Home Stay (HIPPO) in Tokai City

I have to admit, I have been a little nervous about my weekend Home Stay since the day I signed up...but I am SO GLAD I participated!  My host family was Mizuyo (the mom), Yuri (10, girl), and Mistuki (6, girl) Sato.  Masaaki (dad) works in China...so it was just a weekend with the girls!  They were all so cute and sweet!  I met them at the University with the rest of the group.  A friend of Mizuyo's came with her and helped with translation... which was wonderful, but also had me very concerned because we were going to have a very difficult time understanding each other over the weekend.  Once at their house, Mizuyo opened up a bit more, and it turns out her English is much better than she thinks.  Unfortunately, my Japanese is still not good enough to form sentences.  The girls did not understand any English and were very shy at first.  We made it through the weekend with lots of charades!

When I arrived at their house, a traditional (yet modern) Japanese house in Tokai City, they welcomed me with a piano concert.  Mizuyo was AMAZING! and the girls were also very talented (far more than I will ever be on the piano).  The girls then taught me some origami, and I was actually able to teach them a few as well.  They also presented me with a giftbox full of oragami necklace, bracelets, and shapes.  We also played outside in a park just around the corner.  

For dinner, we had a homemade meal of tempura pork, rice, edamame (my favorite), a lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and broccoli salad (the tomato and lettuce was directly from the garden), a seaweed dish, and of course tea. It was wonderful!  We then went to the HIPPO family meeting at the Community Center.  HIPPO is a language project that has over 700 families in Japan participate through Home Stay abroad, hosting students, and fun language study.  They aim to learn multiple languages through singing and dancing.  This is done by hearing the same songs and speeches in every language as often as possible.  It is not expected that you know what is being said, you are just to repeat the sounds.

Eventually you will be able to distinguish between languages by the pattern and rhythm, and after an even longer amount of time, you will learn the meanings of the words.  They describe this method as being similar to how a baby learns to speak and understand.  It was incredible, fun, and inspirational!

That night, Mizuyo and I stayed up for a little wine and ika (cuttlefish... which I LOVED!) and practiced speaking with each other.  This was a very good chance to learn about each others culture.  We were up by 6:30 on Sunday (well...they were all up around 5:30, so 6:30 am was me sleeping in)...and did I mention the sun comes up at 4:30 here?  Anyways, we started the morning with more oragami and a yummy egg and pork breakfast.  I also had what I thought was cheese and bean toast...and it, was, but they later expressed their surprise that I ate "nato".  This is fermented and caramelized soy beans, which is apparently a food foreigners and many Japanese do not like because of the smell and texture... I didn't even noticed and enjoyed!  We then went for a walk and bike ride through the neighborhood, which had several playgrounds and the kindergarten (directly behing the Sato house).  Yuri was even riding around on a unicycle... she was quite good!

Next, we went to Ureshii-mura Park (Happy Village).  This was were the community center is located.  The park is huge with a large pond, swimming pool, tons of playground

equipment and a shrine to Daibutsu (a giant Buddah).  Here we joined a family from HIPPO, played for a bit, and enjoyed a traditional Japanese Tea House.

We ended the stay with more food: cooking pork and cabbage yakisoba on a tabletop grill.  The girls and I then went to the park one last time to play basketball and catch.  They wore me out...but it was a wonderful weekend!  Mizuyo invited me back the next time I am in Japan, and this is definitely an invitation I will accept!