On last Tuesday July 29th we met Ayaka and Azusa.
Two seventeen year old Japanese girls. Azusa(on the left) lives in the mountains in Niigata and Ayaka lives near the Sea of Japan in Niigata as well. To the north.
The schedule the girls kept was very busy. Almost every minute accounted for. Here is what it looked like.
Tuesday: Fly to America(about 20 students in all, none of them knowing eachother before this trip), meet and go home with host family. When we got home we took a walk straight through the tunnel to the beach, of course. :) And the girls came bearing gifts. Japanese fans, umbrellas, paper balls and plastic bubbles. Fun toys!! We each got our own set of chopsticks, as well. Matt and I received special cloths and fans from Azusa. Very sweet, and generous!
Wednesday: Get ready for "school" at a local church building to practice speaking English. 9am-4pm. When we got home the girls informed me that they would be cooking a traditional Japanese dinner. Miso soup and rice balls wrapped in seaweed. So good!! Very authentic! After dinner we drove to Carpinteria to catch the weekly free outdoor movie: "Night at the Museum". Very fun!
Thursday: School again 9-4. 1-4 was spent playing volleyball and building sandcastles on the beach in Carpinteria. For the evening we invited a few of our friends over for a big spaghetti dinner. One of our friends, Carey, is married to a Japanese woman, Kuniko, from Osaka. Obviously fluent in Japanese! What a relief for the girls. While their English is coming along, it must be exhausting trying to translate all the time. Plus we were able to express more detail about our life and so could the girls. It was so fun!!
Friday: The school takes a trip to Disneyland. Their bus left from the church building at 6:45 and they didn't return til about 12:30am. Enough said. ;)
Saturday: Shopping!!! Our friends Kelly and Rich were also hosting. So Kelly, Shiori, Azusa, Ayaka, and I went to Santa Barbara to shop! Girl time while the boys went surfing, of course and they scored some great waves, by the way. :) After shopping we were due for a Potluck BBQ at the church. We made Grammy Pat's potato salad together to share. It was really good! At the bbq the kids put on a program showcasing some of their talents. Azusa plays the Japanese flute and Ayaka brought her Yukata(traditional Japanese dress) to share. Both very beautiful. Some of the kids were showing our boys how to write their names in Japanese calligraphy. And there was an oragami table. So when we got home all six of our "kids" sat around the table and made TONS of oragami creations! Every animal that they knew how to make...lots of cranes and airplanes. Very nice! And they were learning so much english from hanging out with the boys. Christian was typing word into Azusa's personal translator and she was learning so much from him.
sidenote: A highlight of the bbq was when someone brought whipped cream in a can for a chocolate mousse dessert. The kids had never seen this before and were unsure how to use it. Leave it to our family to be the expert in this area. Christian showed them how to apply it to their dessert and they were amazed! Then Matt showed them how to squirt it into my mouth. We were all crackin' up!!
Sunday: We had to get them to the bus by 9:15am for a 10am departure to LAX. A very difficult good-bye. None of us realized how attached we became until it was time to go. Not a dry eye in the house.
We hope to keep connected by email or post mail and maybe have some visits in the future. All agree that this was one of the best experiences we have ever had!!
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