Tateno Family

On the morning of the 24th (Sunday) I said my goodbyes and thank-yous to the Umezaki family and moved to my third and final host family.

I am really glad that I got to live at the Umezakis' house. They were an excellent host family. I didn't spend a whole lot of time with Mr. Umezaki or Rika (29-year-old host sister) as they both have full-time jobs, but I got really close with my host mom. She was awesome! I always had good food and obentos. I got to help with dinners at night and after dinner she gave me Japanese lessons. They were all very generous and let me make whatever plans I wanted to on my own. I will never forget them.

My host father, host mother, me, Rika, and the dog (Nene).

I had not really met my third host family before that morning. I had talked with my host father for about 10 minutes at a rotary lunch two weeks earlier, but that was it. I was a bit nervous about switching.

The Tateno family pulled into the driveway at about 9:30 and I finally got to meet them .They are a young couple (early 40's) with one 7-year-old boy named Manato. We (both host families and myself) all talked for a while, loaded my luggage into the car, and said good-bye.

Hey, they got smaller since I last changed families...

My new house is in Tokyo, which is a kind of exciting. (Plus, we don't have to sort our garbage in Tokyo!!!) I technically live outside of my Rotary District now. My house is in a really nice neighborhood-- an actual neighborhood! I even met all my neighbors! My host family introduced me to all of them my first day there, probably so they didn't get worried when they see a random foreigner trying to get into the house. The house is small, but clean and it really feels like a home. There is not much privacy (seeing how I don't really have a room) but I don't mind at all. I feel the most at home in this family I think.

My house!

The living room and play/study room. I close those sliding doors (to the left) and set out my futon when it is time for bed.

From the other direction.

My host parents are both awesome. This is the first time they have hosted a students so I htink they feel like they don't quite know what to do, but they are doing a great job. My host father is a public tax accountant (or something along those lines), but he still spends a good amount of time at home with the family. My host mom is a nurse. She works at a small hospital so she gets Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays off and gets the afternoon off two other days a week.

I absolutely love my little host brother. I think we are going to be good buddies. He was a bit shy while we were talking at the Umezaki's house but as soon as we got into the car he warmed right up. He talks with me all the time and offers explanations for things I don't understand. For example, I didn't quite understand what my host mom was saying to me so he steps in front of her and explained it all in really simple Japanese. He also explained stuff around the house to me. In the shower room, "this handle is for the temperature. When you turn it toward this little red mark it makes the water hot..." We also play games on my iPod together. It was really cute when he told me that this is the first time he has ever had a big sister.

Manato and Abbey.

That Sunday, after stopping at the house for a little bit, we all went to a barbecue for lunch. It was my host father's high school friend and their families I think. It seems like they are pretty good friends and see each other a lot. The kids all knew each other really well, too. It was fun and the food was awesome. We had good bacon, beef, corn-on-the cob, onions, potatoes, and sweet potatoes cooked in tinfoil (the onions were so good!) over the coals, soup, watermelon.... It was like a 4th of July picnic without the fireworks! Then they brought out the squid (not bad) and turban shells (not my favorite) and I was reminded that this is a Japanese barbecue.

My host dad in the blue shirt, me in the back, and other people.

The little girl that is Manato's age. I braided her hair so we would match. She was so happy. :)

From there we returned home and then left a few hours later for the rotary family dinner party. I got to see all three fo my host families together! It was really nice. I was asked to five a little speech with about 30 seconds notice so I thanked my host families and rotarians.

My three host families together (well, parts of each, anyway). Papa Umezaki, Mama Umezaki, Mie Nakano, Masato Nakano, Toru Nakano, Wataru Nakano, Me, Manato Tateno, and Papa Tateno.
Manato losing rock, paper, scissors to the kid he tied with in BINGO.

On Monday I had no school because of my taiikusai on Saturday. The rest of the family, however, had work or school so I left in the morning when my host dad did. I went to see Angels and Demons with my friend Austin. I was the first one to get home, but Manato came home about half and hour later. We ate snacks that my host mom left out for us and then watched the Tokyo Giants baseball game together. After a while my host mom came home and we had dinner. I got to Skype with AnnaMarie a bit in Japanese before bed, too. I think Manato had fun with that. He thought it was quite amusing that Kaite calls me "Abbey-dabby" and I wouldn't be too surprised if he started calling me that.

