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Me with my host
family giving omiyage (gifts)
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Friday
and Saturday, March 22 and 23
I left my
house in Pittsburgh at 4 a.m. Friday morning to leave for the
airport. We landed in Japan at 1a.m. Pittsburgh time, but it was
3 p.m. Saturday afternoon in Tokyo. We had lost a whole day and
a half on the flight. We left the airport on a team bus and headed
to meet our host families. It took us over 2 hours to get to Saitama
through lots of traffic but I didn't care, because outside the
windows of the bus was Tokyo. WOW! There are so many buildings
and shops. Tokyo is 10 miles of building after building. Nginyu
had dozed off on the long bus ride and Vince put a sticker he
got from the airplane on Nginyu's forehead while he was sleeping.
Our team finally made it to City Hall to meet our host families.
Nginyu got
off the bus with the sticker still stuck on his forehead. It was
really funny when he finally realized it was there and chased
us around. I like Nginyu, he is very funny. At the City Hall reception,
I met The Kishi's and they were very happy to see me.
A funny thing happened going to their car tht night. I tried to
get in their van on the passenger side, and I couldn't find the
door handle. I didn't realize that Japanese cars are quite different
than ones in this country. The steering wheel is on the right
side and they drive on the left side of the road. The family was
laughing. Kurumi, their little 3 year old girl was bouncing all
around the van on the ride home. And also unlike our country the
Japanese drive real slow and are very cautious and are very courteous
drivers!
Before we
went to the Kishi's house, we stopped at a real Japanese steakhouse
for dinner. We met a few other host families and my teammates
there. The host families seem to know each other, much like my
parents know other soccer parents. I sat in a booth with Vince,
Kotaro, Takahumi and another Japanese boy. I couldn't read the
menu, so I just pointed. I ordered a teriyaki steak and a baked
potato and it came sizzling on a hibachi stove. The waitress also
brought 5 bowls of some kind of weird looking soup. Me and Vince
looked at each other and said, "You try it." "No
you try it, you ordered it." "No I didn't!" We
laughed. Apparently, it was Japanese corn soup and neither of
us liked it, but the green creme soda was great.
We finally
pulled up to the Kishi's house about 10 p.m. Saturday night. I
was kind of nervous, but it was almost 30 hours since I left home
and I was really tired. Mr. Kishi showed me the room where I was
to put my suitcase. It was a small room with a small chest of
drawers and a leather sitting chair, but no bed. I thought I had
to sleep on the chair! But Mr. Kishi said "You sleep upstairs."
I joined the family in their small living room, which there was
only room enough for a couch, a table and a TV. They had the Cartoon
Network on and Scooby Doo was in Japanese. The little girl was
still dancing all around and we all laughed at her antics.
I dug out
my gifts for them (omiyage) and they carefully began to unwrap
them one by one. I brought a lot of things to share from America
with my Japanese host family. Mr. Kishi went first. He opened
a nice Cross pen, then Mrs. Kishi opened some pretty wildflower
potpourri. Then the boys opened their gifts, a Lego Bionacle and
Spongebob Squarepants video. Then the little girl opened her stuffed
kitty cat. She showed everyone that it had a bell inside it, then
she shook it in my face. She loved it. They then went on a scavenger
hunt around their house to find things to give me. They gave my
many different coins, a soccer ball, and Kotaro gave me his first
place soccer medal. You don't know how thankful I was for their
kindness. It was after 12 a.m. and time for bed. What a day!
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I slept in my
own room on a futon bed. Mr
Kishi must have taken this picture with my camera
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Kurumi always had
a smile
and was very happy she made me feel like part of the family |
Sunday,
March 24
I woke up 6:30 a.m. I looked around, I was in Japan! Then I stacked
my futon in the closet. Mrs. Kishi was cooking Sunday morning
breakfast. She cooked eggs and rice and we ate with chopsticks.
I had orange juice and tried a couple of steamed Japanese nuts,
which I didn't like.
The Kishi's have a cool toilet in their house. It has a heated
seat and a butt washer. I accidentally hit the butt washer button
the first time I used the toilet. I tried to call home for the
first time but couldn't use my phone card. I had to push so many
buttons and the phone was in Japanese so I called collect. Mom
said it was 5 p.m. Saturday. I told her I got a sore throat on
the plane. It was good to hear my family on the phone all the
way in Japan. We talked for 20 minutes and they got a bill for
a $75 phone call.
Our team
met for our first practice game with Omiya at beautiful Omiya
Ardija stadium. The weather was sunny and warm and the stadium
was surrounded by hundreds of cherry trees all in blossom so when
the wind blew it looked like it was snowing. We were invited to
play a scrimmage game before a pro soccer match and we were the
guest of honor. We beat Omiya 4-0 and that gave us a lot of confidence
going into the tournament. Read more about the soccer tournament
on my soccer pages.
