Homestay!

I love the homestay! My family is very nice. On Saturday, my host student's mother gave me a pack of handwarmers. Since I will be at the school for the first time today, these things will come in handy! My family is very nice. It's good to be in a home where the family does not speak any English. I mainly speak Japanese in the home, and I barely speak any English. I'm happy to be able to get the chance to speak Japanese. It feels so weird to use English now.
またね!
- Danielle W.

Making, and later eating, soba (buckwheat noodles).

Alright, so my family has the most adorable sheltie named Arto. This dog is so excitable I can get him to jump after and chase my hands. It's so cute and fun! So last night I was playing with him and he all of a sudden goes crazy hyper, he runs and jumps with so much force that he crashes into the couch next to me, jumps down, skids around the table several times, and finally comes to a halt right in front of me wagging his tail and panting. It's like he is saying, "Okay, that was awsome let's go again!". Now at this point my homestay student's mother and I both break out into hysterics. I swear this had to be one of the greatest moments of this trip! -Eli Looper

Yes, they trusted us with hocho like this one!

My homestay family is really nice and I really like staying with them. In their home, they also have a chinese resturant which they own is attached to their house, therefore I get to try a variety of different Japanese and Chinese dishes. Everyone in the home except for my student speaks only in Japanese, so I speak Japanese a lot and rarely get the chance to speak English. On Saturday, we made chocolate fondu as well as play games together. We also watched parts of an American movie dubbed in Japanese. Today I get to experience their school life and I am excited.
-Alex Wilson

The hardest part about this homestay is waking up at 4:30 in the morning to walk around in an mostly unheated house stumbling to get ready for a new day at KJ. But let me tell you what makes it easier, it's worth it. It's worth waking up really early to ride trains where I meet new students and make many new friends. It's worth enduring the cold house where the baths are relaxing and the food is delicious. This part of the trip was what I have been looking forward to the most and what has been the most rewarding. You can't even put into words how grateful I am to the Yahagi family for all the history lessons, half Japanese-half English conversations, and the trip to the Onsen (even car sickness wont get me down!) I'm just so appreciative of this experience and I know the many friendships I havemade here will last a lifetime. Cheers, Jenny

A vessel from the Jomon Era (4,000 to 5,000 years ago), found in Niigata prefecture. (shhh...apparently I wasn't supposed to take this picture).

Each group made a presentation in Japanese in front of a class of Japanese students.

I made a pun in Japanese. A pun. In Japanese. Wow. I didnt know I could do that. I think punniness runs in the Sufrin family. What a fortunate way to break the ice with my host family. We were eating buri, a type of fish, for dinner. They asked me if I knew what buri was, and if it was okay for me to eat. After a beat or two, I regurgitated a phrase I had memorized in first year Japanese. "o hisashi BURI desu, ne?" - long time no see. They applauded. In the States, that probably would have gotten a massive groan. I like this country.
-Stu Sufrin

Over the past few days, my host student's older brother and I have enjoyed conversing together. His English is very basic, but with a Japanese-English hybrid, we can have a decent conversation. He often likes to asked me questions about English, such as commonly used words and the correct way to shape a sentence. He also has an interest in American slang. He already knew a lot of ubiquitous slang phrases and words, but I have enjoyed attempting to translate the random and obscure vernacular of the American youth. Following these lessons, he has begun to spew out his arsenal of slang in aimless succession. He has taken a liking to "Got it dude!", stated arbitrarily without any context whatsoever.
-Henry Smith - November 22nd, 2011

Last weekend was great! I slept an average of 6 hours per night. My host parents and student kept me laughing and we had a lot of fun. On saturday night I showed my family my music on my iPod and I ended up teaching them how to dance samba (exclusive secret, no one else knows I can dance that). My host mom loves Bruno Mars now and both parents love my Latin American mixes especiallythe samba ones. On Sunday morning, we woke up early to go to my host dad's cousin's award-winning coy farm!!! The coy fish were amazing!!! I got to feed them and get them to lick my finger-it was a funny feeling-after feeding them we went to the top of Ojiya mountain (were we live) and we took some pictures; then we went to eat lunch, which was amazing, and afternlunch wae went to the electronics store where Canon cameras are less than $200!!!! I had a lot of fun with my host dad and student when they were showing me their collection of transformer-looking toys: it was amazing! We also played Wii Sports. The home stay and the sight-seeing plus the friendships I've made have made this the experience of my life!
-Gustavo A

We finally had a day without rain or snow while in Niigata, and saw the beautiful Hakkai-san as a backdrop to the school grounds.

