The 家族

I’ve been in Tokyo now for a little over a week. Unfortunately I didn’t start this blog then, but I’ll probs recap when I get a bit more of a break (who am I kidding, breaks aren’t gonna be happening anytime soon with classes, circles, and arubaitos on the horizon) buttt. So far, I would say Japan meets my expectations more or less. For some reason I imagined some intense land of people full to the brim, always busy and always full, and although it is that, it’s not quite the 100 percent all the time that I thought it would be. I’m thinking the large expectations have helped to adjust more or less. Also, everyone told me it would be really difficult to be a vegetarian here, liars, all of them. At times it is a little tricky, yes, but with rice and yasai(vegetables) and tofu, a vegetarian is clearly golden and meat free. (Watch out for scary cow tongue onigiri though, those kind of jump out at vegetarians and meat eaters alike)

As for the host family.

My forest family (their last name means forest) is great. The boys and I are still at a bit of a forest unknown wandering stage, but no blaming here. It literally has only been a full day, and the boys are busy as bees. Mom and I are bonded. When all of us study abroaders were first waiting anxiously in that little waiting room at school, imagining our host families and letting our hearts beat rapidly at the sight of any Nihonjin, each family member would come in, and their corresponding counterpart would be called up, introduce, bow, and sometimes a handshake, when my turn came, there was no bow, there was no handshake, it was open arms and a hug of love and family. Mom can be a bit shy, but as we’ve spent lots of train bonding time (bumping into each other and sweating together really makes you good friends), as well as crazy registration lines, and even Hippo meetings of language learning, dancing and singing, you become fast friends. Mom even came to my opening ceremony today just because she wanted to see it. Little 14 year old Mio-chan is slowly but surely warming up to me, and it makes me happy to see. She’s a chill girl, none of that super frilly stuff, down to earth and legit. I honestly like her. 16 year old Youseke is still a bit of an anomaly, but I’ll crack him one day…I hope. haha

In the 30 hours or so in my house, I’ve already managed two great ridiculous feats. One was achieved through countless practice sessions of screaming, bed jumping on, and capturing of cockroaches in Venezuela. This time, I barely skipped a beat. Somehow when I was first unpacking, one was in my suitcase. I think maybe from the transport system? I’m almost positive that this house doesn’t have cockroaches, nor did our hotel. I calmly (well as calm as one can be with dealing with cockies), captured that sucker and gently let him go out the window. Bam. Problem 1. Solveddd. What up.

The second is a bit more….troublesome. More like hilarious be on America’s funniest home videos type business. First just let me tell everyone, the toilets in Japan are straight up ballin’. They are ridic fancy, most have sound accompanients, so you can politely hide your business, and most have buttons to flush and fancy little like remote type things. It’s difficult to explain, I”ll try and get a picture of one when my family is afuera. So anyways, to the point, my family has a super fancy bidet version of the ballin’ toilets, so I was taught the right button to flush, but when the time came on my own, the pressure was on, and I performed poorly. I hit the bidet button instead of the flush button, next thing I know, this spout comes out and starts spitting out water like a baby without their diaper on!! At this point, the room was starting to get wet, and I had no option but to try and block the water until it died down or risk ruining my family’s opinion of me and bring shame and dishonor upon myself Mulan style. To make matters worse, little did I know, you had to stop the bidet with another button, so there I was waiting paitently blocking the water trying to save the bathroom from floods, thinking it was gonna stop. Luckily after about a minute I started examining the t.v. remote for the bathroom and saw the stop button and pushed it. You can imagine my relief at finally being able to move away from the Demon toilet. Let me just tell you, if anyone ever questions the fun-ness of bidet’s, you just can’t. Bidets can provide hours upon hours of countless fun.