♥Japan homestay day 6&7- host family day (Thursday, January 01, 2009 / 11:20 pm)
Day 6-- 13.12.08
The last 2 days of my first week in Japan were spent with my host family. On Saturday (Day 6), my host family initially had plans to bring me to ski. My host mother told me that she used to be a school player for skiing and she loved to ski.
Because I never see snow before, they thought skiing was a perfect idea for me to get near to the snow especially we will pass by snow mountains on the way.
So early in the morning, my host family prepared all the equipment and the host father drove us there which was an one and a half hour ride from home.
DISAPPOINTMENT #1:
When we reached there, the place was sunny. The snow mountains were not covered in snow. Only a small part of them had snow.
DISAPPOINTMENT #2:
As it was a Saturday, the skiing place was super crowded and there were too many young teenagers around. My host family decided that it was dangerous to ski with too many people as collison will happen easily. Hence, it was simply dangerous for a beginner like me.
So, the plan to ski was forsaken but I took some pictures there.
Therefore, my host family made other plans. They decided to bring me to the famous aquarium in the next prefecture, Shimane. It was known as AQUAS and famous for white Begulas whales. It was an interesting place, abit like the underwater world but better because it had shows and many interesting sea creatures.
-the tuxedo penguins are behimd us-
-we are holding starfish-
-now showing some the lobsters I've found there, don't you think it looks more like a spider?-
-this one definitely looks much better as a normal lobster-
-video of the white whales, look out for how they played passing balls and blow out ring bubbles in the water-
-quite late at night, we got home finally after a long day and a super delicious dinner. I had eaten many bbq food and raw food such as the horsemeat. I felt very full and bloated though.
as usual, every night before I went to sleep, I would either play piano with Ai (the daughter), read storybooks together with her and play traditional Japanese card games etc.
And there she was posing with the last Japanese storybook we read together.
And she insisted that I took a picture with the storybook too.
I got to mention that the family is a manga lover and avid readers. There were many books in the house and there was a huge bookshelf in my room. I took some manga and tried to read them by looking at the illustrations only as I could not understand the language.
Then again, as it was my last night there, Ai decided that we took pictures together in the room. I was trying to teach her how to cam-whore. haha....
-she's super high on that time though it was quite late in the night already-
-for the past few nights, she lent me her pooh to accompany me to sleep...coz she insisted that I would sleep better with pooh...lol-
and I realised at the last night there that there was a big balcony directly outside my room but it was hidden and closed because of the cold winter.
Day 7-- 14.12.08
It was my last day in Hiroshima. I had rather mixed feelings that day. First, I realised that time passed really very quickly. I had spent 7 days in Hiroshima and I was going to bid farewell to my host family. On the flip side of the coin, I was going to embark on the exciting part of my trip when I could visit the famous sites in Japan.
I was going to meet Jenice in the afternoon at Hiroshima station where we would shop there till our night bus to Kyoto at 9.30pm. Before meeting her, my host family brought me out to Midaki temple nearby the house.
-this was a gong where I announced my arrival to the gods as I ascended the steps to the temple. this could not be done when you are on your way back because it could bring bad luck-
-there were many bald trees around but they were famous for maple leaves during autumn. I missed gorgeous scenery again-
-I bade farewell to my host family here at the Hiroshima station. They told me they would be coming to Singapore in 2 weeks' time and I would get to meet them again.-
-I had done my shopping and here, taking photos of the fountain in front of the central exit of the Hiroshima station-
-and this is the vending machine selling cigarettes-
With that, I boarded the bus to Kyoto and had a sleepless night on the bus. The bus was bumpy all night and the engine was too loud for me to close a wink. I guess I only slept for 1 hour only. The rest of the night I was only closing my eyes but my brain was not sleeping at all.
So we arrived the Kyoto station 6am the next day and it was freezing cold. It was definitely the coldest!!!!! I regretted for not wearing long john that day. brrrr.....and probably because of that I caught a cold and was running fever in the night.
