Days 1-4

So this is my first post for my Light Fellowship Blog. Please excuse the poor typing and strange punctuation because I don:t quite have the hang of Japanese keyboards yet. They:re really confusing and have a lot more keys than American ones. The most confusing change is that the space bar is smaller and if you accidently push the keys around it turns the english into Japanese characters and I haven:t figured out how to change it back yet.

From day one: I arrived at the Art Hotels Ohmori in Tokyo with the MH plan. The HIF travel program has several plans you can take to get to Hakodate in time for the placement test. The MH one (Meet at Hotel) was convenient for me becasue I traveled around Japan for a week before the program started to see some family. The closest train station to the Art hotels Ohmori from the shinkansen is Shinagawa and then you get on the Keenin Tohoku (?) line and take it to Ohmori. I met a bunch of the other program people at the hotel where we all stayed a night before taking a flight in the morning up to Hakodate.

Day 2:
Arrived in Hakodate and took the placement test at 9:30 in the morning. After that, there were a bunch of orientations and lunch that we had to do and then we got to meet our host families. On the plane ride up to Hakodate, a lot of the other students were studying their textbooks and stuff to prepare for the placement test. Unfortunately, I didn:t bring SURA SURA with me and I didn:t really have anything to study. I highly recommend bringing your text book or something to study before the placement test.

That night I met my host family. They:re pretty cool, but really busy. My dad came to pick me up from HIF and took me home to meet the rest of the family, including Mom and my 3 younger brothers. I live in a kind of far away town from Hakodate and had to take a 30 min train ride from Hakodate city to get home.

Day 3:
I woke up really early around 6:30 to go to school. My dad showed me how to get to the train station by bike and then shipped me off on the train with another family to show me how to get to schoool. There is about a 30 min walk from the Hakodate eki up to HIF, so my whole daily commute takes at least an hour. Oh and BTW my Dad is a priest for Tenri-kyo, a Japanese cult religion and every morning they pray at 6:30 with drums and bells and stuff, so it:s like a natural alarm clock (yay?)

At HIF, they gave us evern more orientations and we took a tour of Hakodate city from some local college students. The tour wasn:t very helpful and it made me late to meet my host mom who picked me up from HIF at 12:00, but I didn:t get back until around 12:30. After that we went ot the eki to buy a monthly rail pass (8000 yen). When I got home, I took a nap and then went for a bike ride to explore the near Kamiiso station. I found a great park with a big gym and a whole lot of other stuff. When I got home, we ate dinner I think it was sushi and my family was all surprised about how I know all about Japanese foods and how it doesn:t gross me out because I eat it at home.

Day 4:
I woke up early for some reason (probably to the praying) and then asked my mom to go shopping because I needed to buy some stuff for school. She took me to a little shopping mall called Cow Boy and told me she:d pick me up at 12:00. I did my shopping getting a few things here and there. By far the best shop there was the 100 yen store. Everything there is awesome and it:s actually only 100 yen! not like the dollar stores in America.

Mom picked me up at 12 and I went home and ate lunch. After that, I rode my bike to the park and jogged for a bit and came home to dinner. My family donesn]:t really do anything with me because I think they:re used to having hojmestay students./ Apparently my Grandma:s been hosting students fro 20 years!

Day 5:
I made arrangements today to meet up with some other HIFfers to explore Hakodate. We met at HIF and walked around looking for lunch. Eventually we went to Lucky Pierrot, a hamburger joint near the ocean at the base of the HIF hill. I tried the whale burgers I heard so much about, but it wasn:t all that great, but then again it wasn:t as bad as I heard it was. The meat was somewhere inbetween beef and pork and really dark. After eating, we went to Hakodate Beer to try some local drinks. We all ordered different things, including Cassis, Grapefruit, and Melon (I think) beer. They were all quite tasty actually and different from American beer (not that I:ve ever had any...) We walked around some more near the Hakodate train station (eki) and found some department stores we went into. We did a bit more shopping there in the stationary department to get supplies for school. After that, it was nearing the time for my train to leave, so I returned home on the 5:00 train.

When I got home, I took a nap and ate dinner and after that, Alyssa, another HIF student from Wellsley and her host mother came to visit at my house. We talked for a bit and then they went home. It was all kind of random actually.

Day 6:
I woke up early for my first day of school. Today was the first day of classes and I found out which class I placed into. I was put into the advanced level after getting through level 3 of Japanese. Based only on today:s class, it:s gonna be pretty hard. I don:t know if I:ll be able to handle it right away, it:ll definently take some work. Now I:m gonig to take Matthew White to the department store to help him find an electronic dictionary (a must have in Japan!)