Meeting our Host Families

Monday 8/20/2012

6:30pm we head to the school cafeteria. There a Welcome Party is held which is pretty much a party where we get to meet our host families =3 Each person gets their own host family. There were a lot of people which made the get together a lot more fun! The tables were set so that there were 2 EAPers at each table. They split us up for the purpose of letting us sit with our host families and for game purposes. We first introduce ourselves. All 14 of us EAPers went to the front and did our usual 自己紹介 (self-introduction). Any tutors who were there also introduced themselves along with the EAPer that they're tutors to. As we introduced ourselves we were also introduced to our host families.

My host family consist of a mother, father, and two daughters. The father wasn't there because he was busy that night. The mother and the two little girls are so adorable =3 The youngest was shy at first. Every time I tried talking with her she would ignore me >.< but she slowly got acquainted with me ^^ The older daughter seems like an out-going girl. She got jealous when I said that I have 3 dogs. They live in an apartment which doesn't allow pets. I'm going to show them pictures of my dogs next time we meet :3 Another interesting thing is when I told the mother that Pokemon is actually quite popular in America and that we also have McDonalds she was actually quite shocked. I was surprised that she was surprised XD lol Oh yeah, the littles girl likes stickers. I'm thinking of buying her stickers next time I go to Tokyo or something :3 In Japan, they're called Seals which I thought was pretty interesting. I can't wait to meet the dad. Just hope he isn't scary x3 haha I was sad that I forgot to bring my camera so I couldn't take a picture with them >< they had a camera though so we still took a picture together =3

At the table were these 2 other people. I wasn't quite sure why they were there to be honest. I'm thinking they're part of the other EAPer's host family who was at my table. I was told that one of them studied abroad in America and that he's actually been to Santa Barbara. Of course, he would ask me about Halloween in IV. He says it was fun when he went last time. He asked me if I go often and I told him I didn't. The main coordinator of the Study Abroad program also sat at our table. She asked me what Halloween was like in SB. I just told her it's pretty scary and dangerous. I didn't really know how to explain it in Japanese lol so I just used simplier words XD While I was talking about Halloween in Santa Barbara my tutor was impressed haha

Besides the talking we also played a couple games. I totally forgot the name of the games. Not sure if they actually had names lol
The first game we played is pretty much a telephone game. One EAPer goes up and are told a phrase (in Japanese of course) then they must say the phrase to someone at a table and that person passes it on and so on. The other EAPer has to be last and must write down the phrase. We had to say the phrase we got out loud (which was embarassing knowing that you got the phrase wrong lol). Our table only got 1/3 right. Not too bad.
The next game we played was the game host (my tutor, btw) would give us a topic and everyone in the table must think of a word that relates to that topic. The goal is to have as much people in your team to write the same word as possible. The first topic was Japan. All the Japanese people on our table said Sushi and the two only non-Japanese said otherwise lol I put Ramen and the other EAPer put Natto. I felt dumb not putting Sushi after that lol The next topic was America. Me and the other EAPer put Hamburger. Two others also put Hamburger. The other answers were pretty funny lol The last topic was Yamanashi-ken (the prefecture that Tsuru is in). Majority put Budou (grapes) while some put Mt. Fuji. In the end we didn't do too well in this game lol

After the games the winners were given prizes. They were all snacks XD haha We didn't even place, but it was alright because we still had fun =3 Afterwards we talked more with our host families. I tried to get acquainted with the girls more. They're really cute x3 I love kids. It's a shame they don't have pets, but that's alright. My host family seem like really nice people =3 can't wait to see them again!