ホームステイー

homestay in Ina-shi was MAGICAL.
東京に戻りたくなかったほど楽しかったんだ.

my family planned a perfect three days for me. we made temaki sushi for dinner, went to the Ina-shi summer festival, explored an Edo-era town, went to a beautiful otera complete with glow-in-the-dark moss and the traditional three gates, had really good soba and katsudon, relaxed at an onsen, took Benny-chan for 7 am walks...sigh. we had so many great conversations as we sat down to piping hot green tea, and as we navigated the Minami-alps by car, windows down and hair dancing.

Shima-san and Kotarou-san were....just wonderful. i've talked to other friends in the program and yep, my homestay parents and grandparents really knew how to teach japanese and let me practice it. they carried around a notebook a pen EVERYWHERE so that whenever i didn't understand something, they would explain it and then write the kanji/hiragana. occasionally they drew things, which elicited a lot of giggles. they were also ridiculously nice. no stuffiness about them. i cried after saying bye when we got onto the bus, but only after Kotarou-san stopped waving as we turned the corner...as Rz says, perhaps i'm crybaby :), but i'd rather be the type of person who feels deeply - the entire spectrum of emotions - than one who merely oscillates in the middle.

and now we're back in Tokyo, to regular classes. i'm being a total bum and only taking two workshops this summer after dropping a tricky Japanese Novels class, thus i'm only in class 5 hours a day. the work is starting to pile on though; for one, i've never had to memorize vocabulary like this before. and there are a few long term projects/presentations to tackle...which is little scary cuz we only have two and half weeks left!

anyway....i WILL post photos soon.