So this post is a couple days late. Woops!
Anyway, after my first homestay the rest December passed both slowly and quickly. Then suddenly, Christmas. I spent Christmas Eve sleep deprived, on account of staying up way too late finishing a project for my Japanese class, but still had a good time. I went to the station to eat crepes with a friend and then we went to the 300 yen shop and bought each other presents! She got me this adorable Kappa roll thing. I named it Kappamaki. I also picked up a present for my Secret Santa. When I returned home, I skyped with my Aunt in Germany for a couple hours. On Christmas we still had class, though no work at L-cafe. I spent the day skyping with my boyfriend and then went to a Christmas party. There was lots of food to be had and secret Santa gifts exchanged. Pretty fun. The 26th of December was the 25th in California, so I skyped my family on the 26th as the last bit of my Christmas. I missed everybody back home, but it was a pretty good Christmas. The 26th was also the first day of the New Year holiday at Okayama University. We return to school on the 5th, though work at L-cafe won't start again until the 8th. I spent the first few days of the holiday relaxing and skyping with my crazy Lion Dance friends back home. I miss them a bunch, and it's hard to be away during the New Year time, when the Lion Dance team does a bunch of performances and everybody gets to chill and hang out. New Year in Japan is very much a family holiday, like Christmas in the West. But I didn't spend it alone! I got to do another homestay with a different family in Okayama. It was pretty great. They picked me up on New Year's Eve and I got to visit with their family and eat Soba, play games, watch tv, and arrange the Osechi Ryouri (traditional New Year food) for the next day. I also discovered I really like Sea Cucumber (namako)! We all went to bed after 12 and woke up around lunchtime the next day. Lunch was Osechi Ryouri, which tends to have a very Japanese taste. I liked some of it. I then got to participate/ in Hatsumode, the first temple/shrine visit of the New Year. It was super cool! I lit a candle for good luck in studying for the New Year and Kotone and I lit incense. The was a ceremony we went to, and I prayed with the family to the many Buddhist statues and was given ashes and grain to throw around my home. I then got to try amazake, which has an interesting ginger flavor. I stayed one more night, and was able to eat toast for breakfast. Toast! I didn't realize how much I missed the ability to make toast. Kotone and I then went to parikura (I think that's what it's called) and took pictures together that made us look like dolls. It's kinda creepy looking, in my opinion. Especially on me. Lunch was more Nabe! Mm, Nabe... After that, they took me home. Kotone and her whole family were very nice! (And they wouldn't let me pay for anything...) I had a great visit full of delicious food and fun games. I also came back with several presents. Ukyou, the 16 year old son, gave me a DVD of The Devil Wears Prada (a movie we watched while I was over) and a book on conversational English, which I think I may be able to use to learn conversational Japanese. They also sent me home with sweets. Now that I'm back home, I get to go back to studying. Huzzah. But I think the holiday was a nice break. For the New Year, I'm hoping I can get my studying back on track for my Japanese courses. My goal for the New Year is to learn new skills, improve my writing (and write more often!), and have fun. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with my life, but that's okay. So, Happy New Year!
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Okay, so this post is much later than I intended! I had it written out much earlier, but forgot to post!
"My homestay was pretty much the greatest thing I've done since coming here, I think. I didn't want to leave. I very much wish I could actually live there for a whole semester, like some other colleges allow (I'm sure my Japanese skills would improve tremendously if I was able to do so). My host mother and father and grandmother and the kids were all very nice, I've been invited to visit anytime, especially if I want to go to a hotspring with Okaasan and Otousan. It was very interesting interacting with the family and I really liked their house, and I'd already fallen in love with Kojima, the two previous times I'd visited, but oh my goodness was it cold. I'm aware that temperatures can be colder, but it was cold inside the house and I'm a wimp from California. My room had a heater, but on a futon on the floor I became intimately familiar with the concept of heat rising. Going to the bathroom was also an exercise in speed, there was no heater there. (I have a new found appreciation for heated toilet seats, as well.) The first day Obaachan showed how to do some Origami and we played a game. We had Okonomiyake for dinner, very tasty. Also, home made tempera. Yum. The next day I woke up super early (for me) and then wandered over to eat breakfast. It was rice, Japanese soy sauce soup with liberal amounts of tofu, salad, and fruit (mandarin oranges and persimmons). A fairly typical Japanese breakfast, though the soup is usually miso. After breakfast, Okaasan and I went out to a Shrine and Temple. It was super cool! (So many stairs though. So so many). She taught me how to do the bowing and clapping thing, and we got to sit in on a Shinto ceremony thing. Then we wandered over to explore the Buddhist temple part, it had a huge fire god statue, I think the biggest one in the world of that particular god. Very cool. We got to sit in on a ceremony there as well! Awesome! We got blessed at both the Shinto and Buddhist ceremonies. Oh and there was a Monk from America! He was part of the "Hoodie Monks", they rap and hip hop to spread the teachings of Buddhism. I thought that was pretty sweet. I want to go back and maybe talk to him again, there was a whole museum that we didn't get to see because we had to meet Otousan and Yama-chan (the youngest kid) for lunch. While at the Buddhist temple I donated money and got these good luck/drive away evil spirit things. You could write your name and wishes on them if you wanted, and you threw them over the edge of the nearby balcony toward the fire god and prayed for your wishes. We went to Kappazushi for lunch with Otousan and Yama-chan. Which was one of those revolving sushi bar places. Very yummy. Then Okaasan and I went up to a mountain and hiked around. It was very beautiful! And it had a rock that looked like it had a smiling face that we visited. Apparently the area is also a really popular spot to set unwanted pet cats free. There was a huge cat population, and people who volunteered their own personal time and money to feed these cats almost every day. Wow. There were also some stray doggies that I felt bad for, they looked like they could use some petpets, but for obvious reasons you can't just go up and pet stray dogs. After hiking Okaasan took me back to the station in Kojima, and I rode the train back to Okayama, and then biked home. Lots of exercise that day!" |
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