It took a while! But now I finally have an update! It’s now Friday, June 16 and I am with my new (temporary) family! I live together with the parents and a big sister, 19 years old, her name is Sumire!
I have been playing tennis this day and about 19:00 hours Okaa-san picked me up. I already knew her because she is Tylers LP. The house is very near school, about a 10 minutes’ walk! And the house is in the ‘mountain’, at the foot of the mountain.
When we came home I had to change cloth quickly because we were going to Murayama Koen (park) to see a Matsuri (Festival)! It is three days Sapporo Festival in several parks in Sapporo.
They let me play a fishing game were you could ‘catch’ presents. I catched a kind of lunchbox bag of ‘One Piece’, that is a famous anime and manga.
It was very crowded and we left soon. In the mean time it was already half past eight and I did have anything to eat after tennis. And I have to admit, you get (VERY) hungry after playing tennis.
Then we went to an Italian restaurant! I thought we would go home but we went out for dinner! Hooray! Food! We ordered different dishes and shared everything. At 10 O’clock Sumire came home from school. Sumire played tennis too at high school and she is a very nice and cute girl! She also was an AFS exchange student and she lived in France, but she doesn’t want to speak French since she forgot a lot!
The next day (my Dutch fathers birthday) I went together with Okaa-san and Otou-san to the Lexus dealer because Otou-san would get his new Lexus. Otou-san first said goodbye to his Range Rover and then we were picked up by someone in the same car Otou-san had bought.
When we arrived at the Lexus dealer everyone greeted us with a very deep bow. Then we went to the owners room where we got a drink and endless explanation about the new car. Then we went to the car and again someone explained everything about the car and that with indeed interesting, but I was really tired and could hardly keep my eyes open!
After one and a half hour Otou-san did not have any questions anymore. You would think, we drive away and that’s it, but then the following happened…
The dealer, an employee and four boys of about 20~25 years old and two woman lined up and then they gave us flowers and wine and pictures were made with the new car! Otou-san likes wine very much. He has many books about wine and they seem to have many many bottles. Apparently this wine was very expensive and Otou-san was very happy with it.
When the picture was taken everyone was looking at us, and yes especially to me, because I am a foreigner. It was very ‘hazukashii’, embarrassing!
After the picture everyone took a deep bow and thanked for buying the car and such. Next we took place in the car and everyone walked away. But they showed up at the parking place where they lined up again and took a deep bow until after 200 meters we turned around a corner!
We were treated as King, Queen and I was the princess. I am sure no Dutch car dealer can coop with a Japanese car dealer!
I agreed to meet Erika at 5 O’clock to go to the Sapporo Festival! I thought we appointed at a pretty normal place but apparently it took Erika quite a while to find me. Luckily she found me and we went to Nakajima park. It was a big party. There were many food stands with really everything. Erika and I had French fries, a banana with chocolate dip and some kind of, no idea…, omelet. But you could also have chicken, fish, or cucumber on a stick or caramel dipped apple. In Japan everything is possible!
It was VERY crowded and I also met several people from school! I also met the girl I had met before at the tennis games in Murayama!
One moment two guys came to us after having stared at us for 15 minutes. They asked at which university we were. You should have seen their faces when we said we were highschoolers! One of the guys, Jukin, had been at Yamanote too. But later Tui (the rugby exchange student from New Zealand) told me he quit school. Erika exchanged email addresses with him and we left.
Going back home we decided to take Purikura. It was the first time that I took the subway back home. All went well but it was…. A new experience!
Arriving at Maruyama Eki (station) I had to take a long walk home. I thought it was closer and I had to pass the park to get home. It was already half past eight and dark and there were many drunk people in the park. Happily a few boys walked ahead of me and stayed close to them. Except I was wearing high heels and got these small pebbles in my shoes and that hurt SO much!
After the park I had to walk endless to get home! I had a giant blather on my foot and it was very humid. Along the road home is a cemitary. It was very dark and creepy, but I had more attention to my hurting feet. FINALLY I arrived home. The family was having BBQ and I joined them. The neighbors were there too and wanted to know everything about me. Everything here goes in Japanese because nobody really speaks English. But my Japanese goes rapidly better day by day although I have to admit it costs a lot of energy.
It certainly was a great day! Tomorrow I will go to Asahikawa with my family, another city 2.5 hours driving from here. It is father’s day and we are going to visit Otou-san’s parents and Okaa-san’s mother. Both parents originally come from Asahikawa!
And a picture from my room! Isn’t it cute!
