Host Family

I didn't get to update yesterday because I was very busy. I met my host family at around 1:30pm and they brought me by car to their beautiful home (pics to come soon) in near Hoshigaoka station. That is 2 stations away from Hirakata, and another 30 min walk to school after that. They helped me get my commuter pass, which lasts for one month. They don't speak English but they know enough important words to express what they mean when I don't understand them in Japanese. We had the meeting with the translator to go over what the expectations are and everything. I've heard some students get host family's that are very modern and hip or whatever.. mine are sooo not. They are ultra traditional. Which isn't bad, but they have to explain a lot of things to me - which they are doing a good job of I think. All my little weird mannerisms are definitly getting worked out of me.

Their house has three floors. The first floor is the garage, where they have a mini suv, a bike, and a motorcycle of which my 50 year old host mother drives xD It's quite funny. The second floor is the house. Tarou, their dog lives outside in a doggy house. He is very nice and well-temperd, mostly because he's a very old dog and blind :( Inside is the door way where you take your shoes off and put on slippers. There is the family room which is also the dining room and a kitchen roughly the same size our old kitchen was at home. Only two people in it at a time.. if that. They have a large flatscreen TV, and a kotatsu, which is a low table with a blanket overtop, and the underneath is heated. You stick your feet inside the kotatsu to keep warm. On the other side of the hallway is the toilet room, which is seperate from the bathroom. The bathroom has the soaking tub, of which I prob won't use a lot, and the shower. The shower is not a standing shower. There is a stool you sit on and then you wash yourself there. Very different. Upstairs is Kenkichi san's or Otousan's office, their bedroom, and my bedroom. It is a 6 tatami mat room, however there is also hardwood floor in my room, which makes my room rather large. I ahve a balcony to dry clothes on, because most Japanese people including my host family do not own dryers. I have a couch, a huge dresser, a closet, a western style table for studying and my very own futon. My host family has only ever hosted boys, I was their first girl so they bought pink futon bedding for me xD! SO CUTE!

They are an older couple so they eat really healthy. I said at the translating meeting that I would try anything they gave me and tell them when I don't like something. Okaasan made a traditional style dinner for my first night. It.. was a lot of food. But it was also all healthy food so give and take I guess. Miso soup with onions, I told her right away I don't like onions. There were a few garnishes I didn't like as well, such as radishes, I told her she didn't have to give me that again. Lol A bowl of rice, slices of pork with some green veggetable, a mini tomato, seaweed (VERY sweet, and I liked it very much), and a BIG helping of lightly fried tofu. Now I like tofu in small ammount but I'm guessing I'll have to get used to it here. Dinner was very good despite having to choke down a few non-likeable things. Breakfast was definitly the weirdest thing I've ever had in my life. They don't eat eggs or toast or pancakes or whatever.. nothing I'm used to of course. Each person had another bowl of miso, this time w/o onions ( ^_^ ), two onigiri, or rice balls of sufficient size, a salad (yes.. for breakfast), more seaweed, apple slices, cauliflower, soybeans, and a few other things. I couldn't finish everything, I kept trying to say Ippai desu 'I'm full', but she kept insisting and I ate as much as I could. That's another thing I'll have to get used to- eating a large breakfast.

All in all I think it will be fun to live there. It will be hard to change habbits but they are willing to teach me and are used to having to teach host students. Our communication can be better, but throughout the course of the semester it will be easier to talk.