My host family is incredibly kind to me, and my host mother is especially considerate of my needs. She speaks no English, but she is very good at making sure I can underestand her Japanese. I am also grateful for the delicious meals she makes! Breakfast is especially delicious because I'm not used to eating very much in the morning. Today, she made me a rice ball, along with spaghetti noodles with tuna and cucumber, tea, cinnamon toast strips, and fruit. At home it would be strange to eat such a large breakfast!
I have also made friends with Kasumi's eight-year-old young brither Kouki. He loves to play Pokemon and Supermario, like me. We share candy with each other, I poke his cheeks when he makes a "pufferfish" face, and it doesn't matter what language we speak because we can have fun together.
-Emma Fujii

Students also participated in school arts and music clubs.

Living with my homestay family is turning out to be a great experience. While I am there we find different things to do, some of which are Japanese-related and others are American-related. For example we have played basketball, video games, board games and magic tricks. The whole family likes doing different activites. We found a liking playing video games which is very fun as I try to understand what it is saying, since I played the American version of some of the games as well. One night the younger sister was showing me and the rest if the family magic tricks, it was funny since everyone else knew what was going on except for me. And then when I shuffled the deck, I did what I called the "American way", where you do a "bridge" and everyone was amazed and tried to do it as well.
Alex Wilson

Physics and basketball are the same in all languages, which is nice. Performing my groups presentation on the train for Shinya (host brother) and his friends was quite an experience. They clapped with glove clad hands as the rest of the train stared on in puzzled amusement. We talked about Michael Jordan for a little while and it was at this point that I decided to play wingman to Shinya and talk him up to some cute girls on the train. They seemed quite surprised I could speak Japanese and apparentely didn't know I understood the word for cute because it seemed to be thrown around a lot. Although Shinya didn't end up talking with them, it was great practice and later on he admitted it was fun and asked me to help him talk to some girls the next day. Mission accomplished.

-Ian Rosenthal

Farewell party thrown by the UNESCO club with various kindsof yummy Japanese foods.

My host family is very kind. Some nights I play the father or my host's brother in a soccer game that is like FIFA. I only won one out of the 6 games I played. They are pretty good at the soccer video game. During the time that we would play, we would get really into the game. W would start yelling and shouting, and when someone scored it was like the person won the world cup! These kind of moments were very special, and made the bonds between the host family and I stronger. The next day, I started to talk more in Japanese because I felt more comfortable, and knew that it didn't matter if I messed up. That same night, my family told me they wanted me to be part of the family, and the brother wanted to call me お兄さん (this means older brother). When I heard this, I was astonished. I felt so honored that they would give me this offer. It was an amazing feeling to have. After I said yes, they also told me that they wanted me in there New Years photo that is for their New Years card. Tomorrow we will take the picture, and I will be in it as an honored family member. This shows how strong a bond can be made in such a small amount of time. Experiences like this don't come very often. My time here is so surreal that sometimes it even feels like I am in a dream, a fantastic dream.
-Andrew Torma 11/22/11

The time I've spent with my homestay family has been amazing. On Sunday they took me to see a shrine to "make a wish and get our fortunes." My host mother told me that many people wish for success in business or for an exam, fortune with love, or good health within your family. She said, because I was now part of their family everyone wanted to wish for good health with me. We each threw in 100 yen, bowed, made our "wish", clapped twice, and bowed again. Afterwards we received our paper fortunes, I got middle luck. Although we had visited shrines previously during this trip, it can not compare to the experience of visiting a shrine as part of a Japanese family.
~ Gabriela Santiago

Staying with my host family has been an amazing experiences. My family is very kind to me as i clumisly practiced my japanese with them. The mother and grandmother speak almost no english and are very happy when i speak in japanese to them. My host sister and the younger sister both enjoying watching tv and playing wii games with me after dinner.

My host sister, Yuki, took me shopping with her friend Chihiro. After lunch we went and took many purikura, which are Japanese photobooths. Much more fun than American photobooths. We made many silly faces together and wrote funny things so we could remember. Overall staying with my host family has been one of the best experiences of my life. -Rhea G

It's really great having so much in common with your host student....well except for the fact that anime wise, my tastes are more in line with his parents (they even dug up a poster and gave it to me). Three experiences I'm definitely going to remember was the Appleking concert (his band), and the time last night where we plugged my iPod into their speakers and I played my music for them. It was a huge success. We also had a bonding moment over nostalgic pop culture from my childhood. It was great. I'm going to miss this.
-Ben "Strow" Ostrow