The house is a mix of East and West- the bedroom doors and such slide, but the front door is Western style. The kitchen and dining area is also Western, but the dining area can easily become Japanese style. For breakfast I had oranges, egg, bread and salad. For whatever reason, it was really good.
Hiromi-san and I met up with Mark and Dongi's host mother (who's name I currently forget) while Touru-San when fishing. We later found out he caught 3 fish.
Together, we all went to this really cool submarine museum. It was a lot of stuff about detonating mines and such. I didn't understand most of it, but there were many interesting artifacts. We then got to go into a real submarine. I was surprised about how small it was- for some reason I thought it was going to be bnigger. The submarine itself was quite large, but most of the space was not for people to tour around.
Over the course of the day, we kept meeting up with Flick and Theresa. Apparently their host family is very traditional and the mother wears kimono all the time. I think that is pretty cool!
We then went to this cultural festival thing, which was basically for Kure City to show off how multicultural they were. The main thing was to go to each country booth (Brazil, China, Korea, Japan, the library, Austraila) and get the stamp for that country. After that, one could collect a prize. At the Japanese room (instead of a booth) there was calligraphy. Hiromi-San wrote my Japanese name very prettily for me. I wrote a couple of words very messily, and am glad I have something nice looking to take back with me.
There was also a tea ceremony, granted an abbreviated on. We sat down and were served sweets (which I later realised had red bean in it, though nothing has happened to me yet so I think I'm not allergic to it) that were very tasty. Then the tea was brought out. It was bitter but very good, I liked it a lot. Then again, I liked the Vegemite given out at the Australia booth. Anyways, everything was carefully choreographed and generally very formal. It was peaceful and time sort of stopped. Apparently it took 30 mins, but it felt like 5.
At the Culture Festival there was also a fashion show for the various countries. Japan was obviously well-represented. No one clapped for Korea even though two really cute little kids walked out. The Chinese outfit made me cringe (not traditional) and the horrible American cowboys with their annoying country music was so funny I almost died laughing. I hate to think what Japanese people must think of 'Americans' with huge cowboy hats and banjos.
Dongi and Mark ended up going shopping after that, while I looked around the shopping centre. Their host mother ended up buying me some cookies, which makes me feel kind of bad because I can't figure out a way to repay her other than bowing and saying thank you.
Now back at Hiromi-san's house, waiting to go to the other host home. Apparently she's kicking me out for an hour so she can cook, and then inviting everyone back for dinner. This is going to be really 'oiishi' or whatever it is in Romaji. Just gave Hiromi-San the present, she liked it a lot. Not certain if this is her first time hosting (I may just be the first one from Singapore), but she still put the Merlion by her window. She also gave me a hug, which is pretty unusual in Japan. They are bowing-type people, not hugging type. So that was surprising, but nicel
I've been trying to use/learn Japanese whenever I can during this home stay. It's not easy and I feel like I make a lot of mistakes, but it's the attempt that counts.
Also, sorry if this is really badly written. I normally check over my blog posts, but since I'm on my iPad typing with very cold fingers (Japanese houses have no central heating or anything, it's all space heaters and blankets) I cannot check what I wrote. Oh well.
Will try to post tomorrow.
It's weird, I feel like I've been in Japan for a while.
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