Meetings and such: another beginning
It's been a fairly relaxed weekend, but I've been a bit lazy and haven't caught up to myself yet. I'll post what happened Friday at least, and then later I'll post my weekend and stuff about my family. I'm sure someone out there is curious about my family. I probably won't have pictures up for another day or two though because I have to get a chance to upload them at school. You'll be able to see lots of cool places I've been though eventually.
09/11/04 2030
Friday morning we had to get up and dress nicely to meet our host parents. I thought I'd wear my gray skirt to breakfast so I didn't spill anything on my nice dress. One of my roommates got an ironing board from the front desk so I was able to iron my dress, which had become sadly wrinkled after about a month folded up in my suitcase. I got it to look fairly decent after a while though. My efforts ended up being unnecessary though because I'd forgotten to take my slip out of my other luggage, and that dress is too sheer to wear without one. So I decided to just continue wearing my gray skirt, since that was the dressiest thing I had besides the dress itself.
I got a chance to eat with Jeff finally. He wasn't in Kansai yet on Wednesday morning, and Wednesday night he'd gone to sleep so early that we didn't get a chance to make any plans for Thursday morning. This time was fun, except I couldn't eat very much for some reason. I'm not used to getting nerves about things, but that was probably it.
After breakfast we had another orientation session where they told us about getting gaikokujin tourokusho (alien registration cards) at the city or ward hall and creating bank accounts, and gave us our commuter train passes. Those passes were really expensive for Jeff and me since we have almost an hour travel, most of it by chikatetsu (subway) which is more expensive than the normal JR or Hankyuu trains. Our cards are good for three months and let us travel as much as we want between two stations, so we can stop at any of the stations in between the endpoints. After three months are up, Konan will give us money to buy another pass. Of course, the endpoints are Seishun-minami, the closest station to our host families' homes, and Okamoto, the closest station to Konan. Luckily for us, Sannomiya, where we went exploring on Wednesday, is in this interval, so we can go shopping there whenever we want without spending extra money. These passes for us are worth about three hundred dollars though, so we have to be extremely careful not to lose them. I think some of the other students' passes are worth only about thirty to fifty dollars, but they have a much more limited range, so it's a tradeoff. I think I won't mind the longer commute given the range advantage, especially because I'll get to travel it with Jeff. ^^
We had a bit of time after the official information session before we would meet our families, so Jeff and I made a run to the Family Mart to get drinks. We had to be a little careful where we went so we wouldn't run into the families prematurely, but it didn't seem to be a problem. Soon we were lining up in alphabetical order. I was right behind this Japanese-Hawaiian guy who had brought leis for his family. Apparently he had already met them in Hawaii somehow, too. Behind me was a Chinese-Canadian girl who can speak English, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin in addition to studying Japanese. I was rather amazed at that.
Once I was in line and we were on our way, I felt better for some reason. It's like after I've taken a test but before I've found out the results, I feel better than I did before the test, because I've done what I can and now there's nothing I can do about the results. So in this case, I've done whatever I could do to make myself a good choice for a student to host, and they'll either like me or they won't. Something like that. Anyway, it was much less of a deal than everyone seemed to think it was. My host mother actually recognized me and waved to me when I was still second or third in line to go, which I thought was probably a good sign. I was pleasantly surprised that she'd brought her daughter Yuka and her grandson to meet me. I was disappointed that there weren't any children left in her family since both Yuka and Yuki are grown up and married, but since Yuka has a two-year-old son and often comes over with him, I'll get to talk to him sometimes. He's only two though, so he doesn't really talk yet, but maybe over the course of the year he'll learn to talk. It'd be fun to try to teach him some English, too. Even if he doesn't remember it later, it'll make it easier for him to learn it.
As each family met their student, a Konan photographer took a picture of each group. Before the meetings, we'd actually had our pictures taken as a whole student group plus people like Kim-sensei, and also individually. These pictures were for a newspaper I guess. I didn't really find out much about that, except that we had to sign a form agreeing that they could use our pictures. We also had to sign a sheet saying that we'd received our scholarship money.
After all of the families met their students, we all went into a large room and had a very long reception ceremony with speeches by Rycroft-sensei, Kim-sensei, Tassa and a student from Arizona (in Japanese, both of them!), a representative of some company that sponsors the Konan program, and probably a couple other people. There were endless introductions of the many representatives and such that were in attendance, plus endless statements of gratitude for the hospitality of the host families. In short, it was very long and tiring, and if it had all been in English, it would have been very boring. The food was pretty good though, and Shikkun (Yuka's son; not his real name but a Japanese diminutive form - I haven't figured out his real name yet since that's all they call him) was cute and amusing.
Apparently my host mother met or contacted Jeff's host mother before we met them since they live so close - only about five minutes' walk apart. It seems like they'll be willing to coordinate activities for the two of us, so that'll be good. Yuka was going to drive us back to her mother's place anyway, so we took Jeff along so we can do the alien registration together at the kuyakusho (district office) along the way. It was easier for him too because his host mother came by train and they would have had to take his luggage with them on the train on the way back. This way he got dropped off with his luggage right at his door. Too bad it had started raining a bit by then. It took a long time to find his house, too, because there's no street address like in America. Within a district there are named areas, and within those areas there are numbered housing zones. Within that the houses or buildings are numbered in order, so along a particular street the numbers increase or decrease sequentially, but it's difficult to predict where the street for a particular house might be within the zone.
