The Kiyota Family!

It's been exactly a week now that I've been living with my host family, and I already feel like part of the family.

They live in a nearby prefecture of Kyoto - called Shiga - in a western style home with small Japanese accents (for instance, a giant shoe closet at the entrance to the family's shoes - since wearing shoes in any Japanese home is entirely unacceptable). My commute to school is roughly 1 hour door to door. It consists of a 15 minute bike ride (a highly popular mode of transportation in Japan), 20 minute train ride, and 20 minute subway ride. While at first nervous about making my way to and from school without getting terribly lost, I already feel like a local riding the trains after only a week. Furthermore, my Japanese vocabulary has expanded to include "Kono densha wa (nani tokoro) he ikimasuka?" (Does this train go to (some place)?)

My host family consists of a dad, mom, and two younger sisters (aged 13 and 16). My host dad currently works for LSI in Tokyo, so he only comes home once a month for a single weekend - like most Japanese businessmen he works late hours and hardly sees his family (Japanese businessmen traditionally work from 9 AM to 11 PM/12 AM). Despite his busy schedule, he still takes time out of his day to email or text me and make sure I'm doing well. My host mom (not pictured - she was taking the picture!) is spunky, fun, and tres fashionable. I can already tell we're going to be best friends - we've already made plans to go shopping and watch Gossip Girl (the newest season starts soon in Japan - dubbed of course!) I am also lucky to have two younger sisters - Karen and Rei. Timid but sweet, we laugh over Japanese and English language mishaps and more.

Our evenings are filled with conversation and laughter - through mixed Japanese-English (Jenglish??) we are able to have in depth conversations from everything ranging from geshia to religion, the economy and divorce. Because of my host dad's previous job, they lived in Vermont for a brief 6 month period, and as a result, their ability to speak English - matched with my ability to speak Japanese - results in the perfect mixture that is mutually beneficial for both parties in improving our language abilities. I definitely find myself lucky to have been matched with such a terrific host family - can't wait to get to know them better!