Pdevine’s Weblog

I found a dried smelt outside my door this morning – a harbinger of some rowdiness that clearly went on beyond my bedtime at midnight.  A quick pack of things to go by truck to Tokyo, cramming my host presents and three days of clothes plus my trusty computer into the computer bag got me out the door and down to the lobby where the anticipation and confusion was rampant as 15 of us waited for our host families.  The surprise was mine as my host mother Masako Imamura (pronounced just like it’s written) showed up on her own as husband Takashi and 12 year old daughter Saki were at a meeting about her application to the Saga Jr. Sr. High School starting next year.  We got into a newish gold Mitsubishi four seater and were off home, the last house on a two house side street, stucco construction with a tile roof – just like just about everyone else. 

Homestay Home

The front and back yard are postage-stamp-sized but very efficiently contain a peach tree, several roses, cherry tomatoes, eggplant and sweet potatoes (Japanese style).  A short distance away is a small rice paddy, and the backdrop is Mt. Mifuneago, quiet, and mostly tidy.  Masako, is quite proud of her occupation as Kimono dressing teacher – apparently teaching others how to wear the kimono – according to her, not an easy task, and her workshop is where I will be sleeping on a mattress on tatami mats surrounded by sliding rice paper windows and doors – very authentic.  Masako, to her credit, is trying harder at learning English than I have at learning Japanese.  She offers me green tea and Japanese pear.  I show her my photo album – she is enthralled.  Our conversations are very broken, with long pauses to use the electronic Japanese/English dictionary – pretty cool item.  I take lots of pictures.  She asks me what I like to eat.  I mention tempura and comment on the sweet potatoes, and before I can say boo, she’s digging up a few sweet potatoes and mixing tempura batter. 

Japenese Sweet Potato

Before long, Saki arrives, very soft of voice, shy, sweet and beautiful. 

Saki and Prince

She has a wonderful smile, had seen me at the elementary school and commented on my white beard to her parents, and was part of the 6^th grade band greeting us.  She plays the keyboard, and her mother talked her into playing a couple of pieces on the piano in their living room…..sweet.  She also does plastic bead craftwork, making tiny animals by sewing them together.  If she hadn’t been hanging out with me, her mother says she would have been at a friend’s house playing with her play station.  She also has piles of Changa comics…..a typical modern child I guess.  Takashi then arrived and we ate lunch.  His English is the best of all.  He does maintenance for the city golf course.  Lunch is relaxed.  I give them my gifts – Saki really likes the Dexter Tigers hat and fleece, but it is clearly too warm for them right now.

They get no snow, even in winter.  Masako loves her balsam pillow and calendar of Maine scenes.  Takashi seems to really like his Garland baseball cap and sweatshirt.  They give me a really nice set of chopsticks, and later a shrine-blessed trinket representing a ong marriage for Elaine and I.  Saki also gives us two beaded owls and a Pokemon book for McKynzie…….Smiles all around…..Good vibes for enhanced understanding and relationship between Japan and the US.

Takashi is off to work at the golf course for a while.  The three of us are off to a public recreation area with a lake, complete with swan paddle boats which we rented to feed the ducks, some boys fishing, a science museum, a “sky train” scenic ride to the mountain-top and a nearby hotel.  Not nearly enough people are taking advantage of all the offerings – it seems heavily subsidized by the government, and operating in the red, but we have a great time.  It is clear that Saki has never driven, so we weave our way around, getting stuck only once and finishing off the trip with a soft serve ice cream in a cool cone.

Swan Boat

 Next stop is the shrine by the camphor tree.  Masako has an amulet from here that hangs in her car and keeps her safe.  We make an offering to the shrine and al pray, and then return home where Takashi is waiting. I ask Saki to make me a dove from beads, and try to help her, but the task is obviously beyond me.  Takashi has several questions about my photos and studies them at length,   Before I know it the sushi is placed on the table, followed by a sashimi salad, a hot chicken and vegetable dish, sweet bread, boiled Japanese radish, green tea, warm shochu (Japanese spirits distilled from sweet potatoes, wheat etc.) with a few drops of lemon, and a cake with almond slices – al of it quite tasty.  My stomach makes noises all through the meal, much to the delight of Saki, and later, she brings out Prince, her tiny hamster which I put in my shirt pocket and then let it crawl up my pant leg, much to everyone’s delight ……..who said you have to have fancy entertainment and good language skills in order to get along and have a good time.  All you need is a curious hamster! 

Prince and I

 Before long I was hustled into the bathroom (which doesn’t hold the toilet) where I was given instruction in how to shower while kneeling on the floor and then easing into the hot tub for a soak.  I put on my American Yakata, again to Saki’s peals of laughter, and then turned in while making only about ten cultural mistakes regarding taking off and putting on my slippers.  (always take them off when entering a room with a tatami mat).

Up at 7 for a trip to a ceramic festival….that is if I understood the conversation correctly!