After we
watched the exciting Omiya Ardija soccer match, the Kishi's took
me shopping. We stopped at a mall and they bought me the official
Japanese World Cup team soccer warm-up. It cost 10,200 yen, which
is about $80 and it is really nice. I think they like me and I
like them, too. We stopped in a Kentucky Fried Chicken. I had
3 pieces of chicken with tempura breading. It was pretty good.
Mrs. Kishi got fish at KFC. I think it was tuna. And everyone
had corn. Corn comes with everything in Japan. It even comes on
pizza. I don't like Japanese corn.
We went home
and I pulled out more omiyage (gifts) from my suitcase. My mom
and dad and me had packed a lot of gifts to share with my host
family. We had wrapped so many things, my suitcase barely had
room for clothes. We had the packages wrapped and marked with
numbers, for which day they were for. I gave Mr. Kishi a nice
picture map of the United States and another one of just Pittsburgh,
and I showed them where Pittsburgh was. Mrs. Kishi opened a box
of Sarris chocolates, the boys unwrapped magazines and a toy car,
and Kurumi loved her bubbles. I also showed them pictures I had
taken before I left. Pictures of my bedroom, my family, my house,
even a picture of what was inside our refrigerator which they
really liked seeing. I let them keep the ones they wanted and
they kept most of them. A really great and very tiring day.
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Monday, March
25
I woke up 6:30 a.m. I was feeling really tired. At around 7:30 a.m.,
my mom called to see how I was feeling. I told her I thought I was
getting a cold and I asked her where she packed my Tylenol. We had
Kellogg's Frosted Flakes for breakfast and the box even had Tony
the Tiger on it, but it was in Japanese. The milk was nasty; I think
it was soy milk. The boys left for school. Then me and Mrs. Kishi
got in the van and followed them to school. Before school started,
I met Kotaro and some of his friends. One boy spoke English very
good. I finally could talk to somebody. The boys took me behind
the school and up on a small hill. They kept saying, "Fuji,
Fuji" while running up the hill. We got to the top of the hill
and I got my first view of the famous Mt. Fuji. Then the bell rang
and we rushed to class. We had to take off our shoes and put on
slippers to enter the school. I joined Kotaro's first period class
and everyone waved and smiled at me. They were having a test on
what they learned the day before.
Me, Kotaro and
classmates on hill before school.
If you look close enough, you can see Mt. Fuji.
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Japanese
students take tests everyday on what they learned the day before.
They also have stilt class where they learn to walk on stilts for
parades. |
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Students even
attend school on Saturdays. But next semester, for the first time
ever, they will always have Saturdays off to spend more time with
their families. |
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We then had a practice game at 10:30 a.m. at Komba Stadium, which
is another beautiful stadium surrounded by cherry blossom trees.
Mrs. Kishi drove me there. We
ended the practice game with China in a 0-0 tie. After the game,
we changed into our warm-ups and took the bus to The Omiya Science
Center. We ate a lunch from McDonald's and saw an Omnimax movie
there. Most of the team was feeling the effects of jetlag and fell
asleep during the movie. From the Science Center, we walked to the
big welcome reception at Omiya Sonic City Hall. This is when I don't
remember too much. I know I was really tired and had a headache.
I went
to the reception and put my head down on a table. I must have fallen
asleep. My coach said he called my host family and they all took
me to the doctor . I was running a high fever, 38.5. (101.5) Mr.
Fontes said he had to carry me into the doctor's office. The doctor
gave me 3 prescriptions and gave Mr. Fontes a bill for 9 thousand
yen! I went home early and missed the entire reception where all
kinds of brochures and postcards were handed out. The Kishis took
care of me that night.
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I had no idea what
pills I was taking,
do you?
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Tuesday,
March 26
Woke up early, tired and a little under the weather. But today
was Disneyland so I loaded up on Tylenol, took my medicine and left
to meet the team bus at Asahi Bank in Omiya with Mr. Kishi. On the
way to Bank, he stopped at a Mos Burger for breakfast. He pointed
to the sign and then to his stomach, I nodded yes, and had a good
hamburger for breakfast. I felt a lot better. It took us over two
hours to get to Disneyland on the bus. I rested as I watched busy
Tokyo go by outside the window. Ranjeet kept falling asleep on the
bus and the boys kept flashing their cameras at him keeping him
awake. It was a chilly, day with a light drizzle, but the team was
very excited.When we got off the bus, most of the team headed straight
to the pay phones to call home for the first time.We split up into
groups and headed for the rides. The lines were long and it was
really crowded. We only went on a few rides including Star Tours,
a vitual reality ride, the Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain. We
ate lunch at Pizza Planet watched a few shows, one where animated
birds sang Hot, Hot, Hot in Japanese it sounded like atsui atsui
atsui, it was funny to hear. We left early and took the a long bus
ride home. Mrs Kishi picked me up in her van at the bank parking
lot at 8 p.m. We then went home and picked up the rest of the family
and went to McDonalds again. I had a cheeseburger and fries, (there
were no chicken nuggets). I got home and took my medicine and Mrs.