I am really glad that I am fitting into my new family and their routine okay. I am excited to get to know them better. They really are so fun! The other day I almost started crying because I only get to live with them for 2 months then I have to go back home. They are so generous. They bought me two tickets for Tokyo Disneyland or Sea, tickets to a water park for me and some friends, AND they are taking me on a trip to Hokkaido!! I am so excited! :D

Taiikusai (Sport's Festival)!!

I completely underestimated the taiikusai. It is way more important to the girls than I though it was and it was way more fun than I had anticipated.

Maybe the reason that I wasn't really looking forward to it during the week leading up to it was how busy I was. My taiikusai was Saturday (the 23rd) and on Sunday morning I was changing host families. Both of these events required a lot of preparation. As you can imagine, things got pretty crazy for a while. Every day for about two weeks I had to get up early to practice our mukade (literally means centipede) race and relay before school started. On top of that I had some very late nights trying to get all my laundry done, things packed, and information deleted off my family's computer. That led to lots of blog updates and attempting to update pictures to Michael's website because I had to delete them all. Phew!! I also had to have all my preparations done on Friday because I was busy with my taiikusai all day on Saturday.

I had a blast with the taiikusai! I didn't totally fail at the radio exercises (see older post) like I thought I would. I dominated the 400m dash. My team, that practiced so hard for it, won the mukade. We won the tug-of-war. Our relay got 5th of 6, which is quite an emotional story. We won the kaso (skit-like performance) in which Perry was a hit! AND to top it all off, my class won overall!

Waiting for their race at the gate that leads onto the grounds.

The track is just over 100m, so my 400m was three and a half laps. I ran it in about 1 minute and 23 seconds (haha! My coach would KILL me if I ran that time in a track meet) and the other girls were about a half a lap back. It was fun. I could hear everyone cheering for me. It's like I am famous here. A lot of the parents were even yelling my name...

Getting ready to line up for the race.

My next event was the mukade. All of our hard work paid off as the last two legs our our team (it's a relay) managed to overtake the other team. There were lots of screams, jumping up and down, and then tears. Then I started laughing... partly because I was happy but more because it was fun to see my friends so happy about it.

Mukade. Yeah, it was intense.

Celebrating after winning the Mukade.

The tug-of-war was intense. There must have been at least 50 girls on each side. I the second one from the front on our side. We lost our first one, but won the rest. The team that beat us got disqualified for something... so we ended up taking first over all.

Mano-san and I showing off our red ribbons during our lunch break. (red mean 1st place in Japan)

The final relay was the most emotional race I have ever been in. Our original relay team had two girls from the basketball club on it, and those two are fast. However, the basketball team qualified for a game that day so we ran with a different team. The relay was going to be tough competition to start with and now that two of our fastest girls were gone, there wasn't really much hope. There had been hope that the basketball girls would get back before the relay started, but as it got closer to race time they didn't show up. The rest of the relay team was crying before the race even started. The overall points were close, but they didn't have them up anymore so there was a bit of pressure on the team. We ran hard and tried our best. I actually think that that is the fastest I have ever run a 100m. It felt fast at least. At the end, it wasn't enough. We got 5th place. And then the girls really cried. I almost cried! We thought we had let our entire class down. Everyone was thrilled when they announced the final point totals and we had won first place. And, you guessed it, there were more tears of happiness.

Our Kaso also got first place. We had awesome costumes and the whole idea of it was really good, I thought. The other classes' were good too though. When I made my exit as Commodore Perry the crowd started clapping and I hear several "oh, Perry!"s. I couldn't help but smile. It was really fun, actually.

Me as Perry, Risako (left) and Shibu-chan (right) as my henchmen.

After the taiikusai I ran home, took a quick shower, and left for Yokohama station for our after party. We went to Shakey's Pizza, an "American" pizza and pasta buffet place. It was so good and I ate a ton! It was really really fun to see all the girls outside of school and uniform. Everyone took tons of pictures.

