Homestay away from home...

Happy Hallowee everyone! It's been quite a while since my last update, although I have been fortunate enough to talk to a number of you, including some of my family in Australia and in America. Surprisingly, I haven't felt homesick at all, probably because I still feel so connected with all of my friends and family thanks to skype and google voice. Because of this, I feel like I have been able to enjoy my time here to its fullest. It's hard to believe I have been here now for almost 2 months!!     p.s. It's raining yet again...

First of all, I wanted to say how thankful I am for such amazing Japanese buddies. Almost every day, I eat lunch with either Aki, Midori, Eriko, or Hisashi. A few weeks ago, Midori came to Meiji Gakuin International Student House, or MISH for short, and we cooked Yakisoba together. She also made donuts for me, which were absolutely delicious!! They also took me out for kaiten sushi. Kaiten sushi literally translates to "rolling sushi". They have places like this in America, but I've never been to one before. Basically, the booths are centered around a conveyer belt carrying sushi. As the sushi travels around, you grab whatever sushi you want, and you pay 90 yen for each plate of sushi that you eat. If, however, you don't see the sushi you want, you can simply order it on the touchscreen and the sushi is conveniently delivered by a mini shinkansen (bullet train). Obviously, I only ordered almost all of my sushi so that the shinkansen would deliver my food to the table in style. On Monday, my buddy Eriko is taking me to Tokyo Disney!

Midori and me cooking dinner at MISH

Hisashi, Midori, and me at Kappa Sushi

Speaking of Disney, I was fortunate enough to make it out to Disney Sea! One of the Meiji Gakuin students that came on the Hiroshima trip with us offered to drive me and two other UC students to Disney Sea. Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea are both in the Chiba prefecture, which would take about 2 hours or more by train from here in Totsuka. Needless to say, I was very grateful that he was willing to drive us. Disney Sea is basically the equivalent of what California Adventure is to Disneyland. Even though it was raining, the park was PACKED! By 9:00 a.m., wait times for the major attractions had already reached 90 minutes, and by the afternoon, some had even reached 220 minutes!! Luckily, the major attractions had fast passes, so we were able to utilize those to minimize the wait times. Disney Sea is a beautifully themed park, and I especially enjoyed touring the streets of Agrabah and the underwater kingdom of Atlantica.

Ken and me at the entrance to Disney Sea

Agrabah

Gyoza hot dog for lunch

The Lost River Delta

Mediterranean  Harbor

One of the perks of the Meiji Gakuin program, is the opportunity to participate in a weekend homestay with a Japanese family. At first, they were unable to find families for me and a few other students to stay with, so I was pretty bummed out. Fortunately, I got a call last Wednesday morning notifying me that they had found a family for me to stay with for the weekend. PTL! (praise the Lord) They are a very loving family and I can't wait to visit them again! I basically spoke in Japanese the whole weekend, with the help of Sakurako's amazing electronic dictionary, but the family was able to help me out when I couldn't say something in Japanese. They live in a very nice apartment complex in a 4 bedroom/1 bath apartment. Right across from their apartment complex is a huge park with a baseball field, gym, track field, and tennis courts. The park was full of cherry blossom trees, but unfortunately they only bloom in spring. The park was still gorgeous though. Throughout the weekend, the food was one of my favorite aspects.

Megumi-san and Sakurako

Friday night after class, I met with my homestay sister, Sakurako, who is also a Meiji Gakuin student, and we both headed for her parents' apartment in Hachioji, which is north east of Tokyo. The train ride took about 1 hour and 30 minutes. Hachioji is sort of out in the country, but it's more of a suburb. It was a nice break from the hussle and bussle of Yokohama. My homestay mother, Megumi-san, greeted us at the Hachioji station. As we proceeded to drive to the house, the car started making weird noises, so Megumi-san stopped the car. Sure enough, we had gotten a flat tire! I seem to get flat tires at just the right times, right Mom and Dad? Megumi-san had me and Sakurako to take a taxi to the house and she joined up with us after the insurance company came to fix the flat tire. I find it amusing that a flat tire in Japanese is called "panku". Later that night, Sakurako's sister, Momoko, also joined us for the weekend. We had fun that night talking over the dinner table and exchanging pictures. For showers and baths, Japanese people have whats called an Ofuro. It's like a gigantic shower and wash room. First, you shower yourself down and then you soak yourself in the bath tub, which is right next to the shower. At their apartment, they had speakers in the ceiling, so of course I listened to classical piano music while soaking in the tub.

My room

The next morning, we woke up really early and headed off to Mt. Takao, which is a famous for its hiking and shrines. On the way up the mountain, we stopped off at the monkey park. The monkeys are native to the mountain, but they have a park set up where they keep a few in captivity. One of the trainers took out a baby monkey and I got to hold and play with it. At the top of the mountain, we enjoyed a delicious picnic lunch prepared by my host family. To reward ourselves for hiking up the mountain, we took the ski lift down. After returning to Hachioji, my host family took me to an outside chopstick store. They bought me a really cool pair of chopsticks with my name engraved on it in Hiragana. They also spoiled me with some cake, bread, and tons of fruit during the weekend. Once we returned home, Momoko taught me how to play Othello. I know we have it in America, but it might go by a different name. For dinner that night, we made gyoza and sashimi for dinner. I also tried nato for the first time. I expected it be a  lot worse from all the horror stories I've heard, but it wasn't that bad. Since the father works in Nagano, he was not able to make it home for the weekend, but he did, however, want to talk to me over the phone. He called the family and they passed the phone to me. I was super nervous since my Japanese hearing is so poor, but I made it through the conversation without too many hiccups. That night, I used the ofuro again, but this time I listened to American pop music!

On the way up

Monkey!

Picnic lunch with the homestay family

View from the top!

Sakurako and me taking the lift down

Cooking gyoza

The next day, we woke up early again to pick up Sakurako's friend, Ayano, from the train station. Ayano lived in New Zealand for three years so she is basically fluent in English. It was nice to finally be able to communicate with my host family because she could translate much better than the electronic dictionary. The three of us headed off to a tea ceremony. In an earlier post, I mentioned that another participation in a tea ceremony would be highly unlikely, but they're starting to grow on me. Once my legs fell asleep, it was really enjoyable. I also found that if you bow a certain way, you can take the pressure off of your legs for a few seconds and help with the blood flow! There was a very nice elderly lady sitting next to me on a chair. During the tea ceremony, she kept asking me, "Are you okay? Do you want a chair?" but I politely declined. After the ceremony was over, I talked with her again, with a few minor problems. First of all, I told her that I was practicing the way of tea and then I proceeded to tell her that I'm going back to America on December 33. Surprisingly, she still seemed to understand me.

During the Tea Ceremony

After the tea ceremony!

For lunch, we went out to kaiten sushi again (I'm really going to miss this). Afterwards, Sakurako, Ayano, and I headed off to Showa Kinen Park. This was the biggest park I have ever seen. Imagine Huntington Central Park, but ten times bigger. It has everything from a children's water park, to a museum, to a sports area, to flower gardens, and Japanese traditional gardens. In the center, is a vast open field with a tree in the middle that is more than 100 years old. I especially enjoyed the Japanese style garden and the flower hill. Literally thousands of purple, pink, and white cosmos lined an entire hill of the park. After the park, we returned home for a delicious meal of pork katsu. Sadly, I had to say goodbye to my host family, but I hope that I will be able to return another weekend.

The open field

Flower Hill

This is why I need an SLR!

I still have a few more things to cover, but this is it for now. It's long enough already. I just hope it doesn't rain tomorrow when I go to Tokyo Disney!!