Home Stay Weekend Part One

Finally Homestay post, It has been a while and I am not sure myself why I put it off so much. Perhaps I was nervous and letting myself recover before posting? I don't know. As time got closer to the weekend the homestay was supposed to
happen I become more and more hesitant, to the point where I began to second guess my choice. It was too late I had to go through with it.

Short Internship

At JCMU ( Japan Center for Michigan Universities) they offer students with the right language requirements and also approval from their Japanese sensei (teacher) various kinds of internships. Jumping at the chance I applied for it, it's also a requirement for me in order to graduate.

Mandatory, but fun!

A few weeks a go all the students found out that there is a mandatory Friday activity where all of the students would be split up into groups of three or four and sent to different schools in Hikone. I wasn't too excited because we had to be up earlier than we normally would have to be, I was almost late that day but some how I made it.

City Hall Adventure

There's no sign that says it's the City Hall...so weird....

For some strange reason I was terrified of going to the Hikone City hall, and I'm not entirely for sure why I was. Either way I still had to go, being a international student has it's perks! I have national Japanese health insurance! Along with many other insurances. (Right now this is the most health insurance I've had for several years...it's like what do I do with it?)

First...well second problem...

It was more of an adventure actually!

Yesterday after class, and avoiding going to the City Hall (which I am going to do today) I went back to the grocery store to pick up somethings that I decided not to bring with me. While there I picked up some extra things, like a hat because I lost mine when arriving in Los Angeles. I don't even know how that happened, I touched my head and it was gone. I also got a thicker scarf, because the wind from the lake Biwa is crazy strong and my scarf isn't strong enough. I feel like it's colder here than in Wisconsin. I don't live that far away from the lake, but here WE ARE ON THE LAKE. It's behind our dorms. The dorms are colder than it is outside too...I don't understand that, but the good thing is that we have heat!

First post in Japan!

I made it!!!

I can actually say that I am in Japan! There's been a lack of updating due to a lot of movement via changing the planes, riding the train, moving in etc. There was another post I was supposed to finish, but I never got around to doing it because of all of the moving. Well to begin...

I had two layovers, one in Los Angeles, and the other in Seoul Korea. The layover in Los Angeles was terrible, I was already exhausted because the trip was in the evening and I had to wait three hours and I arrived at the airport around 9:35pm so that's around midnight.

The trip to Seoul wasn't any better, but the food was delish! They offered two Korean dishes, and I tried both because I figured having an open mind to food would create a mindset to try new things in Japan(mind you I already decided to eat a lot healhtier in Japan, because of all the dishes with the various vegetables and it's tasty-ness...anyways...)  The dishes they offered was Bibimbop and Sole Fish. I've never had any, but I definitely ate it!

Bibimap

 

Sole Fish

On the way to Japan...
I met someone who was going to the same program as I, and we decided to become buddies. I was actually a little excited to have someone to travel with. When we got to Japan the lines through immigration was terrible and then we had to go to another line because we had certificates. It was such a bummer!  We didn't come from the airport until 12pm. From there my new buddy and I traveled from the Nagoya Chubu airport to Hikone all by ourselves!! 

I can also say that I am proud of myself because I did most of communicating to get us where we needed to go!

I haven't taken Japanese for a semester, and most of the information I did learn I mostly forgot, but having to ask for directions, get my ticket back from the machine, and tell the taxi driver where to take us, I think I can say that I did pretty good! I got us to where we needed to go way before the other students arrived( my buddy and I already ate, unpacked, showered and were in bed. The rest of the students didn't get to campus till around 10pm. 10 points for us!)

I will post pictures in another post, but I just wanted to share some details to update the blog!

-Aki