Shakey's pizza. And this wasn't even half of the girls.

I got home at 10:30 (the only time I was past curfew at this house... On the lastnight) but my host mom didn't care at all. I called her from the station to tell her ahead of time. Then I stayed up for a few more hours writing letters for my host family and getting stuff ready for the morning.

My only taiikusai experience I will ever have was a really good one.

Yay for blogging!

Okay, here's the scoop. I had been writing these blog posts (or parts of them) for almost the past month but never managed to get around to uploading pictures, so the posts didn't go up. Today I was really productive and finished writing them all and put pictures in. Phew!
(The first new one is from April 26th) They are still in chronological order.

-Abbey

My Seventeenth Birthday!

On Thursday I turned 17! For my birthday, I got packages from home! Dad was smart enough to send me my birthday package, which was stuffed with all sorts of fun American candies and snacks, about 3 weeks early so my host family would know it was coming. My host mom absolutely loved the trail mix Dad sent and is sad that they don't sell it in Japan. I did point out that they sell peanuts, m&ms, raisins, and cashews in Japan and you just have to mix them together...

On my actual birthday I didn't expect much to happen at all. My host mom had explained ahead of time that the week is busy so we would celebrate on the weekend. My friends at school had asked me when my birthday was in like September, but hadn't mentioned it since. I was quite surprised when all my friends came over to me carrying a present and card and started singing happy birthday. It was so sweet of them! They got me a really good gift too: a digital picture frame. You just insert an SD card and it will do slide shows and you can play music and movies on it too. They made me a card and everyone signed it in Japanese (I still have to sit down and figure out what they all wrote). Risako even made me cake! She actually made a tea cake, forgetting that I don't drink (or eat) tea, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

When I got home, my host mom had bought a little cake for us to share. It was a yummy strawberry cake. :) And then she took me out to dinner at a family-style Japanese restaurant. My host mom is so thoughtful.

I wish I could have taken pictures of my birthday. I woke up, realized it was my birthday, and decided I should take my camera to school just in case. I try turning on my camera to check the battery and it makes a horrible sound that cameras are not supposed to make! I am not sure what is wrong with it, but it won't focus and the zoom doesn't work. Basically, it won't take pictures. It was quite sad.

So I got to spend my birthday and my month's Rotary allowance on a new camera on Friday. The good thing is that I really like my new camera (Sony Cyber-shot W220)! It takes much better pictures than my old one did and it has lots of cool features, including in-camera-editing. Fancy stuff. When I got to Yodobashi Camera they told me that the camera was about 60 dollars more expensive than it had said on the website. When I asked about this they said, "oh, we have it in Japanese too." The exact same camera cost an extra 60 dollars so the menu and instruction booklet would be in English. Way to rip off the foreigners! I bought the Japanese one.

On Saturday (May 16) my host mom, Rika (my host sister), and I got in the car and drove to Kawaguchiko Onsen, an onsen town near Mt. Fuji. We spent Saturday night at a hotel there overlooking Kawaguchiko (Lake Kawaguchi) with Mt. Fuji not too far beyond the lake. Unfortunately it was really cloudy and rainy so we couldn't see Mt. Fuji at all. The scenery was absolutely beautiful though! There were so many trees and green hills and mountains. We spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning driving around the area, looking at the lakes. In Japan Fujigoko (Mt. Fuji's five lakes) are pretty famous. They are really beautiful, too! It was almost like being back in the the UP...

Rika and my host mom. Just look at all those green trees!
This is at a touristy traditional Japanese culture place. It's the kind of place where you can dress up like a samurai! But I didn't want to do something so ridiculous.

Dinner and breakfast were at our hotel, New Century Hotel, but I didn't really like it. It seems like they go more for quantity than quality. And I was really in the mood for a good pizza to just be delivered to the room. This was our dinner and our breakfast looked pretty similar so I didn't bother to take pictures.

Rika, my host mom, and me. That food is only for me and Rika. You can't see my host mom's plates.

