First Impressions!

This is my first post but it’s the eighth day I’ve been in Obihiro with my host family and the eleventh day I’ve been in Japan. I arrived at Narita International Airport on the 22nd of March and stayed at a hotel near the airport for one night. All the exchange students coming to Japan (all 240 of them) stayed in the same hotel so it was quite hectic, especially for the volunteer AFS staff who were so well organised that it would be impossible for something like that to run like clockwork in Australia without some blunder. After one night we were split into three groups for our official orientation. I went to Tokyo, as did most of the students, where we stayed at the Youth Olympic Centre (or something like that) for two nights. We were all split into separate groups and I was placed in Group 4, which comprised of all the awesome people attending the orientation. It was a lot of fun and in just two days we all became very good friends. From there myself and five other students caught the domestic flight to Obihiro. We were welcomed by our host families, the Obihiro Chapter AFS staff and our Liason Persons (LPs). From there we were finally off on our journeys and went separate ways to our family’s homes. Coming out of the airport was the first time I had ever seen snow and I was very excited. It was all so overwhelming, I got off the plane and was instantly struck by a language barrier. My host parents and I started to realize just how challenging the rest of the year would be.

Obihiro is a small city of 170,000 people and has no unique attractions. I’ve arrived at the end of winter and all the snow is melting and there’s not a single leaf on any of the trees (which are very spaced apart). So far it seems pretty dismal but I’ve started to get used to it and I’m looking forward to summer which I’ve heard is very nice. I start school in six days and I’m really excited about that too, even though I know that will be more challenging than anything I’ve experienced so far. The other day I went to the Kyudo Dojo where I had my first lesson in Japanes Archery, it looks extremely difficult and requires a lot of discipline but I’m keen to continue it as my school club for the whole year.

Everyday my host mother usually organises something for me to do. Some days I go to anothe exchange student’s house or spend the day with family friends. Today and yesterday I haven’t done anything during the day but it’s been alright because I’ve had time to relax and get over my minor cold, it also means I can spend time making this blog so I don’t have to individually email people all the time!

 I’ve watched a bit of Japanese TV and am surprised at how much baseball there is. On my TV there’s only twelve channels and on three of those channels there is baseball almost 24/7, or whenever I switch the TV on. There’s also a home shopping channel and cooking channel which my host mum loves. Apart from that there’s nothing that really interests me on TV especially since I can’t understand any of it. The News is the most interesting because I can usually understand what’s going on.

I’ve also been confronted by more cuteness more than I ever have been in my whole life. Everything here is cute, company logos, TV Channel symbols, even at the swimming championships in Melbourne the screen always has a cute little animated creature looking at me from the corner. The microphone which the Sports reporters interview the swimmers with has a little cute frog attached to it. Billboards, advertisements on the sides of buses, newspapers, magazines, shop logos… they all have something cute about them, it could be a puppy or a kitten or a really creepy rabbit thing with giant ears.

 Apart from that everything else here seems quite normal. The city is adapted for cold weather and lots of snow so the houses aren’t very attractive. Most of them seem damaged because the snow has almost crushed them. Also on clear days I can see the huge mountains the surround the farming plain that Obihiro is on. I visited them the other day and they are amazing, the snow was squeaky and really soft and the scenery was breathtaking. In the middle of the mountains is a huge lake which was completely frozen over. It was pretty scary walking on it because we could see water soaking up through our footsteps. There were also small house made entirely of ice. There was a bar in one and a chapel in the other one, where people actually get married, but they’ve probably melted by now because I went on the last day they were open. It was an amazing experience, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.

One night I also went to a Salsa concert. It was strange seeing a Japanese woman singing Spanish, but it was a lot of fun. I was surprised at how well the Japanese audience danced because they have such a conservative manner most of the time but then suddenly they broke out in Spanish dancing. My host mother organised the event and it was very succesful. Apparently Obihiro has a lot of cultural events and I’m looking forward to attending them all.

There are 500 foreigners living in Obihiro which is quite a lot since the city is in the middle of nowhere. People still stare at me when I walk around in shops or down the street but they’re not hostile at all, they’re very interested and amused especially when I try to speak Japanese. Most of them are also very helpful and correct me when I make mistakes. I still can’t have a complete conversation with someone in Japanese but I can communicate what I want well. People just have to talk very slowly with me and use lots of hand gestures.

Anyway I think that’s it for today. Windows 98 won’t lets me upload photos so you’ll have to wait a while to see an pictures.