Based on the position of his desk, he seemed to be pretty high level and quite excited to meet me. I talked with him, staying very conscious of my speech formality, he asked me to check an English brochure for him to make sure the English made sense, gave me his card, then we said goodbye. After that visit, we headed home. My first thoughts, Kyoko’s house is beautiful, and all handmade by her grandfather, his apprentice, and Father. When I say handmade, I do not mean like they went to a hardware store. Her Grandfather went into the woods, picked and cut down trees, dragged them back, cleaned them, and cut them to size. Most of the joints, corners, etc are complex interlocking pieces so the house actually has very few nails. Most of the house was a very pretty light stained wood. When I heard the level of commitment and skill needed for that house, I was and still am kind of a loss of what to say about it, besides amazing. The three of us continued talking around the Kotatsu until Kyoko’s sister, Akane, (3rd year of middle school or equivalent to an American high school freshman) came home. She was super super shy at first and seemed a bit alarmed to see me. We chatted more, and Akane slowly opened up more, but even when she talked, she was so quiet, it was a bit hard to hear her. Mother then brought over dinner and we all sat around the Kotatsu to eat except for Mother who spent the whole time refilling glasses and bringing out more and more food. I later asked and was told that that was very common in Japan and more traditional. Apparently Mother prefers to do that because it was all of her own will (I had multiple chats about this because I found it so strange). On top of that, it was not a help yourself deal, it was sit back while the women prepare the food, set the table, and clean up afterwards. That felt really uncomfortable for me actually. About half way through dinner, when my mouth was full of fish, Father came home, and also seemed a bit shocked to see me, just for a second. He knew I was coming, but I am not sure he knew what I looked like. He joined the conversation too and seemed really interested in talking to me. I am not sure he gets too many chances to talk to foreigners. Mother was like that as well, seemed very interested in talking to me, not only about me, but also about America and American culture. Whenever something was needed and Mother was busy, Father always told one of the girls to go grab it. After dinner, we chatted for the rest of the night, until about 11. I got a futon in a nice 8 tatami room and they gave me a heater and hot steam humidifier as well as the insulation in Japanese houses is not the best (so that summers are less miserable). I will admit, I did not sleep that well the first night, but found that if I stuff my sweats under the pillow, I oddly sleep way better. Just that extra inch makes a difference apparently.
I spoke almost exclusively Japanese, but sometimes would switch to English because it was requested by someone, or because I wanted to practice English with Kyoko and or her sister. Father said that I spoke such good Japanese, that when I spoke English, he was shocked how well I spoke English, then he remembered that I am a native speaker of English. haha So, these updates of the past few days will take a long time it seems, so it will be in installments. This is all for today. Gotta get up tomorrow to take the Shinkansen back home. Good night This morning I woke up at 6, finished packing, and got breakfast. it even included bacon, eggs, and french toast! Miss Ameican breakfast a bit. I then headed to the station and took the Yosan Line to Yawatahama. My train for some strange reason was themed for Anpanman.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anpanman After the Anmanpan train, I walked from the station to the ferry terminal, most of the length of the city, in 30 minutes to catch the 10:30 ferry to Beppu. All I can say is Yawatahama needs a bit of a business boost and elbow grease. Some random students waved to me from a bus. When in small towns and the only white person, it is easy to feel like a star with everyone looking at you, you are really special, but it is important not to let that get to you. There is a term for it, but I can not remember it currently. (-_-;) Anyways, I took the ferry, and noticed a few other people also staring at me, so I smiled and noded and that made them stop pretty quickly. The ferry was three hours, I spend part of that sleeping, part taking pictures, and part messaging people on my phone. Washington ferries and Japanese ferries are very very different. There are mostly no chairs, but carpeted areas to sit. Only first class gets chairs. After arriving, I walked all the way to the station, again with my backpack and suit case. It was a good 45 minute walk. I got lunch at a random Ramen place, then bought my ticket for tomorrow to Miyazaki. After that, I stumbled my way to my hotel. After that, I went to a random Christmas festival. Admitidly, mostly couples again, but some singles though, most people were with others though except me. There were some idol groups and solo artist performances and many food booths. It started at 5 and went to 8, then at 8, fireworks. It started raining though, so I went back to the hotel sad I could not see the fireworks. I told the guy at the desk and he suggested going quickly to take a bath, that I could probably see from there. The onsen in this building is on the 8th floor, and the guy's bath is conviniently licated facing the ocean, so I ended up chilling in a bath with two middle-aged men, naked, chatting, and watching fireworks from an onsen. It turned out quite nice. This is a nice hotel, onsen, when I arrived, served Matcha, escorted to room, tea and sweets in room, really nice yukata, great ambience, when you leave, they take your room key, and give it back to you when you return. Also an option for a private bath so couples and families can bathe together. The guy at the desk remembers me quite well now. That is not everything, but good enough. Sleep time, another early morning tomorrow. Good night! |