A nice sashimi boat, which was actually good quality I guess. I wasn't really in the mood for raw fish though.
Especially once I saw this guy staring at me. And those shrimp with the eyes and heads! No thanks!
The little trip was really fun. My host mom planned it just for my birthday. I had a really nice birthday this year. It was better than I expected it to be, but I did miss the awesome cakes that Daddy makes for me. I guess there is always next year... :D

This is the view from our hotel room. That darker grey part is Mt. Fuji. It would have been an awesome view on a clear day.

Iliana

Iliana is pretty much my best friend in the whole world. We have had a lot of good times together. We have also helped each other through a lot of hard, stressful times, too. We have talked a lot about everything and I think she knows me better than most of my friends that I have been in school with since I was 5 do. It's really hard to realize that we have only known each other for a little more than 8 months. And it is even harder for me to realize that she is gone... I just don't believe it.

Today at a little after 1 o'clock I watched her being driven away from the Breezebay Hotel in Minatomirai. But, I guess I should go back and blog about yesterday.

Yesterday (Friday, the 8th) I had school in the morning. We didn't really even have school. The other girls just had physicals at school. I didn't take the physical because I told them I didn't want to and my teacher said that it was okay for me not to take it. School started at 9:50, so I got to school at 8:30. We had sport's festival practice in the morning. Then at 10, all the girls go to take their physical. I go to study on my own for an hour. At about 11 I told my teacher I had to leave to go to my Rotary Club lunch. (I usually leave at 11:30 for it, but I had extra stuff to do yesterday so I told them I was going at 11.) I walk home and drop off my school bag and my host mom took me to a picture shop where I dropped off a picture for them to print out for a gift to give to Iliana. Then I went to my Rotary lunch in Yokohama, which went fine.

My rotary lunches are all pretty much the same. Yesterday I wasn't asked to give a speech, so that was nice. I got my allowance and ate my obento. The obento was pretty good this time, too. Then after the meeting I got to meet and talk with my 3rd host father (Mr. Tateno) for a little bit. I was actually surprised because he is really young. We discussed the day I will change to their house, but that is about it. I guess they have a middle school aged child (boy?), so it will be interesting to live in a family with that age kids.

Anyway, more on host family number three once I actually know something about them. I went home from the meeting, changed out of my school uniform, finished packing my bag, and left to meet Iliana at Yokohama. When I got there she was in the T.G.I. Fridays with Ruan and Felipe so I went there to meet them. Then after a little bit the guys left and Iliana and I got to have some time with just the two of us. She wanted to go shopping in Yokohama, so we did. After she was done with that we went to her house.

I stayed the night there for her last night in Japan. I watched (I tried helping, but I didn't know how to do it the way she wanted it done) her pack up her bags and helped her go over everything that she needed for today. We had a nice dinner of yakitori, koroke, and sushi with her family. Then once everything was set for the morning we just talked. We finally went to sleep around 3 in the morning, but it was so fun to talk.

We thought about all the good times and hard times we have had and about how much we have learned here. We remembered our first weeks and the stupid, embarrassing things we did because we didn't know how to do it correctly. And we talked about how it will be to go home and plans to see each other again. But I still couldn't believe she was going to leave.

I remember the first time I saw her after our language classes were over in that first week we were here. It was on September 12. I was on my second week of school and as I was riding the train home I was thinking about how I wanted to do something that weekend. But the only people I knew at all were the other rotary students. We didn't have cell phones yet and I didn't know how to get a hold of any of them. Then as I am spacing out Iliana pops up out of no where and is like, "Abbey?!" What are the odds that she was in the same car of the same train as me? It was meant to be. Anyway, from there we made plans to meet on msn and hang out that weekend. It was funny because I didn't even talk to her that much at the first week of Japanese classes. From then on we have hung out almost every week. Or at least talked. Once we both had cell phones we text messaged almost every single day. I love that girl! We got to be really close friends, and we knew that if we ever needed anything here the other one was there for us.

