The Host Family Stories

 

 

I just moved into my host family’s house a few days ago (Sunday to be exact) and I’m starting to get used to the way things work here.  The family consists of the parents, a 25 year old daughter who still lives with them and their 85 year old grandmother.  They also have two other kids, one older daughter who just got married and a 30 year old son who isn’t married yet.  So far I really like them, I haven’t met the older daughter or son but everyone is really nice.  Oh yeah they also have a dog and a cat, both of which are adorable although unfortunately the dog stays in a room the whole day because they don’t get along. 

I know this year will be great, especially being able to live with them.  Why do I know this?  Well on the second day of living with them they fulfilled one of my long time desires.  To eat okonomiyake :)  Ever since I first saw it I’ve been craving it and last night I got my wish.  It was so good and they kept putting more and more on my plate.  I swear if they keep feeding me this much I’m going to come back with a food baby.  The only bad thing is that I’ve discovered I have a low tolerance for mochi, but I made the mistake of not being clearer that I didn’t want that much and I’ve had it every day so far. 

Today was a free day for everyone, sort of a time to get to know our host family.  My host mom took me to part of Tokyo that was very close to our house, Kichijouji, she explained it as being like Shibuya but less crowded.  It was less crowded then Shibuya but that’s not to say there weren’t tons of people everywhere.  I really enjoyed it though, she took me first to an electronic store where she was looking for a vacuum cleaner and then we split up.  She went to a shoe store and I went to a cd store, Tower Records.  I’ve been meaning to buy some Japanese music and on a whim I chose a sort of hip-hop cd.  It’s really good, although I had a hard time because there were about 3 or 4 other cd’s I wanted to buy.

We then got ice cream which was soooooo good.  My host mother likes a lot of sweet things (well sweet for Japanese people) and she told me every time she goes out to places like Kichijouji she gets ice cream.  I have to say, Japanese ice cream is so much better than American ice cream.  As I’ve discovered myself sometimes the ice cream is just way too sweet, it’s hard to eat after a certain amount of time and all that sugar makes me feel like I’m on the borderline of being diabetic.  But here it’s way creamier, there isn’t as much sugar but that just means you enjoy it more.  It’s way more refreshing and you don’t feel like you’ve eaten that much.  I’m definitely going to miss that.

There was also this awesome park in the middle of the city (that happens a lot here) and there were about 5 different performances going on at the same time.  Not to mention you could grab a paddle boat and go around the small river they had.  There was this great old guy who was playing the blues with a guitar and harmonica.  a group of kids had crowded around him and one adorable little boy was mimicking him and using his fan to play some air guitar.  It was the cutest thing ever. 

Let’s see, not much else really.  I did get slightly lost last night on my way back from the station to the house.  I went down the wrong road and it was pretty dark but thankfully I realized my mistake not too far down.  Other then that pretty uneventful.  Tomorrow is an early day, got to meet in front of Big Box in Takadanobaba at 8:30 in the morning for a day trip to Kamakura.  I’m sure there will be more pictures :)