So, dad and I had to wake up at 3 to catch a flight from Adelaide to Cairns and then Cairns to Kansai Airport. Usually flying is stressful through staff travel, not knowing until the last moment if you have a seat, but there were a load of seats available.
The plane rides aren't really much to talk about....
So late in the afternoon we arrived in Osaka (Japan is only a half hour behind Adelaide), where dad's old friend from his Thai exchange, Satomi, picked us up with her 3 young children, Natsu, Sei and Saki.
I still hadn't spoken conversationally very often in Japanese, and I generally spoke half in English the way to Satomi's house in Nara.
I met Satomi's husband, Ken, and he was a very funny man. We felt welcome and had dinner with the family. The kids wanted me to play a game of hiragana snap, so I joined in, and I DOMINATED.
So me and dad slept the night on tatami mats in the guests bedroom. Dad's snoring got so bad I had to listen to music to sleep and I had a nightmare that all I could hear was snoring. It was pretty terrifying.
In the morning, Dad and I caught the train with Satomi to Kyoto, but Satomi had to get off at Nara city.
Kyoto is the most beautiful city I've ever seen. In between the main streets can be found walkways not big enough for guys, flanked by small cafes, ins, bars and temples. Kyoto was interesting in the way everything was traditional but with a modern twist. There's some photos of facebook of Kyoto.
We want to a large temple site, with many buildings, several massive temples and gardens. We walked a bit further up the mountain and came across a massive cemetery with what would have to be tens of thousands of people. I think cemeteries on mountains is a cultural thing because there's one right near where I live in soja.
After this we caught a train to Osaka and spent ages trying to find food (dad's vegetarian) when we finally got something we went to a hotel right next-door to Shin-Osaka station. It's strange that a train station is bigger than Adelaide airport XD.
The next morning at 9 I met miyamae sensei and said goodbye to dad. We caught the Shinkansen to Okayam station (Okayama is the prefecture I'm living in, kind of like a state but smaller in size; there's 48 I think).
I then was driven for about half an hour to my high school, Soja Minami, where miyamae sensei gave me a brief tour. My host family came to pick me up from there around 11.
My host family, the Shibasakis, consists of Naoto the father, akiko the mother, Mizuho the sister in my year and 16, the brother Tomoya, still in middle school and 14 and Sakura the shiba inu dog. Next door is Naoto's parents.
The house, like just about every house outside the city, is two story with the bedrooms upstairs. The toilets are probably more technologically advanced then my school laptop and the bathrooms are cool. There's a first room with basin, mirror and washing machine and then a door that leads to the bathroom. The whole room is wet when bathing, because we shower and wash first using the nozzle that we can either use as a shower or take off. Then after cleaning, we relax in the bath, which has a cover to keep the water warm for the rest of the family.
All the doors in the house are sliding. The beds we have are like normal western beds. There's a small area at the front door to take off shoes and put on slippers or whatever you want.
The area where I'm living is beautiful, with rice and vegetable and fruit fields all around with roads to connect the houses. Mountains and hills and forests surround the valleys that people live in. Sometimes there will be shinto cemeteries or old and tall temples on the hills but usually just forests. 5 minutes by bike or 1 by car will take us down the main road to central soja, which is halfway between a town and a small city. Like most of Japan, it's rural but lots of people live here, and its only a half-hour drive to the prefecture's capital city.
When I first came to the house we talked and had tea, in Japanese nearly entirely because my host family can't really speak much english. It's good for my practice and I'm becoming much better very quickly. The host mother's a very good cook and Japanese food is amazing. the Sweets and bread are nice and not too sweet like America and more subtle than Australia. The fruit is amazing.
My host family's very friendly and kind. It makes things a lot easier too when I can speak ok Japanese.
We talk just like any other family and laugh and joke, but the brother and sister get along and don't fight.
In the afternoon I got some stationary and went to the supermarket with the Okaa-san (mum) and Mizuho to get dinner ingredients. When I got back I played soccer with Tomoya, but we were worried the ball would go into the rice fields and decided to play badminton instead. At sunset me and Mizuho took Sakura for a walk.
Read the next post about my first few days at school.
Sounds like you are settling in really well! so glad your host family are nice!
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