A party with Kyoto Music Group |
Pre-school visit |
By Alex Mills and Brian Crawford
Well it seems to be my turn to report what craziness we have done. I will try my best...
We left Yokohama on the shinkansen, it took 3 hours to get to Kyoto. It was too cloudy to see Mt. Fuji, from the train.
After we go off at Kyoto we went to the Kyoto community center. Our host families were setting up for a party. We had about 30 minutes to wander around Kyoto before the party would start. I walked back towards the train station because there was a lot of book/DVD stores near it. The bookstores here have a lot of American movies. I left the bookstore and went to a video game store. Brian Hon was there also. I found a Famicom (Nintendo) brand new. I bought it. I got back to the community center 7 minutes late.
I met my host family. They do not have any kids. There was lots of food at the party. There was a choir there. They sang 2 songs. They are very good. Then we had to sing 4 songs.
We played games at the party. The first game was a yes or no game. The Music teacher would ask a question and everyone would hold up a maru or batsu sign, (yes or no sign). If you got it wrong you had to put a kiss sticker on your face.
The next game Fred, Tony, Ben, Clayton and I had to stand in the front of the room. We had to eat a piece of a sandwich. One of the pieces had hot sauce on it. Everyone else had to guess who had the hot sauce. Fred had the hot sauce one but he did not step forward. Because he did not think it was hot. There was the second round of this game. The second round people were, my host dad, Tony's host dad, Brian Hon, Colin, and Rachael. My host dad had the hot sauce.
After the party Tony and I with our host families went to a ramen house. It was fun. Then my host family and I went shopping for food. After that we went to they're home. They asked me to set up the Nintendo and we played for 3 hours. Then I took a shower then went to bed. In the morning I ate eggs, bacon, toast, and cereal.
Then I met up with everyone else at this pre-school. We introduced ourselves and did origami with the kids.
After that we went on a train for Osaka castle! There are a lot of homeless people in the park around the castle. The castle is pleasing to look at.
(By Brian Crawford)
Today our Japanese trip group had to get up to go to the children daycare. My host family gave me breakfast in the morning consisting of some sort of omelet with filling, rice and a miso soup topped off with a glass of tea. The music teacher, who arranged the host families, took me to pick up the other students. We stopped at Tony's home stay first. We sat down drank tea and had some laughs. We picked up the others and went to the daycare. Fred continually felt the need to check if the music teacher would marry him and she just kept saying not yet. Then we got to play with the children. We introduced ourselves and taught them English words and then made origami and played with helicopters.
One little guy took a liking to me and always hung around me, and then he stole my umbrella and went outside. After that we took some pictures and left. Then we went to see the Osaka castle but I did not go to the top. After that we went to Nara and saw the Big Buddha. I crawled the Buddha's nose and everyone could fit except Alex and Fred. I bought a new hat as a souvenir and a wooden sword. After that we went back and had 20 min to burn but me Clayton and Fred burned 25. We missed the train and sensei go mad because our host families would be waiting for us. I hope they are not mad... bye