The Road Less Traveled

Asuke, Part 5: The Kurata Family

Friday, March 13th, 2009 by Rintaun | Uncategorized

This is the second post so far today; if you didn’t see the previous one, make sure to read it first! Anyway, continuing where we left off…

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February 25th, 2009: Day 5 of Asuke
Today we started the day off with a nice breakfast at Fujitani-sensei’s house. They liked our gifts, which was good. Fujitani-sensei took us to the Tourism Assc. and we said goodbye. Our first activity of the day was sumiyaki [Note: making charcoal]. We went and saw the kiln and then helped load it up. After that we went to Asuke Yashiki and I got umemitsu [Note: some kind of plum] juice. It was really good. Once Thompson-sensei came in, we had a lot of awesome conversation about Japanese ambiguity, relational structures, and other stuff. I loved it and wish I could do it more often. Seriously. Dinner at our new house was nice. It was Dad, Mom, daughter [Note: probably in her 30s], 5 friends, and us. The conversation was like watching a Japanese comedy show.

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February 26th, 2009: Day 6 of Asuke
Today we ate breakfast, didn’t talk much, and went over to the Tourism Assc. with Kurata-san. First we went to the middle school and participated in an English class with the first graders [Note: middle school first graders, so the equivalent of American seventh graders]. It was relatively fun. The kids knew a surprising amount of English, but my group was a bit shy. After the school, we went to Hyakunenso [Note: a very nice hotel in Asuke, pretty much run by the Tourism Assc.] and had a very good lunch and finally an interesting tour of the place. At last we went back to the Tourism Assc. until Kurata-san came to pick us up. We went back to the house and had dinner, this time with 5 gusts again. They seem to entertain quite a bit. One of the guests was an elementary schooler that didn’t say one word to us the entire time she was there — unless you count shouting “Goodbye!” after she was already outside with the door shut behind her. Te conversation tonight got more and more difficult as the night went on — as the guests got more and more drunk. I was able to learn a bit more about Mikawa-ben [Note: the local dialect of Japanese]. Now me and Mark are in our beds, but they’re still just out there talking loudly (it’s next door, too) [Note: paper doors. they keep sound out well. this is sarcasm.]

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More coming in a moment, woo!

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