Meeting with the host family
Hallu!
Then it was time for the big day, a.k.a moving in day to the host family. First, we had a meeting at the campus with the host family to go through some rules, etc. I was so nervous, like where will I live? Will they be nice? What rules do we have to follow? etc. I had to wait in the common room and fill in a paper with questions I already had answered online, don´t know why because we didn´t go through them... Anyhow, I got called by a staff member who should be with us at the meeting and translate if we didn't understand something. But when we walked towards the host family, another girl was also walking towards them. Oh shit, I thought, now I need to share a room with someone... My mum and I had talked a lot about this, if you share a room with another student then you will talk much more English than Japanese, which runes the point of staying with a family. But it all worked out just fine, we got our own rooms and she seems like a nice person. The house is really big, which kind of surprised me because most houses in Japan are really small. It´s beautiful inside and I really like it. The host parents also seem nice, but maybe a little bit strict. I will come back with a new valuation when I've stayed here for a while ;)
Before we headed to the house, we had a meeting. We went through an agreement, which took around 1 hour. We have a curfew at 12 o´clock, which seems realistic, cant stumble into the house in the middle of the night and wake everyone up^^ But if we want to stay out late we have to just let them know where we are staying the night. Of course, I´m not planning to go out a lot here, but it´s nice to know that if I want to hang out with some friends it´s still possible. Otherwise, it would be like, oh I can hang out two hours, then I have to go home because it takes like 40-60 min to get home from eg. Osaka.
Some first impressions and tips from my first day of homestay:
1. You have to wear indoor shoes, but you can´t use these in a room with tatami mats!
2. Have the courage to say not so much when you get food because you need to eat everything, especially the rice. Our host mum checked if we had eaten every bit of our rice bowl, you cant leave one rice corn!
3. You have to turn off the light, electricity, air-condition (only when you are leaving the house for a longer time), yeah turn off everything when you are not using the room. It´s a good way of saving electricity but I will probably forget something sometime during my stay here...
4. We hade to serve the food to the host dad while he was reading the newspaper. Our host mum served the food on the plates and we went to the table with it. Our host dad did not lift his head or even show any appreciation. I guess he just used to get served every day and this is their culture, but I think it´s kind of arrogant behavior. Any thoughts on this one?
5. We are not allowed to use cellphones during dinner (which I totally support), but to watch television is okay. I thought the main reason for not using cellphones was because we should conversate instead but I guess not >.<'
6. In the first meeting, I wore a skirt and a T-shirt with a cat on it, but I felt underdressed. So, for the first meeting, get overdressed. Always dree nicer than you think you should! Eg. my host mum came in a beautiful kimono!
Now I will head to bed, the first day of school tomorrow. I have to get there early because there has been a problem with my courses... Besides our first choices, we also had to choose 5 extra courses to incase the first one gets full. Usually, the students get the first choices, but somehow I managed to get my last choice, which I only took because I didn´t think I would get my 5th choice, well I was wrong -.- SO now I´m thinking of just taking two kanji courses instead, but I don´t know if they are full... Well well, we will see how it goes.
おやすみなざい, Oyasuminasai ~
Then it was time for the big day, a.k.a moving in day to the host family. First, we had a meeting at the campus with the host family to go through some rules, etc. I was so nervous, like where will I live? Will they be nice? What rules do we have to follow? etc. I had to wait in the common room and fill in a paper with questions I already had answered online, don´t know why because we didn´t go through them... Anyhow, I got called by a staff member who should be with us at the meeting and translate if we didn't understand something. But when we walked towards the host family, another girl was also walking towards them. Oh shit, I thought, now I need to share a room with someone... My mum and I had talked a lot about this, if you share a room with another student then you will talk much more English than Japanese, which runes the point of staying with a family. But it all worked out just fine, we got our own rooms and she seems like a nice person. The house is really big, which kind of surprised me because most houses in Japan are really small. It´s beautiful inside and I really like it. The host parents also seem nice, but maybe a little bit strict. I will come back with a new valuation when I've stayed here for a while ;)
Before we headed to the house, we had a meeting. We went through an agreement, which took around 1 hour. We have a curfew at 12 o´clock, which seems realistic, cant stumble into the house in the middle of the night and wake everyone up^^ But if we want to stay out late we have to just let them know where we are staying the night. Of course, I´m not planning to go out a lot here, but it´s nice to know that if I want to hang out with some friends it´s still possible. Otherwise, it would be like, oh I can hang out two hours, then I have to go home because it takes like 40-60 min to get home from eg. Osaka.
Some first impressions and tips from my first day of homestay:
1. You have to wear indoor shoes, but you can´t use these in a room with tatami mats!
2. Have the courage to say not so much when you get food because you need to eat everything, especially the rice. Our host mum checked if we had eaten every bit of our rice bowl, you cant leave one rice corn!
3. You have to turn off the light, electricity, air-condition (only when you are leaving the house for a longer time), yeah turn off everything when you are not using the room. It´s a good way of saving electricity but I will probably forget something sometime during my stay here...
4. We hade to serve the food to the host dad while he was reading the newspaper. Our host mum served the food on the plates and we went to the table with it. Our host dad did not lift his head or even show any appreciation. I guess he just used to get served every day and this is their culture, but I think it´s kind of arrogant behavior. Any thoughts on this one?
5. We are not allowed to use cellphones during dinner (which I totally support), but to watch television is okay. I thought the main reason for not using cellphones was because we should conversate instead but I guess not >.<'
6. In the first meeting, I wore a skirt and a T-shirt with a cat on it, but I felt underdressed. So, for the first meeting, get overdressed. Always dree nicer than you think you should! Eg. my host mum came in a beautiful kimono!
Now I will head to bed, the first day of school tomorrow. I have to get there early because there has been a problem with my courses... Besides our first choices, we also had to choose 5 extra courses to incase the first one gets full. Usually, the students get the first choices, but somehow I managed to get my last choice, which I only took because I didn´t think I would get my 5th choice, well I was wrong -.- SO now I´m thinking of just taking two kanji courses instead, but I don´t know if they are full... Well well, we will see how it goes.
おやすみなざい, Oyasuminasai ~
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