When we got to the train station, our host moms greeted us and took us over to the Yugawara Community Center, where they host their Hippo Family Club meetings (the organization sponsoring this homestay). There, we introduced ourselves in English, in Japanese, and anything else we could speak. It was kind of interesting because they wanted me to explain how to introduce myself in Vietnamese, but it was hard to explain that it's complicated. A general introduction isn't something I'm particularly well versed in; I can speak conversationally... only. After that, we played a bunch of games, danced, sang songs, and it was all very cute and entertaining to watch the smaller children have fun and learn these foreign languages. It's very adorable to watch a pair of twins mumble their way through Spanish. Afterward, there was another potluck, where all the families brought food to eat. My host mom brought fried rice with dried shrimp (yum!) and a scrumptious looking almond cake (which I didn't get a chance to eat, but she said there was more at home).
During that time, my host father arrived and we made small chat with all the rest of the Hippo Family Club members. When it was time to go, we got in the family's car and each went our separate ways.
The house has three levels. On the entrance was the ground floor, where there was a toilet, several storage rooms, their tatami room, a dining room, the kitchen, and the ofuro. Upstairs were bedrooms, and downstairs was their guestroom where I was going to sleep for the night. Just to note, the room is painted with glow in the dark paint, so that when the lights go out, the room lights up with stars. It's freaking amazing.
My host mom and host father talked a lot about Hippo and their own exchanges with other families, including the times they went to Russia and Korea. It seemed pretty exciting for them to be so global, and enjoy such languages. When the daughter of the family arrived from school (on a Saturday!), we went out for a drive and a walk around Atami.
We stopped by a small Korean restaurant where the family picked up some nice side dishes <3! We went back home and made gyoza as a family. I took a bath in their traditional ofuro... It's odd. First you do your standard shower, and then you soak. It's nice and peaceful, but it would take me a long time to get used to doing that as a daily tradition. After I got out of the bath, we had dinner, which was the gyoza we made, some curry rice, and the side dishes.
After dinner, we watched some Japanese game shows, where contestants had to pick a phrase which had two different kanji sets to match two ideas. ... that wasn't one I could really participate in. However, there was an addition and a multiplication game where it was wicked fun. Following the game shows, we watched a drama-special called Kekkon (meaning marriage), where I had no subtitles but really had to focus on listening and understanding what the hell was going on. At the end, I felt reasonably satisfied and we all went off to bed.
The following day, we had a traditional-ish Japanese breakfast, with rice and miso soup. Afterwards, we headed out to see my host mom at work at the local health fair. She was helping with a series of tests to see how "old" your body was in comparison to your actual age. I scored pretty low, since the past few days had taken their toll on me... But then we went around the town with my little sister and host father. We went to a farm with apparently the best soft-serve around it was pretty delicious!
And then we saw animals :D
We stopped at a cheap hotel lunch buffet before heading back to the house to rest a bit before I would have to head back to Yokohama.
At the train station, they gave me a bunch of food, to make sure that I was well fed (which I greatly appreciated), and then we stuck our feet in the public hot spring. Holy fuuuuck was it boiling. It was good for your skin, but man did it hurt like a m-f-cker.
After that, I got on the train and headed home. I really needed a good night's sleep after that :] It was fun and I got to practice a lot of Japanese, but other than that, I dunno if I could do another very short-term stay. It'd need to be a decent amount of time before I could really get Japanese to be a natural form of communication (though I am getting better at it).
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