Homestay Weekend!

This past weekend I got to do my homestay with Erina! I was nervous but also looking forward to a different atmosphere. Plus Erina speaks English very well, so that made me less worried about communication problems. On Friday after class we rode the subway/train, then walked about fifteen minutes to the station to get to her house. She lives about 30-45 minutes from campus, in Saitama, which is technically different from Tokyo (though it all blends together into this big metropolis). She called it the “countryside,” which was funny to me because I think of countryside as sparse houses, lots of farms and woods. This was a city: roads and buildings and cars and a mall. But it is definitely different from central Tokyo.

When we got to her house, her mom (Mami) wasn’t home from work yet, but I got to meet her dog, Lick! He was really sweet and liked me. When he tries to eat her food, Erina will yell “taberuyo!” at him which means “I will eat you!” So that’s a Japanese phrase I learned over the weekend! The low Japanese table is right at his level, so I’m sure the food is tempting! For dinner we had cold noodles (with melon ice cream for dessert!) and then watched some TV until Mami came home. She is such a sweet lady. She kept telling me I was cute and had nice skin. They asked me lots of questions about myself, MN, my family, etc. Mami spoke English 20 years ago for her job as a travel agent, so she still knows a little bit. Along with Erina translating, we all communicated well.

After dinner and talking Erina and I went to the new Miyazaki movie, Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises). It didn’t have subtitles, but I still really enjoyed it and I understood overall what was happening. We both got a drink and shared a popcorn, and they have these cool trays with a spot for both drinks, the popcorn, and candy that connects into a single cupholder, so you don’t have to hold any of your snacks! It was really ingenious. That night I got to take a bath, which is much cooler than our simple American baths. The bath is a separate little room with a big tub and a showerhead over the floor next to the tub. You take a shower first (you can’t tell the floor is slanted, but it does drain), and then you get in the nice warm tub and just relax for a while. It was much needed. I got to sleep in Erina’s older sister Marina’s room since she’s in Australia right now. It was nice having a room to myself, though it made me miss my room at home and my bed…

On Saturday we went to Laketown Mall—the biggest mall in Japan! It was about an hour drive to get there, so we talked more on the way there. I’m glad I got to ride in a car in Japan because I probably won’t get to again after this. At the mall I bought a sweater, some earrings, a mechanical pencil that looks like a regular pencil, and some gifts. For dinner we went out for shabu-shabu. It is now my favorite Japanese food! In the middle of the table is a flat stove-burner basically. You put a metal pot of broth on it (ours was split in half for two different types) and it heats up. You can pick vegetables from a buffet and they also bring you plates on plates of thinly sliced beef and pork. You put the meat and veggies in the “hot pot,” and they cook really fast and are delicious! Once you take them out, you can dip them in another sauce or the meat is really good dipped in raw egg. Yummmm. I also had some tasty plum wine. And Erina used to work at the restaurant, so the waiter brought us some free dumplings to cook in the hot pot!

On Sunday Erina and I went to an area called Kawagoe, which has a lot of traditional architecture and old sites, like shrines, a famous bell tower, and part of a castle. We walked around, went into shops, and ate lunch. For lunch I had shrimp and tried some of Erina’s dish: duck sashimi with green onions. It was delicious! I am going to miss the food here for sure. Then we went to a street with lots of candy/sweets shops, and I bought a bunch of cheap Japanese candy. Sunday evening we went to an onsen (hot springs)/spa. At the spa they have what’s called “stone-bathing.” You go into a room that’s about 130°F and lay your thick towel down on the floor, which is a bed of small, warm stones. Ten minutes lying on your stomach and ten on your back. You start dripping with sweat, but it actually feels nice. Then you go out and you can relax for a bit. You can also go into a room that’s about 40°F to cool down. You repeat the process twice more, in rooms that have solid stone floor and are slightly less hot.

The final room has a bunch of people sitting around a big cage of rocks, like in a sauna. They had digital thermometers outside all the rooms, but they were in Celcius, so I didn’t know what the actual temperatures were until I looked them up later—which was probably good because I would have been scared to go in! The last room was 67°C, or about 150°F. At certain times, two staff members come in and pour water on the rocks. Then they swirl towels above their heads to start up this wind, and it gets so hot you almost can’t breathe! We only stayed for a couple minutes, but it was really cool.

Next we went to the actual baths. Just like a bath in a Japanese house, you shower first. I had to be careful to be discreet about my tattoo because they’re not very accepted in Japan. They’re generally associated with gangs, but it was all okay. They had lots of different baths: Jacuzzis, regular hot baths, a cold bath, baths both inside and outside… In one of the hot baths, they had these little nooks that had electricity going through the water (crazy right?). I stuck my hand in one, and it didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel nice either. It felt a lot like pins and needles—really prickly. I kind of wanted to sit in one, just to see what it was like, but I was too scared. They also had a “salt sauna”: a little sauna where there’s salt you can use to exfoliate. Overall it was such a nice, relaxing experience. We’d never have something like that in the U.S., with a bunch of strangers naked together!

That night Erina and I watched Tangled and stayed up late. The next day I rode the train back to the university with her because she had class. Mami drove us to the station and it was really hard to say goodbye. She had been so kind to me, and I might never see her again. But I know I will always remember them and this weekend. And now I want to host a homestay for a Japanese student in the U.S., which is really cool because that’s why Erina wanted to host a homestay: she stayed with a family in Minnesota for a weekend. The chain keeps on going. 

I will try to do a photo update as well within the next few days!