Concert Video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTg8St59xVg

Enjoy. ;)

(I'm the 3rd from the right in the purple dress, and Hanna is the third from the left in the white dress)

Sticky

One night during dinner, we were asked to try this food that was a sticky clear substance with little green pieces in it. (I never found out what it was called...) when you brought it up to your mouth, strings of the sticky stuff would still be hanging down. So it was taking Hanna and me a while to eat it, and Okaa-san, Otoh-san and Yuka had all gone either to the kitchen or somewhere else, and all who was left at the table besides us was Hiroki.

As I watched Hanna try to get a bit of it with her chopsticks, I commented that it was "sticky." Hiroki looked up at me and burst out laughing. "Sticky? Hahahaha!" "Yes," I replied, "it's sticky." We weren't sure why he thought that was so funny, but we decided that we would have to ask Okaa-san in the morning.

So morning came around and we went up and asked her what "sticky" meant. At first she didn't understand what we were trying to say. We pinched our fingers together and exaggerated pulling them apart. "Like tape," we told her. She finally got it, and laughed. "Ahhh, sticky." Evidently, "sticky" in Japanese means "nice, cool guy." Or, as some American girls might refer to some guys as "cute" or "hot."

Greeaaat. We just referred to that food as a cute guy. Hopefully Hiroki knew we were talking about the food? Haha. We had Okaa-san explain it to him later in depth. :)

Leaving

I didn't know it was going to be so hard. But surprisingly, (or not so surprisingly?) it was. All too soon, we were dragging our heavy suitcases down the stairs and into our homestay family's cars. Then within minutes we were standing at the bus station, saying goodbye. I didn't think I was going to cry, but what do you know, Okaa-san started to tear up, and of course I couldn't hold it in either. ;) We thanked them again for their kindness, and told them we hoped to see them again someday.

At the banquet, one of the students made a short speech about how that when he came to Japan, one would think that he would be homesick, and I'm sure he was a little. But he would also get homesick when he came back from Japan, because he really had become part of that Japanese family, and felt a closeness to them.

I hope to be able to see my Japanese family again someday, and who knows, it may be sooner than I think. :)

Two random things you may or may not know about Japan:
1. Everyone drives on the left side of the road. (Hard for Americans to get used to.) ;)This also means that moving walkways in airports are also like this.

2. All books/magazines open from the left side, instead of the right.

So does this make Japan just a backwards country? ;D