On Monday through Wednesday I was up at Oze with the group from school, SISEC. About 70 people total went on the trip so it was quite the adventure. On Monday we left in the morning and had about a four hour bus ride to the lodge-type thing we stayed in for two nights. Monday afternoon we played in the river some then had a delicious barbecue -- the meat was soooo good. On Tuesday we headed up the mountain to a ski lodge, where people were grass boarding/skiing -- it was so cool! I didn't even know that that existed. We went up the mountain in a cable car then did some hiking around at the top. After eating lunch some people headed down to ride "go karts," and when the rest of us finally made it down we found out that it wasn't go karts but this really cool luge thing. And by cool, I mean something you would definitely have to sign a waiver for in the US... it was pretty dangerous. We sat in this little cart on wheels (no seatbelt) and rode on a pavement track down part of the mountain. We could get going pretty fast and some of the turns were pretty sharp -- one person even ran off the track into the grass. But, it was a ton of fun! Definitely a unique experience.... haha. Wednesday was spent cleaning, resting, and packing before heading back to Tokyo in the afternoon!
Thursday, I had lunch with the CIEE summer students to answer any questions they had, and then began the task of buying a baby present for my homestay mother, who had given birth to a baby girl on Monday! Let me just say I'm not looking forward to when all of my friends start having babies -- it was a very stressful experience. I went to Babies R Us, which has about 30,000 different varieties of baby bibs/hats/blankets/toys/you name it. But, in the end I finally decided on something suitable and then headed over to visit my homestay mom in the clinic! The baby process is a bit different in Japan -- the mom stays in the clinic where she gives birth for about 5-7 days to get more rest and taken care of, since the dad usually has to keep working after the baby is born. But, both my homestay mom and the baby are healthy and doing well, and the baby is SUPER ADORABLE and super tiny! The average length for a Japanese baby is about 3000cm, and this one is 2700cm, so it's small even by newborn standards. But, she has a full head of hair and is super super super cute!
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| the baby! |
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| Family :) |
Friday, I had my tutoring session with a woman I've been working with who is super sweet. She wanted to take me out to lunch, so we ate together and she gave me this amazing present of this thing called a hanko that the Japanese use to sign their name. She gave me one with the kanji for my first name, the first character of which apparently means apricot, which I never knew! It was a beautiful present and will be a great keepsake from Japan. Friday night was the CIEE farewell party, where there were various presentations on our summer experiences and then we had a dinner and a last chance to mingle together. It was great to see everyone all together one last time! After the party, a bunch of us headed out together for a last night out in Tokyo -- it was a lot of fun!
Saturday, I headed over to see my homestay family one last time. When I got there, they gave me a present of a beautiful yukata, which is a summer-style kimono. The mom helped me get dressed in it, and the daughter got dressed in one too. We took lots of pictures and it was a lot of fun! They are an amazing family -- even though I only saw them a few times it was really hard to say goodbye, but I hope to see them again one day in the future! I wore my yukata for the rest of the day and went to this cool drumming festival in the streets of Shinjuku before going to a farewell party for my Japanese class. Both of our senseis came and it was great to see everyone one more time -- we had kind of split in a daze after the last final. But, we had a good time over drinks and got some closure to our "shinkansen Japanese" semester of having class together 5 days a week, bright and early at 9:15am.
Sunday (today) I woke up pretty late and did some packing before heading out for some last minute shopping and a last dinner with some friends. We found this cafe on the 13th story of a department store with a great view of the surrounding area, and had some delicious galettes (which are like crepes but apparently a bit different). After dinner we wandered around the store some before heading home -- now I'm in my room and am about to pass out for the night! In the morning I have to finish packing and clean before heading to the airport. I'm too tired right now to be reflective, so I'll probably post one more time once I get back home. Thanks for reading!!
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