Kasahara Jr. High School Visit and the Home Stay

Kasahara Jr. High School Visit:
This weekend was great! We all went to Kasahara Jr. High School and stayed with the students on Saturday. All of the kids are 12 or 13 years old. They have been in intensive English programs for a few years. I was impressed by their ability to speak English. They could answer most questions that I asked them and answered in full sentences. Their pronunciation was quite good as well. They made a bunch of games for all of us to play during the day; these included a ring tossing game, throw a ball and knock down the cups, boards games, shoot a target with chopstick rubber band guns, etc. It was obvious the students had put a great deal of thought and work into the games. I had a really good time with all of the kids and would love to go back and see all of them again! During recess we even got a really good game of basketball going, some of them were pretty good too! It was very interesting to see when other kids would show up at the court; they would play rock, paper, scissors to decide who goes where and the game would resume quickly with the new players fully absorbed in the game. That kind of stuff doesn't happen in the states. It was crazy to see it happen so smoothly.

The Home Stay:
After the students went home, we meet up with our host families and left for their homes. I was put with the Ito's. They are very nice and really friendly! On Saturday evening, when we arrived at their house, I showed them some pictures of WVU on the computer. They were shocked by the size of the school, especially the football field filled with 60,000 people. Then we had dinner and watched Sumo wrestling on their massive flat-screen TV. It was quite entertaining to see all of them get into the action! The dinner was delicious; it was rice, a soup dish thing, Ochya(Japanese tea), and salad. It was a small meal, but it filled me up! Then we talked for a little bit about everyone and their lives. Mostly, it was small talk, due to my limited Japanese. Surprisingly, Mrs. Ito and Asuka both spook/understood a decent bit of English, which was useful. At about 9:30pm we all went our own ways for the evening.

On Sunday morning, Mr. Ito, Mrs. Ito and I went shopping at the local super market. The store seemed to have a wider selection of items than the grocery store near Chubu. After breakfast, which was also very good, we went to Kourankei, near Toyota City, outside of Nagoya, Japan. The trees and mountains were absolutely stunning! They say that mid-November is the best time to go and now I know why! While we where there I bought some candy called Momiji Manju. They are leaf shaped cake/pastry things with a sweet honey in the center. They are really good! After Kourankei we got some lunch at a Japanese restaurant and I had soba(noodles). After Lunch we went to a pottery store/museum(Mom, you would have loved it!). There was soooo much Japanese pottery in there. All kinds and styles were available too. When we got back to the house, I asked them if they liked to travel and they said they go camping frequently. They proceeded to show me their scrapbooks, which were very cool to see! Nearing the end of my time at their house I gave them my gift and we all took pictures and we went to the school to drop me off. It was a bummer to leave, but hopefully I will be able to visit them again!

Kasahara Jr. High School Visit Pics:

Home Stay Pics:

Momiji Manju Cake Machine: