Our family added a girl this week … no, we didn’t concede on getting a pet, we got an exchange student! (Had to copy this title from my friend’s blog about her exchange student … I wasn’t feeling creative so copying will have to do!).
About two months ago, my friend, Jenny, mentioned that she was signing up to host a Japanese exchange student for a two week “Homestay” program. We liked the idea so we agreed to host one also. We have been very excited for her to come. We got a letter from her in early June. Her name is Hasui Nao and she is 17 years old. (They write family name first so her first name is Nao (pronounced like Now). We wrote her back and didn’t hear from her for awhile … until this week. She had actually hurt her knee and spent 17 days in the hospital which prevented her from emailing us. The girls were just as excited as Steve and I. While she is here, we are her “family” but she does go to school most days from 9-4. Her school includes English language and customs classes and activities like field trips to the post office, police department, Kennecott Copper Mine, a senior citizen home, Real Salt Lake’s stadium, Salt Lake City, Park City and Bridal Veil Falls. She speaks a good amount of English but their goal is to learn more English and experience our family, culture and language as much as possible.
She arrived Friday. Her name is Nao and she is 17. Steve was on a business trip and his flight got delayed so he didn’t get to go with us when we picked her up. The girls made her a sign at my mom’s house to hold when she arrived.
They arrived on a bus from the airport. As each student got to the door of the bus, they would call out the host name. As Nao got to the top of the stairs, she saw our banner and we saw her knee brace… recognizing each other.
We introduced ourselves and then loaded her luggage in the van and came to our house. We showed her the house and then went to the grocery store to pick up some things we needed and to get some ice cream! She was surprised how big our store is, how big the packages of food are and how much food we buy at one time. In Japan, they go to the store daily rather than stocking up for several days at a time.
Back at our house, Nao shared some souvenirs that she had brought us us. The girls and I LOVED all the wonderful things she gave us. Little purses and fans for each of the girls, erasers shaped like food, a green tea soap, two bamboo cushions for chairs (or to sit on the floor with), a beautiful apron, oven mit and fabric napkins, a sign that says “No Soliciting”, a little purse, a bank shaped like a Japanese abacus, a ceramic cat that brings good fortune/luck and lots of Japanese candy. She also gave the girls paper balloons and an origami book with some origami paper.
This picture of the candy she brought us was taken on Sunday (after we'd already tried several different ones). Alyssa and Jessica loved the whistles shaped similar to a lifesaver. Taylor actually like a candy that is similar to a gummy bear. I personally liked the rock candy (in the little round containers in this picture). And the tiny cupcakes are super yummy!
The girls had a lot of fun playing with the paper balloons. They played “volleyball” in the living room with Nao … bouncing the balloons back and forth and giggling. It was fun to see.
Steve arrived home about 45 minutes after everyone else went to sleep so he got to meet Nao on Saturday.
1 comment:
This is such a great experience for your girls. Good Luck!
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