Day 3

Well today was certainly an adventure! It started off as normal as being in a foreign country without your family or being able to speak the native language can be. My host parents were concerned with my jet lag and they both work in hospitals so they asked around and decided they should wake me up at 6am to see daylight to try to get myself accustomed to Japan's night and day. So at 6am, I got up and stayed in my room for about in hour until my youngest brother brought me a note from my mom asking me what I wanted for breakfast. I ended up having plain lettuce, pasta salad(?) with cucumbers, a mix between Canadian and regular bacon, scrambled eggs, rolls, and grape juice. From then until 9:30am, when Yuho woke up, I just hung out and relaxed. My youngest brother and I watched Lilo and Stitch and Handy Mandy in Japanese. He really likes Disney, and so does Yuho. When Yuho got up, we started to figure out what we wanted to do today. She had said that ever since I got here, she had a friend who really wanted to see me and kept asking when we could meet. So she (Natsuki) ended up coming over to our house around noon. We ended up walking to the nearby supermarket to buy supplies to make lunch. I explained to Yuho earlier today that I had a stomachache as part of my jet lag so she was really sweet and made a special bland meal for lunch. We all helped cook which was fun! We made a thick japanese noodle in a soy sauce(?) and water broth. It ended up being really good and helped my stomach! Then, they helped me write my speech for tomorrow at school. It's really short and, translated, it is:
"Hello, my name is AC. I'm from Mississippi and I'm excited to be study Japanese here. Nice to meet you" (and then I bow.)
Yuho and Natsuki were really patient with me as I struggled to pronounce everything right and practice it over and over. Here's us hanging out at the house:

When that was over, they said they wanted to take me to Osaka Castle. So Natsuki called her mom and we got ready, took a few trains, and met her mom in her car to drive to Osaka Castle. Right before we left:

It was a really long walk up to the castle. Here's all 3 of us right before the walk up:

And here's me in front of the castle:

When we finally got up there, we stopped for a snack. Then, we went into the castle which was basically a history museum. It was really interesting! After we got done, Natsuki's mom thought she knew a shortcut, but it ended up that we got lost trying to get back to the car. We took an hour detour and by the time we got back to the car, everyone was so tired that we decided to go on home. We got dropped off at the train station and headed home for the day! And here I am, relaxing before dinner. Tomorrow's the first day of school and when I give my speech! I'm pretty nervous about the speech, but really excited about going to school! Yuho told me there were 3 Canadian exchange students coming to Momoyama too so I'm looking forward to talking to them. We'll see what adventure tomorrow's school day will bring!
-AC