We had the opening ceremony, and all the students introduced themselves briefly standing up one by one and saying name, major, school, etc. It was slightly nerve-wracking because it was the first time we all met our host families.
I didnt even know what they looked like, so they were looking at me, but I didnt know who they were. Anyway, after the introductions, those who had gotten letters from their host families (I would have if my Mom hadnt missed it in the envelope from TIU!!) walked towards them and the semi-strange, cross-cultural shmorgasborg of greetings ensued.
I sort of stood there and waited for a few seconds, and saw an adorable lady shuffling towards me. Hagimemashite, she says, which roughly means nice first time. Yoroshiku oneggai shimasu, I reply.
We sit and start talking and eating, and I quickly discover my father is not a 'tsumetai otousan' (cold father) as Matt had warned us most host dads would be. I am glad, he opens up and smiles and laughs a lot. Its already great, and I barely know anything about them.
They take us all home, and I am shown around the house. There are rooms with tatami mats (very cool), a toilet with more buttons than a remote (although a US remote, because the remote here handles 3 types of TV: digital, sattelite, AND cable. All the TV one could ever want or use, and much more), a refrigerator with a rice drawer with some crazy function (this too had more buttons than anything in my house back home), and lots of crazy decorations and interesting random things.
We sit down, I struggle to explain my complex family, roots, and recent travels. Dinner is kare (curry), a delicious brown sludge on a bed of rice, some sort of potato pancake thing very similar to a latka and a yogurt-lemon sauce type deal. They keep expecting me to put mayonaise on everything, and I keep disappointing them. Well, not that they mind.
I am surprised, most host families (I was told all) are returning families, some of which have been hosting for 20 years, but I am my families first. This is going to be very cool and new for both of us, if a bit difficult, virginity allusions aside.
I crash, exhausted after much conversation in japanese, and wake around 10:30. My hostmom is surprised, and we arrange for her not to cook me hot food on the weekends, I will just eat cereal and fruit. Again I leave the mayo untouched as I munch the salad, eggs and bacon.
For lunch Kaori (host sister)'s elder sister comes over with her husband and two extremely adorable children. They at first appear extremely terrified of the gigantic dark man, but later warm up and giggle lots. They are Takeru (1yr) and Yui (3yrs), and oh so adorable.
This is a pic with me, host mom and dad, two sisters, grandchildren, and sister's hubby...oh and lots of yakisoba!
Here is Yui reciting the ABCs...which is basically the cutest thing I have EVER SEEN. Seriously...in my entire life.
Later, we roamed around and went to Kawagoe-eki, the train station to check out various stores and buy random stuff like my commuter pass.
I saw a japanese starbucks...which was moderately disgruntling, but they had this amazing beverage:
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