Yay! I finally received my host family and school information. I will be staying in the city of Ogori which is on the southern-most island in Japan, Kyushu. it is gonna be over a hundred degrees there year round so maybe I will actually get a tan for once in my life. Ogori is the rose capital of Japan so I expect it to be absolutely beautiful. Also it is less than 2 miles away from the ocean and I am very exited to spend some time on the warm beach.
My host family has two daughters who are four and ten. It is going to be weird having younger siblings because I am the youngest in my family by quite a large age difference. However, these two girls are possibly the cutest things I've ever seen and the whole family just looks so nice. My host dad is a police officer and my host mom is a stay-at-home mom so I should have plenty of time to connect with her. The family name is Ikeda, so while I am there I will Ikeda Jennifer haha, that doesn't sound right. The father's name is Masafumi, the mother's is Aya. The two girls are Yui, the younger one and Wakaba, the older.
Their house is huge, considering the size of normal Japanese houses. i don't have to share a room with either of my host siblings which will be nice because I am sure that some days I will want some space. The care bear rug on the ground however might be a bit disconcerting haha. I also really like how the little girl is posing in all of these pictures :).
My school is Called Kurume Senior High School and it is a Prefectural school (which means a public or state school). It focuses on students who have an interest in foreign communications so there are a lot of English classes taught there. However, there are few if any English exchange students studying there so I should stand out a fair deal.We all have to wear uniforms and my high school's uniform is not the cutest but it isn't horrible and I do rather like the summer outfit which I will probably be wearing most of time due to the heat.
My school is in a neighboring city of Ogori called Kurume. It is 20 km from Ogori and I will have to take a train or walk to school every morning. It will be nice to have a little bit of time to wake up in the morning before i face the day. School starts at around 8:30 there and goes till 3ish. After that I will have two hours of whatever extra-curricular I choose and then head home. I hope I can make friends easily, my Japanese isn't very good, but I am practicing. Overall, I am just oozing enthusiasm for my trip.
