Saturday 18 --> Saturday 25th July; family visit, Goodbye to Geoff, Nick, Brie and Riley
So what a week it has been I will try and write coherently but I'm not promising anything, I noticed more than ever this week that English now requires concentration to be able to speak it, though once in English for a while it did get better, but speak a little Japanese and poof my English sucked again. Oh the joys of being an exchange student, you forget your own language.
Saturday (18th) my family arrived at Takaoka at 2:47, so the morning was spent finishing off my packing for the week, and then lots of sitting around waiting for it to be time to go to the train station, that day we walked back to where we stayed at the daibutsu Ryokan (daibutsu = big Buddha, Ryokan = traditional Japanese style inn) and after setting into our rooms and me getting over my tears of Joy at seeing them again and being able to really use English properly. We headed out to the park for a walk before heading down to Aeon (the shopping mall) where we wandered for a bit, did Purikura (Asian photos) and had dinner in the food court.
Sunday we headed into toyama and managed to see the Castle and have some fun climbing around the kiddy playground and get half way to Toyama’s park before the rain for the day hit, we sat in a shelter on the close edge of the park waiting for the rain to die down before we headed back to the train and home again for the day. That night we went to a Yakiniku (fried meat) restaurant, along with another Australian that was also staying at the Ryokan.
Monday after eating okonomiyaki and Yakisoba at a really cheap restaurant near school, we met 2 of my friends from my first year class at school (although it was a national holiday they still had club) and headed out to Karaoke. The fact that I took my parents to Karaoke and Purikura Very much amused a lot of my friends, and the Rotarians, but I think they enjoyed it, and they were here to see me and to see what my life over here is like, and both of those activities are a major part of any teen in Japans life… outside of school that is. Monday night we came here (current host families house) for dinner, which was great to be able to show my parents exactly where I am living and show them inside my house, and also for them to spend some time with my host family, they had actually met my host sister and Mum when they went to Australia to Visit Yoshi, who they had also previously met at my rotary orientations in Australia.
Tuesday we just missed our train to Kanazawa forcing us to wait for almost an hour inside Takaoka train station and significantly decreasing our time in Kanazawa before I was meeting up with all my friends (Exchange students, past exchange students and other friends of exchange students). Once in Kanazawa we went to Kenrokuen which is one of the top 3 gardens in Japan and was the Castle gardens, only about 1/8 of them is still in existence and it is still very large, by anyone’s standards not just Japanese. After that we headed back to the station to meet everyone else, I ended up leaving my family then and they headed back to the art gallery, while I went to the beach with all the others, I wouldn’t have done that except that they all leave really soon, in fact 3 of the 4 that were there have already left, (mike left a few weeks ago) the beach itself was pretty crap, reminded me very much of SA beaches, but then again I am very lucky to live (in Australia) near some of the prettiest(well known) beaches. But it did have a nice set up there, hammocks a gazillion chairs and tables but sheltered and not, and volleyball courts. We had a great time playing around, playing volleyball very badly that is, and then turning that into mugby. (attack whoever happens to have the ball at the time.) a few fireworks were let off before I left, but it wasn’t really dark enough and it was way too windy. With the spirit of the morning I missed my train home from Kanazawa by less than 10m and then got very frustrated because I had been trying to run up the escalators knowing I was pushing it and the people in front of me wouldn’t move over, but not to worry I got home eventually, and sitting at the station let me get all my tears out about having said goodbye to Geoff, Nick, Brie and Riley. I think Geoff will be the one I miss the most out of them, while I didn’t really ever do anything with him other than this other than Rotary arranged things, we got on well, and he is our adopted Aussie, and I guess yes I'm my head even though I know he is Canadian I counted him as an Aussie and it dint really hit until saying goodbye at the beach that he wasn’t going to be here for the second half of my exchange.
Wednesday was a day full of Rotary commitments, we had a lazy morning actually, but then headed off to Rotary meeting, which was a very special one as it was the one and only time this year where the district governor will attend our clubs meeting. After that a whole club photo was taken with the district governor which my family was also in, bit confused about that but anyway. After the photo and some other formalities we were off for the afternoon with one of the Rotarians (who had been my half day host a few weeks ago) and with him we went to Futagamiyama (2 toped mountain) which was a lookout point back over the area of Takaoka, and also had a huge festival bell which was fun to ring, and interesting to note that if you stood so that you were in the center of the bell it got a lot quitter. And then to the Famous rocks at Himi, the Takaoka history museum and then to a tea house among all the old houses before being dropped back at the Ryokan for a break before it was out to dinner with My host families and a few other members of My Rotary club here, unfortunately my second host mum couldn’t make it to this and so my family didn’t get to meet her.
Thursday morning we visited the Museum of Takaoka in The park before heading out for lunch where we made a group of high school boys day, they sat there staring at us the whole time, then when they left they asked me through the window if they could take our photo, but we made them come back inside so mum could give them Australian Stickers that she had been carrying for little kids, she is such a teacher! We then headed on to school, where my parents had the chance to talk to my home class teacher before joining Felicia and I and the English club. The Club told us about the Tanabata festival which has already been celebrated where I live but not yet in the suburb that school is in. and then we had question time before we looked at some hard words and sentences to pronounce in English. After which we bought massive soft serves and headed to the park where we ended up feeding at least 30 Coi and then about as many turtles. Pokka and I then lay on the grass in the park and watched clouds for a bit. Not very Japanese to lie on the ground but hey we are foreigners it’s ok, I generally don’t use that rule but ahh sometime the Japanese way just doesn’t make sense.
Yesterday (Friday 24th) I had to go into school for a lesson, home class about camp next week so my family went to the art gallery across the road from school and then we all went to lunch together before heading back to Aeon for some shopping, I got a new shirt and my family picked up some last minute souvenirs for friends back home.
This morning I had a very hard time saying goodbye to them, while I am very much having fun here and I don’t by any means want to go home yet, saying goodbye for that long again was very hard, it’s just not as exciting this time round, I know what it’s like here, and I have been animate in saying that one of the reasons I found it so easy to not really miss them, don’t get me wrong I did but not be homesick ect is that they had never been a part of my life here, I have most host family and my friends here, and while they are different that’s my life here, but now that they have been here and I shared some of my favourite places with them I worry that those places will remind me to much of them and really make me miss them.
Tonight we had what they call the summer festival in our neighborhood, basically everyone from this block of houses (it is actually fairly clearly defined… we are surround by rice fields) went to one of the parkish area and we had loot of food being cooked and sold, and a raffle and good times were had by all, they even had Yoshi and I cooking, not sure that that was the best idea, so I tended to stick on putting sauce on our shutting the containers and attaching chopsticks.