This morning we got up at 8 and had omelet rice (Iliana's request) for breakfast. Then we made sure everything was ready to go and left for Sakuragichou Station to meet other people. Iliana had invited all the exchange students and some adults she knows here to meet her there to say goodbye. We (the exchange students apart from Iliana) had our rotary orientation meeting starting at 2 in the Breezebay Hotel anyway. We got to talk and take pictures and hang out for a couple hours before her host parents came to the hotel (which we walked to once everyone met up with us) to pick her up. We got to take pictures with all 8 of the inbounds of District 1590 for the year 2008-2009 for the last time.

Camille, Katja, Vincent, Ruan, Iliana, Abbey, Felipe, and Korn.

(From top to bottom) Ruan, Abbey, Vincent, Iliana

When her host brother came in to tell her it was time to go we all said goodbye. Some people cried a little, but I didn't. She got in the car and drove off. And then she messaged my phone like 15 minutes later.

Me giving my speech with no notes!

The meeting went well, and then I hung around Minatomirai with some of the other rotary students. Finally, as we were sitting on steps by the bay eating our combini food for dinner I started to cry. I know I will see her again. I know it's not good-bye for ever; just see you later. But it still sucks that my best friend is going back to Mexico. And I won't see her for at least a year. (Hopefully she will come up to Ironwood for my graduation next year.) And I will be the last exchange student to leave Japan from my group. I get to watch everyone leave, one by one, before I actually leave myself.

Needless to say, I am very tired now. Today was very emotional and I didn't get enough sleep last night. I miss Iliana already! And she is still in the airplane. It's time for me to take a hot bath and go to bed.

Golden Week

Golden Week is a 5 day holiday (From May 2 through May 6 this year) in Japan that includes the Showa Day, Constitutional Memorial day, Greenery Day, and Children's Day. I actually didn't hear of any of them besides Children's Day before I looked it up on wikipedia. They only one anyone actually celebrates is Children's Day. The government kind of made up holidays to put around it to make it a long break to encourage travelling and help the economy. Smart, huh? And I didn't have school! Which was the best part.

My Golden Week was really, really busy. On May 2 (Saturday) I hung out with my host sister for the day. We went to Rippongi Hills in Tokyo. It's a pretty cool place, but I hadn't been there before as it is most famous for the clubbing. And that's not really my thing. Besides, even if it was, I am underage. Anyway, she wanted to go to this flea market that was being set up by a radio station she listens to every morning. There were supposed to be some singers or someone famous there, but I guess they were coming later.

So we wandered around the flea market for a little bit, not wanting to buy anything. Then we decided to go to lunch. Rika suggested that we go to Hard Rock Cafe. That was really nice of her to treat me to that. I would never go there if I had to pay for it myself. Neither of us could decide what to eat so I ordered the pulled pork sandwich and she got the beef brisket, then we split half and half. It was so good! I don't get real American food like that too often here. And we both ate almost all of it!

Before:

After:

Then we went up in the Sky Building. We just wanted to see the view from the top, but you had to buy a ticket to the art exhibit to go to the top. Dumb rule if you ask me. So, we ended up going to a stupid modern art exhibit. It was fun though. I just don't understand modern art. Luckily, Rika feels the same way as me so we just made fun of stuff as we went through.

The view from the top was really pretty. It was a nice, clear day so we could see a lot.
After that we managed to find enough room in our stomachs to eat crepes. I LOVE crepes. I wish they sold them like this in America... They have pretty much whatever you want inside and are wrapped into a cone shape so you eat them with your hands. They are so good! I am going to make them someday when I get home.

We finally got home at about 5. We were too full to eat dinner that night. But it was a really fun day. My host mom left that night with my host dad for a trip to Niigata prefecture.

The next day I got to go to church for the first time in almost a month. That was really nice. Since I am moving families and will go to a closer church soon it was probably the last time I will see some of these people.

After church I went to Kawasaki to meet my host sister. We had plans to go to the movies. We saw Goemon. It's a Japanese movie. I actually really enjoyed it, but I don't think it was actually supposed to be funny. My favorite thing about the movie is the fact that there are only like 5 people still alive at the end of it. Goemon 2 is pretty much impossible. No, for real, it was fun. I really liked seeing a Japanese movie. I was the only foreigner in the entire theatre.

