Okayama

Continuing on my travels outside of Kyoto: Okayama deserves its own entry. About a month into the program, KCJS planned a weekend trip to Okayama, a prefecture a couple of hours away from Kyoto (KCJS has done this for the past couple years, I think). Okayama, like Minakami, was classified as the "countryside" (田舎), but both areas were pretty well-populated compared to the real rural areas of America. But one way that Okayama was definitely different from the cities was that the houses were significantly larger. My host family for that weekend in particular had a really nice house - I wanted to take pictures of it, but I felt that might be awkward.

Anyway, I got to a variety of stuff that weekend. The morning after we arrived, the town had a welcoming event where we students got to make tofu by hand with our host families and other people from the town. We got to make a complete meal as well, so I got to try my hand at making some other typical Japanese dishes, like rice cakes. After lunch (which was surprisingly good!), we played several games, including a frustrating one in which we had to pick up slippery, uncooked beans with chopsticks (incidentally, some of the Japanese people had a harder time than the students). It was a cute, fun idea, and it was interesting to see the warm and close dynamic among the townspeople.

Afterwards, my family took me a to a flower festival, which was basically a grove of cosmos festivals with some booths of food and entertainment. I dug up a potato for the first time! (See, I told you study abroad is all about memorable firsts). The next day, we drove up to the Great Seto Bridge (瀬戸大橋), which connects the island of Honshu with Shikoku. The bridge is huge, and technically and architecturally fascinating. I kind of felt like a little kid on a road trip again, seeing that bridge.

That bridge is so cool

Around November or so, KCJS also planned a surprise visit from the Okayama host families, and my family was one of those who came to Kyoto. We had lunch together, courtesy of KCJS, and I took them sightseeing for a few hours. That was one of the points at which I realized how much my Japanese improved - it was much easier for me to talk to them. I'm sure some of it was because I felt more comfortable and familiar with them the second time around, but I was surprised about the variety of topics I could talk about easily.