High School Host Student in JAPAN

In the fall of 2008, I had a foreign exchange student from Colombia in my 11th grade history class. At the end of class one day, our teacher asked the student to sit at the front of the room so we could ask him questions about his home country and his opinions of the United States. I became inspired by his experiences and decided that I wanted to study abroad myself. One of my friends and I decided that we would go abroad together. We were both taking Spanish in school and decided to go to a Spanish speaking country. We spent hours of free time after school doing research, but were never able to find a program within our price range. Soon enough, my friend dropped out of the search because decided she was too afraid of traveling to another country alone, but I was determined.


Eventually, I was introduced to a summer study abroad program to Japan. It was still too expensive for me to afford, but I hoped I might have a chance at winning a scholarship and I was ecstatic when I discovered that I had won the Japan-US Senate Exchange (JUSSE) Scholarship. I June 2009, at the age of 16, I traveled from Syracuse to Washington to San Fransisco to Tokyo and began one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

 (The view of Tokyo from my hotel)

I lived with a host family in Toyohashi, Aichi for 7 weeks. I had two imoto (little sisters), an okasan (mother), and an otosan (father).

(My host sisters were Arisa and Yuuna)
 I was very happy to be able to attend a local high school for four weeks in which to really experience the culture and the life of a Japanese teenager. They even provided me with a school uniform with a special white tie to let other students know that I was an exchange student. (Because, you know, it was hard to tell otherwise)
(Azusa, Yuuri, me, Shizuka, and Megumi)
I was also able to make lots of friends, a few of which I still keep in touch with. We did all sorts of typical Japanese, teenager activities together on weekends including shopping and karaoke.
(Me, Miki, Yuuri, and Megumi at a shopping mall)
 

 I was able to participate in all sorts of activities and I learned a lot about the Japanese culture from my host family. They took me on trips to famous temples, castles, and gardens.
 
 I even got the chance to join my host sisters in their calligraphy classes each week and was able to learn about the Japanese art of calligraphy.


At the end of my stay, I was given a hand sewn yukata by one of my school friends and my host family took me to a big summer festival so that I could wear it.


The trip left me with an endless amount of experiences, memories and life lessons of independence, open-mindedness and friendship. I hope to return to Japan and visit my host family and all my friends in the up coming year.

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