Homestay Weekend

I cannot believe it's the end of May -- this month has flown by and it has been absolutely amazing. I went to Tohoku at the beginning, had my 21st birthday in the middle, had my family here for a week, and am now staying with a Japanese family for the weekend -- the same family I was originally supposed to live with. They are a great family, but I will talk about that later -- first, I had my OWN family here! When I last blogged, they were off on their own adventures in Nagano and Matsumoto, but when they got back to Tokyo we had a great last few days together. Tuesday night we went out to Shibuya to walk around and have dinner, and I showed them the tiny bar street that I can never remember the name of. It was a good, relaxing night.

Wednesday, I had class in the morning and then we spent the rest of the day walking around Tokyo. We left our hotel and I more or less managed to recreate the walking tour I had gone on earlier in April with CIEE -- we went a slightly different way but ended up at the Imperial Palace! It was our second time visiting as a family (my second time going this semester that I've been here), and it was every bit as beautiful as the first time -- just not nearly as hot! The weather was great and we took a lot of pictures. Then, as we were walking across the grounds this Middle Eastern family asked in a mix of Japanese/English if they could take a picture.. at first we thought they wanted us to take a picture of them, but turns out they wanted a picture with us... at that point we were too far in to say no so we stood around awkwardly while they took turns being in a picture with us. The Imperial Palace and Tokyo in general are normally crawling with foreigners, so that they wanted a picture with us really goes to show you how many gaijin still have not returned to the country.

Fam at Nijubashi Bridge!

Well this is cute.

After the Imperial Palace we took the densha (electric train) to Ueno, and got some food for a picnic in Ueno Park. The park is full of sakura trees so it was absolutely stunning in early April, but it is still very pretty now that the blooms are gone. We found a place to sit and enjoyed some yummy shumai and sandwiches, and then we walked down to a shrine and stumbled upon a performance of some sort -- it was just a few people but their costumes were really intense. After the park I took them over to Ameyayokocho, which is the street that gets super crowded on weekends, but on weekday afternoons you have room to move your elbows. We got some delicious fruit skewers and really enjoyed looking at all of the seafood for sale... (not). I've never seen so many tentacles in my life. But, we had to head back pretty soon because I had class at 5, but then later that night we had an AMAZING dinner in the restaurant at the top of the hotel. The outer ring of the restaurant rotates so you have a constantly changing view of the Tokyo night skyline. It was incredible. We all got dressed up and my mom told them it was my birthday (again...), so it was birthday dinner #3 in total -- but I'm not complaining.

Ueno Park!

Ally on the way down to the shrine :)

Thursday was time for the fam to go back home :(. In the morning we walked around the traditional Japanese garden at the hotel, which was originally built for a samurai however many hundreds of years ago, and is now maintained by the hotel. We saw a bride taking wedding pictures and also some type of model having pictures taken in front of the waterfall -- it was pretty stunning. But then it was finally time for them to head to the airport, so they piled into a cab while I went back to school to resume normal life. Sigh.

Birthday dinner!

21 in Tokyo :)

Sister :) 

Thursday night was actually a lot of fun -- I lugged my suitcase on the train back to the dorm and then went back out to meet friends in Shinjuku. We went to an izekaya and did karaoke (my first time since getting here)!!! We sang a lot of my favorite songs and it was a really good group of people -- definitely a great Thursday night! But then of course, waking up Friday and taking the train to school for the first time in a week was a super struggle -- and I also had to bring my weekend bags since I am staying with a Japanese family for this weekend! I am currently sitting in their living room with their dachsund curled up next to me on the couch, listening to jazz albums on the father's record player while the scent of the incense sticks burning in the hall fills the room. In short, utter bliss. Seriously, this family is amazing -- I have enjoyed the dorm experience and living with everyone there, but in the past 24 hours I have probably used more Japanese outside of class than I have the rest of the semester combined, and this family and their apartment is just so nice. They have wireless internet, which is a rarity in Japan, and the four-year-old is already calling me big sister and snuggling with me and asking to be picked up. Today, we went ice skating, which was her first time -- it was a lot of fun, but kind of stressful because she wanted to skate with me a lot so I was solely responsible for her safety for like 5-7 revolutions of the skating rink. But, I'm proud to say she didn't fall while she was with me! So jouzu. After skating, we went to this pizza place that is actually the best pizza I have ever had -- the dad said he thinks it was the best pizza in Tokyo, and I'm certainly not going to argue. It was seriously so delicious. Tomorrow, I'm pretty sure we are going to this place where you make pots and decorate them, although the mom told me in Japanese so what we are actually doing is usually a bit of a surprise for me... but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless! I'm helping to make dinner in a few minutes... let's hope it turns out edible! Mata!