Kishi took my temperature under my arm, but I really needed a hot
bath in their really deep bathtub, so I tricked them and didn't
let the thermometer register. I gave the gifts I was going to pass
out on day 3. I gave Mr. Kishi a Terrible Towel and showed him how
to use it. I gave the mom Girl Scout Cookies, the boys a couple
of baseball caps. I also brought the boys some baseball cards. I
gave them three Japanese players cards who they were excited to
see. I also had red, white and blue candy
push pops, beef jerky chewing tobacco (which the boys loved) and
I also showed them newspaper ads from Target and BestBuy that Mr.
and Mrs. Kishi really liked looking at. Another long, fun filled
day.
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Tokyo Disneyland
Mickey in Japanese–Cool |
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Wednesday,
March 27
I slept in
a little today and I was feeling a lot better. We had another practice
game today at Omiya Stadium but not until 4:30 in afternoon against
Mexico. Kotaro has become a good friend and I like him a lot. The
Kishi's are a very nice family. Today it was raining and the Kishi's
took me bowling. Five other teammates and their host families also
came to the bowling alley, Jules, Chris, Adrian, AJ and Sam. Besides
bowling, there were a lot of other games we played. We won lots
of prizes. I even won an atom bomb! We had big fun. Mr. Kishi hit
the big jackpot on one of the games and lots of coins came out.
We went to Denny's for a late lunch. I was really hungry and ordered
spaghetti and a basket of fries and 2 creme sodas. Kurumi spilled
one all over my pants. Luckily I had my warm-ups in the car. We
then drove to Omiya Stadium and played a very physical game in the
rain against the Mexican team. The scrimmage came to a controversial
end when the Mexican ref called for a penalty shot. I went home
with Kishi's for my last night at their home. This was our big night.
Takahumi piled up all their futons in a big pile and they started
running and diving into them. The kids were having big fun until
Takahumi jumped a little too high and hit his head on a shelf and
knocked everything on it down. I couldn't understand Mrs. Kishi
when she was yelling at him, but I knew what she was saying. I laughed.
We played Playstation for awhile and I gave out even more gifts,
including a nice picture of Pittsburgh, Famous Amos cookies, Ritz
Bits crackers, Jelly Belly jellybeans and a hackeysack. Then they
ordered two Japanese pizzas. One came with big sticks of celery
on it, plus onions, mushrooms and squid, the other just had sausage
on it, thank god. They showed me how to write my name in Japanese.
We stayed up late and watched a Japanese monster movie on TV. A
great day with my host family.
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Bowling in Japan
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LOTS MORE PICS TO COME |
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Thursday,
March 28
I slept in real late today, till 9:30. I finally got a good
night’s rest. This was my last day with Kishis before heading
to dorms in the afternoon. Mrs. Kishi made us pancakes for breakfast.
I called home and talked to Mom and Dad. We played Playstation before
driving to a nearby park to play some basketball. It was a really
nice day when we got to the park. Adrian, Vince and AJ also met
us there. We played around and got all sweaty and tired. AJ Foster
got in trouble with his host dad. He made him real mad by squirting
the drinking fountain in the air. His host father kept yelling “NO”
at him. We went home and I began to pack up my stuff. Mr. Kishi
stopped home on his lunch hour with a big box of take out food.
Eel intestines, all slimy and grey! Everyone loved them except me.
I ate rice and had a Pepsi. Before I finished packing up, I hid
Easter eggs around their house, which I brought from home that were
filled with candy and trinkets. I wanted to share one of our Easter
customs with them. I wanted to hide the eggs and leave so they would
find them Easter morning. But they were very funny and excited.
Right after I hid them they said, "Find
Now?"
I said, "No." A few minutes later, they said, "Find
Now?" I shook my head No. They waited a few more minutes, "Find
NOW?" It was funny and I finally gave in and said okay. They
started looking before I even left, but didn't find them all. I
think they really liked finding the eggs.
Before
I left, I gave the Kishi's the big heavy book about Pittsburgh that
was in the bottom of my suitcase. Then the Kishi's gave me lots
and lots of gifts (that filled my suitcase back up). Kotaro even
gave me his cool insect collection. I was very, very thankful for
everything they gave me. We loaded up the car and they all took
me to the Town Hall for the bus ride to the Prefecture Dorms. We
gave hugs and said good-bye. I don't know who I miss most. I liked
them all so very much.
Click to see
days 7-10
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