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Japan is an amazing
country, and I have never had a better experience in my life! For my visit
to Japan I stayed in Asakusa View Hotel in Tokyo, and lived with a Japanese
family for five nights. Tokyo was a city very much like New York, but
a bit more advanced. It was a very busy and crowded city, with much excitement.
Tokyo was also a very clean city. Even though there was barely any garbage
to be found, you wouldn’t find a speck of litter on the ground.
The cars that were in Japan were also smaller than the cars here. This
is probably because the gas there is so expensive. Trains in the city
were also different and much more luxurious. The trains had no garbage
on the floor; the seats were cushioned and heated. What I also found to
be interesting was the fact that people weren’t allowed to use their
cell phones on the train. This was because everybody in Japan had a cell
phone and if everyone would talk on the train at the same time, the noise
would probably be unbearable. In Tokyo, something else you would see a
lot of, was people walking around with masks on their faces. They would
do this because they may have had a cold and did not want to get anybody
else sick. This was a very popular trend.
My home stay in Japan was an interesting experience. The first night of
living in an environment that I was not used to, and a with a family that
had different ways of doing things, was a bit challenging. I was afraid
that I would not be able to adjust to this new environment, but I ended
up being wrong. The first thing that really bothered me was the fact that
it was so cold in the house. Because heating isn’t such a big thing
in Japan, it got very cold in the house. Also, because the table was on
the floor when we ate, I had to learn how to sit properly while eating
without hurting my legs or having them “fall asleep”. Eventually
I got used to it though. Another challenge I had with eating, was using
chopsticks for everything. Before I went to Japan I never really used
chopsticks, but I had to learn. Soon enough, I became an expert at using
chopsticks. Although the food was very different in Japan, trying new
things was not a challenging thing to do for me. I had expected to try
food that I had never heard of, so I did it with no problems. One type
of food that I tried that I will not forget is Ume, which was one of the
sourest things I had ever eaten. I could never imagine that anything could
be this sour. Ume was a type of fruit that had a large seed in the middle.
That is the only type of food that I tried in Japan that I would never
eat again. But trying it was definitely a new experience.
Ume fruit
My favorite part about the home stay was eating dinner. This was because
it was at this time that I got to talk a lot with my Japanese family.
We would discuss how life was like in America, what they would do for
fun in Japan, what their thoughts were about Japan, and many other things.
I think dinner time was when I got to know my family the most. My Japanese
family consisted of a mother, father, two daughters who were sixteen and
twenty, and a dog. Staying with my family was amazing and if I could go
back, I would definitely stay with them again.
In Japan, I also went to school. The schools in Japan are different from
the schools here. Whether it is a private school or a public school, all
school students were required to wear uniforms. The girls would wear skirts
with a blazer, the younger boys would wear shorts with a blazer and hat,
while the older boys would wear a suit and tie. School in Japan was a
lot of fun. I attended Junten High School, and while I was there, I experienced
a lot of hospitality from the teachers and students. The school even had
a welcoming ceremony for use in which they dance, played music, and tried
to speak a bit of English themselves, which I enjoyed very much.
Doing community service in Japan was also a great experience. We did community
service at Oji School for the Disabled, and at a center they had for individuals
who were mentally disabled. In both places, we helped out and had a great
time with the people who were disabled. They were so excited to see Americans,
and even though they spoke Japanese and we spoke English, they still tried
to speak to us which I believed to be very welcoming. Working with everybody
at both centers was a lot of fun and it meant a lot to me to help out
at places such as these.
If there was anyway possible in which I could receive a free place ticket
to go anywhere I wanted to go to in the world, I would choose to go to
Tokyo again. I loved it there and I didn’t want o leave when it
was time to go. Tokyo and all the other cities of Japan that I saw were
beautiful and the people were so kind and had a lot of hospitality. I
enjoyed everything about the city and would go back in a heartbeat if
I had the chance. Going to Japan made me thing a lot about how having
a different way of living and doing things just wouldn’t be so bad
after all.
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