Home Stay

I'd like to preface this post with an enormous thank you to the Seo family (I hope you're reading this!!) for the incredible weekend that they arranged for me and their wonderful hospitality.

So, about that incredible weekend - on Friday we all left Sokendai (the guest house we were previously staying at) for a homestay. This is pretty popular in Japan. The idea is that when you want to go stay somewhere that you don't live, go stay with a family instead of a hotel. I guess it happens a lot with foreign exchange students for extended periods of time, like semesters even. Anyway, this was for Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday (today.)

Here's the family I stayed with:

From left to right, they are Mitsuki, Hiroyuki, and Keiko Seo. Mitsuki is nine years old and very genki (lively) as well as incredibly flexible. She can do cartwheels and handstands and those bridge-things they make you do to stretch your back, but then she can actually stand up. It's something to see. They also have a black lab, Momo. She and Mitsuki play hide-and-go-seek.

On Friday night, Mitsuki and Keiko took me out to okonomiyaki, which although it was represented to me as Japanese-style pizza, was nothing at all like pizza. It kind of looks like...um...I don't know what it looks like. The one we had included cheese, the japanese version of gnocchi, and corn in an eggy (?) sauce that sort of held it together once it cooked. Anyway, all this food talk really belongs in the post that got deleted, so hopefully I'll get to rewrite it soon enough.

After dinner, we picked up Hiroyuki from the train station and went home. That was pretty much that for Friday, but the next day they took me to Kamakura. Kamakura used to be the capital of Japan, way back in the day, so it has about a million temples and shrines. We went to the most famous (= crowded and full of other foreigners) temple called Daibutsu, which just means great Buddha. Guess why?
We also got to go inside. It was a really hot day, and the bronze was hot to the touch. There are really a ton of pictures that are all amazing, so let's just get all of this over with. First of all is the sign with all the statistics of the Buddha. Basically, he's big. You can also walk inside him, since it's hollow. He actually has windows in his back which is probably good because it's quite warm inside and without ventilation it might get scary hot. Finally, no Buddha would be complete without a set of beach sandals, for those days when high heels are just too much. The really dark picture below is the inside, looking up at his head. Mitsuki says that he was cast by making a big wooden mold and pouring the bronze inside.
The other place we went in Kamakura was the tsurugaokahachimanguu. I think it's something like pigeon shrine, but I'm really not sure. There were a ton of pigeons and the shrine itself has some pigeons on its name - they're the squiggly things at the top of the name plaque.

The road leading up to Tsurugao (I'm too lazy to write the whole name) is long, but they were super-clever when they made it. It's wide at the beginning and narrow at the end, so that it looks much longer than it is. At the end of the road is a very beautiful gate and some bridges, as well as a coffee shop on one side. (Side note: coffee here is a much more formal deal and involves sitting down at a table.) The temple sells fortunes. You shake a box, shake a stick out that's got a number on it, and they give you that paper and that's your fortune for the day. If it's bad, you're supposed to tie it on something and then it's a prayer. If it's good, you keep it. Mine was kichi, good luck.

Wish: Your wise will come true, but take care that the darkest place in under the candlestick.
Marriage: Leave it to your parents. It will be a good relationship.
Relationship: You yourself will suffer a loss if you get angry.
Illness: You will be unexpectedly ill if you don't take care of yourself.
Business: You will succeed if you set up production with great efforts.
Examination: Improve yourself in your language.

Righteo.

I forgot to mention that their neighbors invited us for lunch and fed me the biwa. They were also supernice and definitely are dog people. There was a yellow lab and golden retriever (one from each couple) and we fed the dogs soba and whatever else we were eating when they came and looked at us like they were starving. That night, family friends of the Seos came over with their two boys and it was just like a barbeque with the Forbeses. Kids running and yelling, adults stuffing themselves and talking and laughing, and great food and everyone's having a great time. They actually spoke pretty good English, but we spoke Japanese for most of the night except when I had to say something complicated.

Today we went to Yokohama. It was raining, so the amusement park we went to wasn't so...amusing. We did go on the ferris wheel, but that wasn't too exciting. After that we went inside and Mitsuki and I took pictures in a photo booth. Compared to American photo booths, hese things are on crack. Not only do you get more backgrounds, but there's also several different poses, more shots, and then you can edit them. And when I say edit, I really mean decorate until it's so cute that it's a little scary.
These ones aren't even the worst. There's bears and hearts and stars and borders and backgrounds and clothes you can put on the people as well as horns or wings or halos or ears. You can also write whatever you want. It's insane. After our photo session, we went to Chinatown, which is really big and feels very much like the one in San Francisco. We went to the Chinese temple there. It was very very ornate with decorations on every little corner. You can buy incense and go inside, which Mi-chan did and then I had to go with her because she wasn't allowed to carry the stuff once the stuff was lit. If anything, it's more decorated inside than out. There's five different altars which you're supposed to pray to in order. They've got...dolls? models? I don't really know what to call them of old men in them. It was really cool to go see. After that, since I needed a new wallet because yen don't fit in my old one, not only did we go shopping, but Hiroyuki and Keiko insisted on paying. They also paid for everything else during the weekend, including meals and admission. This doesn't seem overly ridiculous until you see the prices, which definitely are. They also bought me an umbrella and gave me a yukata (summer kimono) that Keiko wasn't using anymore and the grandma Reiko showed me how to wear it. Japanese hospitality is so much more...hospitable. They were incredibly nice to me even though they didn't really know me at all. It was amazing. Thanks again, Seos!!!