From there we went to where I'd be staying, my host mother's place. It's not a house and it's not an apartment, really, but it's on the fourteenth floor of a big building full of these little residences. I guess the closest American equivalent might be a condo or something. She said she actually owns the place, unlike an apartment, so I'm not quite sure. It's small, but it's a nice place, and the view from the balcony is great. I took a couple of pictures so I can show people the view. So again it's a tradeoff. It's smaller than a house, but it's got a great view, and the building has elevators so it wasn't any harder to get my stuff up there. I've got my own room which looks really tiny and narrow, but it actually seems to have more storage space than my apartment at UIUC did. The bed is lofted and there are drawers underneath. There's a little table that's almost exactly like my purple computer table from my apartment, except this one is red and the material feels slightly different, more plastic-y somehow. But the legs twist in, just like my purple one. There's also a little TV, which I think isn't hooked up or something at the moment, but I'll be able to use it eventually.
After I spent a few minutes arranging my luggage and putting away a few things in the drawers, I remembered that I should probably go talk to them instead of holing up in my room, so I got out the photo albums I'd packed. I'd gotten two for myself to keep pictures I wanted to remember, and one to give them to keep, where they could put more pictures of my stay in addition to the pictures I would give them. I got them all out and showed my host mother the pictures. During this time, Yuka was giving clarinet lessons to a couple of people, so her mother was watching the boy. I told Yuka she could look at the pictures too after she came back from her lesson, but originally I just showed the mother, and the boy to some extent, although he wasn't really interested.
For dinner my host mother and Yuka took me to a restaurant that served Japanese food in a traditional way - it offered only a set course which I suspect was rather expensive, but I guess it was a treat to start out the year. There was a card that listed all of the different foods served; I couldn't read most of them. There must have been six or eight different courses of food, several of which were rather small, but all together it was a very filling and varied meal. If there was anything I didn't like, they took it and ate it themselves, which was a nice way of not letting it go to waste. I could eat most of it though, although I'm sure I don't want to know what was in a few of those things. On the whole it was quite good. My favorite part of course was the miso soup. Apparently the boy has several allergies to various foods, so I'm not sure what all he can eat, but his dinner consisted primarily of curry sauce on rice it seemed. Amazingly for two, he was pretty well-behaved during most of the dinner, which took quite a while to complete. He got tired and cranky by the end, but that's to be expected I think. I was pretty tired too, so I went to sleep soon after returning, although I did read a little bit of the first volume of the manga series I bought on Wednesday.
09/11/04 2030
Friday morning we had to get up and dress nicely to meet our host parents. I thought I'd wear my gray skirt to breakfast so I didn't spill anything on my nice dress. One of my roommates got an ironing board from the front desk so I was able to iron my dress, which had become sadly wrinkled after about a month folded up in my suitcase. I got it to look fairly decent after a while though. My efforts ended up being unnecessary though because I'd forgotten to take my slip out of my other luggage, and that dress is too sheer to wear without one. So I decided to just continue wearing my gray skirt, since that was the dressiest thing I had besides the dress itself.
I got a chance to eat with Jeff finally. He wasn't in Kansai yet on Wednesday morning, and Wednesday night he'd gone to sleep so early that we didn't get a chance to make any plans for Thursday morning. This time was fun, except I couldn't eat very much for some reason. I'm not used to getting nerves about things, but that was probably it.
After breakfast we had another orientation session where they told us about getting gaikokujin tourokusho (alien registration cards) at the city or ward hall and creating bank accounts, and gave us our commuter train passes. Those passes were really expensive for Jeff and me since we have almost an hour travel, most of it by chikatetsu (subway) which is more expensive than the normal JR or Hankyuu trains. Our cards are good for three months and let us travel as much as we want between two stations, so we can stop at any of the stations in between the endpoints. After three months are up, Konan will give us money to buy another pass. Of course, the endpoints are Seishun-minami, the closest station to our host families' homes, and Okamoto, the closest station to Konan. Luckily for us, Sannomiya, where we went exploring on Wednesday, is in this interval, so we can go shopping there whenever we want without spending extra money. These passes for us are worth about three hundred dollars though, so we have to be extremely careful not to lose them. I think some of the other students' passes are worth only about thirty to fifty dollars, but they have a much more limited range, so it's a tradeoff. I think I won't mind the longer commute given the range advantage, especially because I'll get to travel it with Jeff. ^^
We had a bit of time after the official information session before we would meet our families, so Jeff and I made a run to the Family Mart to get drinks. We had to be a little careful where we went so we wouldn't run into the families prematurely, but it didn't seem to be a problem. Soon we were lining up in alphabetical order. I was right behind this Japanese-Hawaiian guy who had brought leis for his family. Apparently he had already met them in Hawaii somehow, too. Behind me was a Chinese-Canadian girl who can speak English, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin in addition to studying Japanese. I was rather amazed at that.
