Host Family Life (P.S. Version)

Hello and welcome back to my republished study abroad blog series. Just to give a quick recap, I studied abroad in Japan during college. So far, I have been to cities like Yokohama, Kamakura, and Enoshima. I also lived with a host family part of the time, which is what today’s post will mainly be about. I know that the last post had a bit of a negative tone, but this one will be the complete opposite. My host family turned out to really nice and sweet. Both my host mom and dad spoke English while their daughter was learning English at school. In fact, they have lots of experience hosting international students especially those from the US. As I also mentioned, there is a student from my university that is studying abroad at the same school I went, and their host family is the one I had. The only thing is that my host sister won’t be there because they are studying abroad in Switzerland. I hope they are having a wonderful time living with them just as I did, and that my host family hasn’t forgotten about me.

Konnichiwa! In this post, I will talk about my homestay experience and the annual Oppama Y Festa. My homestay experience was amazing, and I have made some of the most happiest memories. They are a really nice family with three adorable dogs. My host mother is especially the sweetest. Every morning, I have to wake up early because my host mother leaves for work around 7:30 and by then everyone is out of the house (daughter goes to school and host father is off to work in the early morning). However, she always makes me a breakfast bento to take to school and most of the time that includes pastries and fruit. Before I leave for school, she tells me “きをつけてね (be careful)” and to have a nice day. She is very understanding especially when I have my struggles sometimes.

As you may have recalled from my last post, I took the bus to school which was around 15-20 minutes. Other students in my program had different ways of commuting when living with their host families. For instance, one walked from their house, another took the train, and someone took both the train and bus to school. To be honest, I never take the bus back in the US, but in Japan it feels more safer and they almost always come on time. Even though I was living with my host family, I was still able to stop by my dorm sometimes if I needed to get something or hang out there for a little bit until my host mother came home (I was not given a house key BTW). There was also that one time my host mother gave me a pair of socks and Japanese house slippers even though I got lost trying to ride the bus back home.

There were also times when I went out with my host family to do fun activities. One time I went to karaoke for the first time with my host mother and daughter, and we had a blast singing mostly American pop songs since my host sister loves American pop music like me. Another time, we went shopping at Yokohama Landmark Plaza, and after that we rode the Yokohama Seabass, a ferry that travels through the scenic route from the port of Yokohama. Since we rode at night, the view was really pretty!

Cosmo-clock seen from Yokohama Seabass

Then, one dinner I helped make gyoza for the first time. To be honest, it is not that easy especially when you have to make small creases as you are folding the dumpling and I put too much meat in one of them. But, it still turned out to be おいしい(delicious).

Finally, there was a day where my host family even met one of my KGU buddies after he helped me get shinkansen tickets for fall break (I will talk about this in my next post) and we went to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) where they had an exhibit about the gannenmono, the first Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii. This exhibit was special since it is the 150th anniversary of the gannenmono and there were a few celebrations honoring them back home this past summer.

I will give a brief overview of purchasing the Shinkansen tickets. So, you buy these tickets at the JR stations (or there are kiosks if you are lucky). There are two types of reservations: one is unreserved seat and the other is reserved seating. It is pretty self-explanatory, and it is almost like buying plane tickets. I was able to afford buying them because the exchange university had a scholarship for us. Therefore, I was able to use some of the money to buy them. I want to do a shout-out to my buddy for being able to come with me to assist with buying the tickets, and also putting up with me buying my costume for the Oppama Y Festa event that I will talk about later. We went to this major Japanese store called Don Quixote, which I am familiar with since there are a couple of these in my hometown. It was hard deciding on a costume for the event, but what happened was I initially decided to go with a Little Red Riding Hood costume. As we were about to head out the door, I saw a Mario costume and it was perfect so I quickly returned the former costume and went with the latter. The only problem was that it was missing the iconic hat. While I was waiting for my host mother that day, I quickly got creative and bought a red hat and some red and white felt to make my own Mario hat. It actually turned out great, and I still have that hat as of today. Once again, a huge thank you to my buddy for being willing to tag along and meet my host family. I know back then it looked like I was taking you for granted, but looking back at it now, I am glad you have always been there for me. Hopefully, you come across this blog one day and feel appreciated.

Overall, I had a great time with my host family. At the beginning (and before the homestay started), it felt kind of awkward since I am different from them. However, as time went on, I felt as if I had become part of the family. I am now glad to say I have ohana (If you don’t know the meaning of this word, you better watch Lilo and Stitch) in Japan because of the hospitality they have provided me. I imagine that it is going to be so difficult coming back home where my real family lives. Now on to Oppama Y Festa!

My homestay experience turned out to be much different than living with my real family back home. I noticed, especially with my host mother, that they showed a lot of hospitality which is one of the major values in Japan. Even though there were some minor issues such as a longer commute to school, and the spotty wifi in the house, I enjoyed spending quality time with them. It was one of the most enjoyable things about studying abroad in Japan. I could have a tough day at school, and come home to their energetic dogs and happy atmosphere.

Sunday 10/28- Oppama Y Festa was a festival sponsored by Nissan where there were many activities set up for the kids. KGU had a tent with two activities set up, so all of KGU, both international and Japanese students helped out at this event. Since the theme was Halloween, I decided to dress up as Mario. My job was to cheer on the kids as they had to play a game where they throw a ball at one of the numbered squares to get three across, diagonal, up, or down. I got to admit, I probably sounded like an idiot because I got into the character of Mario and cheered like him but I am pretty sure the kids seemed to enjoy it. There were also performances going on such as a power ranger fight and a band that played Hawaiian music along with hula dancers. At the end of the day, we all walked down to see the fireworks, and the display was huge! It was much bigger and more grand than the usual Friday night fireworks back home.

I need to give a little disclaimer here. So this post, and my next one both include mentions of Halloween, but are getting published in November. I would like to remind you all that I started working at a new job a couple months ago, and I can only do so much between this and my job. Please bear with me through the timeline of these posts as I always want to publish quality over quantity work. Now back to the blog, this was the festival that I was talking about that happened in the small town I was staying. Even though I killed it with my costume, I was tasked with the bare minimum of just standing there. It was a bit boring, but at least I tried to get into character and pretended I was one of those Universal/Disneyland cast members. I did manage to get a photo with a kid who dressed up as Luigi, but I won’t show it on here due to privacy reasons.

Power Ranger Fight

Hula dancers at Oppama Y Festa

Well that is all for this post, be on the lookout for my upcoming post about fall break which occurred soon after Oppama Y Festa.

This post was a little bit short, but that is okay because I need to get this out quickly before I go on my social media hiatus to avoid spoilers for The Marvels. Don’t worry I will still continue to publish this series. I also want to share that now the SAG-AFTRA strike is over, I can go back to sharing more Marvel content. One more thing, if I don’t come back from my hiatus before next month, I will try to work on a holiday series blog. So stay tuned for more from Pressure Shock.