Q: Are you home sick?
A: Not in the slightest!! I'm honestly not missing home at all, just my family.
Q: Are you sick of the food yet/missing American meals?
A: Nope! I actually really enjoy Japanese food, and my host family has been really sweet about balancing/blending Japanese cuisine with things I enjoy [[read: We're eating more chicken than they're used to]]. I DO miss cheese and pretzels, but not so much that I feel like I can't eat. Obaa-chan is so sweet and asked me what I was missing and what I'd like to get and we found some peanut butter and cheddar cheese :]
Q: Are you still getting along with your host family?
A: Absolutely. I seriously adore this family - I'm not leaving Japan until I've visited them again at least twice after this summer program is over (they've been not-really-joking about coming up to visit me at Kansai Gaidai already).
Ok. So I left off at the trip up to the mountains, but I hadn't gotten a chance to tell you about the LONGEST FIELD DAY OF MY LIFE or Otou-san's birthday yet....
Warm up run for everyone....
Eiji coming in first! Number 7!!
Keiji almost had first place but he couldn't stop watching his competition...way to go getting second place!!
There was also an Omatsuri dance (a traditional festival dance) performed by all of the fourth, fifth, and sixth year students - in Japan, elementary school is 6 years, middle school is 3 years, and high school is 3 years. Unfortunately though, I ran out of space on my card and lost the video of it :( I'm sorry!!! The grand finale, which I also missed out on due to lack of space on my card and a dead battery, was a combination of gymnastics, yoga, and extreme human pyramids. It was incredible. I honestly couldn't believe some of the formations the kids were creating - particularly the dragon (this featured several rows of children on top of each other, with the top row moving from standing to squatting to make the dragon's backridges seem to move. And of course there was a head and tail). Field day began at 8 AM and ended at 4 PM, so suffice it to say, we were all tired by the end of the day. We trekked back home, showered off, and passed out on the floor for an hour while Eiji and Keiji watched DragonBallZ.
At 5, Okaa-san and I went to Mom's to buy our "kampaii drinks" as she called them (cheers drinks = alcohol, but they were weak sours, more like soda than alcohol). Ojii-chan can't drink because he has an aneurysm, but we didn't want him to feel left out and bought him a couple cans of 0% fizzy mixers. And then we made the food! Otou-san wanted "simple foods", so we had a very simple salad (potato chips crushed up with lightly salted cabbage), another with cucumber and cabbage, HUGE platters of variety sushi, roast beef, and a really light sponge cake (which was perfectly refreshing, NOT sweet like they kept saying :p "EEEH! Amaii! Amaii!!" "Whaaaa-? So sweet!")
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| ALLTHEFOOD. |
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| Happy Birthday Otou-san!! |
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| *drool* suuuuushhhhiiiiii |
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| *drools more* |
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| Haha our "kampai drinks" :] |
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| Otou-san's favorite liquor - which he claimed was not for the faint of heart. It made for a lovely version of a Rum and Coke! |
May 25, 2013
Happy, Happy Birthday! :)
I was a little freaked out at first when my host family asked me what I wanted to drink with them...we weren't told to not drink with our host families, but I wasn't exactly expecting it. I mean, they joked about Americans and how they drink (specifically American college students), but I was worried they'd get the wrong impression of me. I was relieved when they told me that they were perfectly comfortable sharing a couple drinks with me because they thought I was "serious" enough. :]
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