Home Stay in 長浜 (Nagahama)

Our homestay. It has begun. And since it is now Monday evening as I write this, I will try to stretch my memory back to Saturday's happenings- I know people don't like reading long entries, but since this is a rather monumental part of the trip, it's probably worth the read. I will try not to let you down! Ganbarimasu! 
Saturday, Alex and I were expected to be ready to go by one o'clock , which we were. Eventually our host mother arrived in her little square car. Her name is Hiroko Mabuchi, and she is a very young 63 years old. I can't believe she is that old though. I never would have guessed it in a million years. She is very soft spoken, and I always have to be sitting right next to her in order to hear what she is saying, but she is VERY good at English. She has talked to us in English quite a bit when she wants to make sure we understand us, but almost always we answer in Japanese. In fact, when we are around our host family, we try to mostly speak Japanese so they don't feel awkward about us gabbering in English all the time, plus the practice is good.

Giant Buddha chillin' over the city

We rode the 20 minutes home through the rainy streets to Nagahama, the largest city in Shiga and our temporary home. Our host father, Tadashi Mabuchi, is actually a professional painter. And not just a "professional painter", but legit a Professional Painter. In much of Japan, the houses are packed right next to each other without a yard in between. The Mabuchis took two adjacent houses, and turned them into one. That second house is their art gallery/guest house. They have a lot of prominent people come to visit, it seems. Throughout this part of the house, there are signs in English, Japanese, and German- German because  the city of Ausburg, Bavaria is the sister city of Nagahama and our host mother is like the...representative for them (aka she can speak German :D)- saying museumy things, like please don't touch the paintings, please keep the restroom clean, etc. So our host mom is important, our host dad is super important, and even one of their suns was an architect for the Tokyo Skytree, aka the tallest tower in the world! They have another son too, but I haven't heard anything about him yet. Anyway, our room is upstairs, beyond a perilous flight of steep steep steps. I made a little tour video, but my camera died, so it cuts off at the end.

The Japanese word for mother is Okaasan, and the word for father is Otousan, so we get to call our host parents by these names. From now on I will refer to them by these names because it's easier to just write what I call them, so they are important to remember!

After unpacking a bit, Alex and I presented our gifts to our host parents. I had the pumpkin butter and the cherry preserves made in Michigan and Alex had USA memo paper, a picture book of Michigan, and a USA calender. The Mabuchi's neighbor from across the street came over to have tea and cake with us. This lady seemed a bit older, maybe in her seventies (but it's hard to tell since Otousan is only 67 and he looks like he could be 80 to me). When she came in she kneeled on the ground and kept bowing to us. Even though we finished the cake super fast, we tried to stay and listen to the conversation between Okaasan and our neighbor. Otousan just got up and went back to his couch, which seems to be his permanent place of residence when he isn't eating a meal. The conversation was hard to follow- Okaasan speaks to us slowly, but the neighbor just rambled in her Kansai dialect (actually, she made a joke about it, saying it isn't so much of Kansai speak as it is country-bumpkin speak), and Alex and I couldn't understand, but we felt obligated to stay since we weren't dismissed. 

The room is split with a partition

Eventually our neighbor took her leave, and Okaasan gave us a tour of the house. Maaaan there is so much I could describe. So many details that I think are so much fun, like the glass cases full of old books, and the fact that they keep shoes at every door, and Okaasan's calligraphy. I think though, instead I shall just take a thorough tour of the house with my camera and just let everyone see what I see. I still haven't really been to Okaasan and Otousan's side of the house, other that the formal sitting room to see some things. Otousan has his painting studio upstairs, which I would love to see at some point.

After relaxing with our beloved internet, we had dinner. Oh my, did we have dinner. I thought it was just because it was our first day here, but from what I've seen, Okaasan goes all out. For our first night, the lazy susan was filled with bean sprouts in sauce, some eggplant-mixed cooked vegetable combination, takoyaki (aka octopus balls. yes, I ate them), some like, stroganoff type thing, a fried...croquette I think, a bowl of rice, soup with a ton of tofu in it, and a whole melon slice for dessert. For breakfast, we have just as much food, with toast, cereal, vegetables, ham, bananas, yogurt, lettuce, oranges, the works. That night for dinner we again had a feast consisting of a fish stick type thing, tofu in sauce, tofu in soup, lots of veggies, more rice, more side dishes...for dinner again tonight, we had salmon and beef and tofu onion soup, rice, tofu in a different sauce, salad, more croquette things, and chocolate. Every meal is with oolong tea, mind you. I love this food, but I could do without so much oolong tea, tofu, and rice in my diet. And although it sounds like a lot, it isn't all that filling, and since we eat around 5-5:30, I am hungry again by 8 or 9. And it's a shame with all the leftovers that we have, that we don't get to take them for lunch. As part of the homestay program, the family is not obligated to give us lunch, but we were told that families wouldn't let their kids go lunchless, so it shouldn't be a problem. Well, either Okaasan forgot, or she's abiding by that rule, because we didn't get a lunch. And we aren't allowed to ask either. Too bad. Luckily my friend Emily was nice and made me egg fried rice and cabbage for lunch. But again, rice doesn't make me full. 

So you all read how yesterday we got lost? Well, the time between Okaasan taking us to the station and us getting lost on the way home was spent with our good friend Ivan in Hikone. We shopped in Al Plaza, the shopping center, home to the hyakku en shop, and we did another purikura! These things are so ridiculous, I love them so.

Purikura booth

Purikura

Afterwards, we bought some card stock so we could make a father's day card for Otousan. When we gave it to him he laughed- he really liked it, and it's sitting on a shelf with their pictures. We also ate lunch at McDonalds. I know I have eaten meat occasionally, but it just is so good to have a big ol' slab of burger- well, two, I got a Big Mac. It was the best McDonald's food I have ever eaten- I even ate the pickles, because it was so good I couldn't bear to destroy the sandwich.

Burger and fries, how I have missed thee

Otousan chichi no hi omedetou
(happy father's day)

Last night, Okaasan asked us what time we planned to wake up. I told her I would wake up at 7, and Alex would a bit earlier, since she likes to curl her hair. However, at 6:40, Okaasan shouted from downstairs that we had to come down, and since I was up until 11 finishing homework, I was not a happy camper. I guess we are expected to take the 7:55 train to Hikone, meaning we will arrive to class 40 minutes early.......I would rather sleep. Speaking of little sleep, I probably won't get much tonight either, since this entry has taken an unreasonably long time to write (and yes, I DID cut out a lot of details), so homework has not yet been started. **sigh**. I guess...I should conclude...so. Tata. I hope you enjoyed this post. You better have, since it took me forever! Alrighty then, Ja mata!

Mary

Location: My bed

Current Mood: Sleepy (-_-)z..z..z..

Listening to: Paradoxical Zoo - Akino

Japanese for the day: いくらですか。ikura desu ka? - How much is it? (As in prices - We use this a lot XD)