After the movie we went to a Korean barbecue for dinner. Then we went and got crepes again! Two days in a row... that was bad. These crepes were also good, but not quite as good as the ones from the day before.

On Monday I went to Lena's (a girl from Russia) going away party. We all went to the beach in Hiratsuka. It was really fun. We played beach volleyball and didn't use sunscreen. I only got a little burned. I really should buy sunscreen, but it is so dang expensive! The cheapest I can find is like 8 dollars for a tiny 3 ounce bottle. I think I will have to buy some at some point though.

Rina, Lena, Abbey, Annie, Slyvana, and Katja

On the 5th my rotary club president, Mr. Inukai invited me, my host families, and a couple of my friends to go cruising with him on his boat. My host sister and I woke up early to meet him at KeiKyu Shin-Koyasu station at 8:30. I invited Iliana ad Felipe to go too because they don't have a lot of time left in Japan. My host parents were still on their trip, so they couldn't come.

Felipe, Iliana, Abbey, Rika, and Rotarians in the back.

From that station we walked into the most run-down part of the city I have ever seen. This sketchy-looking harbor was not quite what I expected for my rotary club's president. We all followed him until he met up with another man none of us knew and then got onto the boat. It was a pretty small boat. We put our life jackets on and set off.

Nice harbor, huh?

Iliana, Abbey, Felipe

I did get to drive it though! That was really fun. We went right down the middle of Tokyo Bay, past the Minatomirai area, and to the open ocean. It was really really cool to see the city from this new angel. And Iliana, Felipe, and I had a good time talking. I can't believe they are leaving so soon.

Well, it turns out that that boat was not President Inukai's boat. It was his friend's boat and we were just going by boat to the other, much nicer-looking harbor. At this harbor we met my first host family. I was pretty excited to see them again. Mr. Nakano and Toru came, but of turns out that Wataru had the chicken pox so he and Mie (my host mom) stayed home. On the boat there were a couple other rotarians too. This boat was pretty nice. It could probably fit 15 people pretty comfortably. They had sandwiches, chips, little pieces of steak, and onigiri for us there for lunch.

Minatomirai

I think that the original itinerary had a destination, but Toru got sea sick so we ended up turning around and going back early. The day was still pretty fun, though.

We got back to the harbor by about 12:30 and from there Mr. Nakano drove us to the station. But first we got to stop by good old Radiant City to see Mie. Iliana wanted to say goodbye to her before she leaves Japan. So It was nice to see her again. Then Mr. Nakano drove us to Kanazawa Bunko station.

Wednesday, the 6th was my last day of break. I just took it easy, slept in, and relaxed. My host parents got back from their trip that morning so I talked to my host mom about that.

Golden week was really fun. And it's always nice to have a break from school.

Influenza...

Well, I am sure you have all heard about the pig/bird/people flu that's going around. I guess WHO has said it is now at a level 5... which roughly translates to "not good". And it may take up to 6 months to come out with a vaccine. I have been keeping an eye on the news about it (I know, amazing. I never read the news.) for a couple of reasons. Okay, mostly because I wanted to know how much it was going to affect Iliana and her return trip that may or may not be scheduled for next week.

Anyway, the reason I am blogging about it is because I though Japan was doing pretty well. Nobody has it here yet! Well that's what I though until home room at school today. Apparently there is a high school boy here in Yokohama who is suspected to have it. He was on a school trip to Canada a little while ago and is now at a hospital here with flu-like symptoms. If it is confirmed to be the pig flu, all the schools in the city are going to be temporarily closed. Not that that will keep it from spreading if anyone else gets sick. I believe Yokohama is the most densly populated city in Japan. Everyone that works in Tokyo lives in Yokohama. I am so glad I am not riding the trains or buses to school now. The normal flu season was bad enough here. What takes 3 weeks to go through Ironwood cycles through the Yokohama/Tokyo area for 3 or 4 months.

Hopefully it is just a false alarm. Everyone is so worried about this virus that people are over reacting to mild symptoms that could be from any number of minor illnesses. But if it isn't, I hope all his classmates from the trip don't have it too. I should probably start drinking more orange juice...

Luckily it's already cool to wear those masks here!