Once I was in line and we were on our way, I felt better for some reason. It's like after I've taken a test but before I've found out the results, I feel better than I did before the test, because I've done what I can and now there's nothing I can do about the results. So in this case, I've done whatever I could do to make myself a good choice for a student to host, and they'll either like me or they won't. Something like that. Anyway, it was much less of a deal than everyone seemed to think it was. My host mother actually recognized me and waved to me when I was still second or third in line to go, which I thought was probably a good sign. I was pleasantly surprised that she'd brought her daughter Yuka and her grandson to meet me. I was disappointed that there weren't any children left in her family since both Yuka and Yuki are grown up and married, but since Yuka has a two-year-old son and often comes over with him, I'll get to talk to him sometimes. He's only two though, so he doesn't really talk yet, but maybe over the course of the year he'll learn to talk. It'd be fun to try to teach him some English, too. Even if he doesn't remember it later, it'll make it easier for him to learn it.
As each family met their student, a Konan photographer took a picture of each group. Before the meetings, we'd actually had our pictures taken as a whole student group plus people like Kim-sensei, and also individually. These pictures were for a newspaper I guess. I didn't really find out much about that, except that we had to sign a form agreeing that they could use our pictures. We also had to sign a sheet saying that we'd received our scholarship money.
After all of the families met their students, we all went into a large room and had a very long reception ceremony with speeches by Rycroft-sensei, Kim-sensei, Tassa and a student from Arizona (in Japanese, both of them!), a representative of some company that sponsors the Konan program, and probably a couple other people. There were endless introductions of the many representatives and such that were in attendance, plus endless statements of gratitude for the hospitality of the host families. In short, it was very long and tiring, and if it had all been in English, it would have been very boring. The food was pretty good though, and Shikkun (Yuka's son; not his real name but a Japanese diminutive form - I haven't figured out his real name yet since that's all they call him) was cute and amusing.
Apparently my host mother met or contacted Jeff's host mother before we met them since they live so close - only about five minutes' walk apart. It seems like they'll be willing to coordinate activities for the two of us, so that'll be good. Yuka was going to drive us back to her mother's place anyway, so we took Jeff along so we can do the alien registration together at the kuyakusho (district office) along the way. It was easier for him too because his host mother came by train and they would have had to take his luggage with them on the train on the way back. This way he got dropped off with his luggage right at his door. Too bad it had started raining a bit by then. It took a long time to find his house, too, because there's no street address like in America. Within a district there are named areas, and within those areas there are numbered housing zones. Within that the houses or buildings are numbered in order, so along a particular street the numbers increase or decrease sequentially, but it's difficult to predict where the street for a particular house might be within the zone.
From there we went to where I'd be staying, my host mother's place. It's not a house and it's not an apartment, really, but it's on the fourteenth floor of a big building full of these little residences. I guess the closest American equivalent might be a condo or something. She said she actually owns the place, unlike an apartment, so I'm not quite sure. It's small, but it's a nice place, and the view from the balcony is great. I took a couple of pictures so I can show people the view. So again it's a tradeoff. It's smaller than a house, but it's got a great view, and the building has elevators so it wasn't any harder to get my stuff up there. I've got my own room which looks really tiny and narrow, but it actually seems to have more storage space than my apartment at UIUC did. The bed is lofted and there are drawers underneath. There's a little table that's almost exactly like my purple computer table from my apartment, except this one is red and the material feels slightly different, more plastic-y somehow. But the legs twist in, just like my purple one. There's also a little TV, which I think isn't hooked up or something at the moment, but I'll be able to use it eventually.
After I spent a few minutes arranging my luggage and putting away a few things in the drawers, I remembered that I should probably go talk to them instead of holing up in my room, so I got out the photo albums I'd packed. I'd gotten two for myself to keep pictures I wanted to remember, and one to give them to keep, where they could put more pictures of my stay in addition to the pictures I would give them. I got them all out and showed my host mother the pictures. During this time, Yuka was giving clarinet lessons to a couple of people, so her mother was watching the boy. I told Yuka she could look at the pictures too after she came back from her lesson, but originally I just showed the mother, and the boy to some extent, although he wasn't really interested.
For dinner my host mother and Yuka took me to a restaurant that served Japanese food in a traditional way - it offered only a set course which I suspect was rather expensive, but I guess it was a treat to start out the year. There was a card that listed all of the different foods served; I couldn't read most of them. There must have been six or eight different courses of food, several of which were rather small, but all together it was a very filling and varied meal. If there was anything I didn't like, they took it and ate it themselves, which was a nice way of not letting it go to waste. I could eat most of it though, although I'm sure I don't want to know what was in a few of those things. On the whole it was quite good. My favorite part of course was the miso soup. Apparently the boy has several allergies to various foods, so I'm not sure what all he can eat, but his dinner consisted primarily of curry sauce on rice it seemed. Amazingly for two, he was pretty well-behaved during most of the dinner, which took quite a while to complete. He got tired and cranky by the end, but that's to be expected I think. I was pretty tired too, so I went to sleep soon after returning, although I did read a little bit of the first volume of the manga series I bought on Wednesday.