A taste of Japanese culture

The area Nao is from is known for udon noodles. So, she told us she would cook udon for us. She brought everything she needed. So Tuesday night, she made udon noodles with a broth-type liquid served cold, then she made yakisoba with udon noodles, cabbage and pork.
The girls love using chopsticks. Jessica demonstrated how she can use chopsticks to pick up chopsticks.

Nao did all the cooking ... I just watched and took pictures.
Alyssa found the sour candy that Nao brought us. Alyssa loves sour, but she said this was VERY sour!

Yakisoba. ... I think she was a little frustrated at the fact it was sticky, but it tasted good!! Alyssa and Jessica both liked it.
Taylor even tried one noodle, but of course, ... did not like it.
There was definitely no left overs. For dessert, we served mini candy bars ... she tried one of each. Snickers, Butterfinger, Milky Way Dark, Caramel Milky Way, Three Musketeers and one other little one. She said they were good, but not sure she loved them. She doesn't really love a lot of chocolate.

Then after dinner, we all headed to the theater downstairs to watch Nao's DVD of her playing handball. Handball on the international stage is different than American handball. They play handball on a court with a setup similar to a soccer field - but much shorter. Its played with 7 players on each team - a keeper and 6 others. They can take up to 3 steps with the ball before they have to bounce or throw the ball. They can't bounce it more than 2 times or hold the ball longer than 3 seconds. Its a fast paced game with 30 or 45 minute halves. The game we watched had 30 min halves and the score was about 30 to 10 ... Nao's team won. Nao's school team placed in the top 5 in all of Japan last year ... they are very good. They work hard though - lift weights every morning before school, running after school and then practice. She also plays almost every Saturday too. She loves handball and plays it as often as she can. She just had surgery on her knee to repair an ACL tear and expects to be playing again by January. She is a very strong girl ... not an ounce of fat on her, very muscular and disciplined.

A Welcome Party

After we got home from the zoo, we had sloppy joes with Nao. She liked them. We then went to a "welcome party" for the host families and their students. An evening at the park playing games and enjoying a variety of desserts and snacks. Our tastes in American are for much sweeter foods than our friends from Japan. They enjoyed the salty and savory foods more than the rich brownies.

Alysa played some volleyball with a large group while Tay and Jess played on the swingset and with other children. Steve and Nao joined a game of horse which turned into a bit of basketball.



I think Nao played a little to much as her knee seemed to bother her that night.

A Day at the Zoo

During the week Nao had English classes and activities with the rest of her group who had come with her from 9 to 4 or 5 each day. They had classes on the language and our culture and did activities like visit the high school, the post office, fire and police stations, Kennecott Copper Mine, Park City, Temple Square, Real Salt Lake's soccer stadium, a retirement home, an afternoon at the pool and an afternoon with local youth. So, while Nao was away at class on Monday, the girls and I spent a day at the zoo with grandma and grandpa, a treasured summer outing for the girls.
The zoo is now the home of many dinosaur statues which the kids really enjoyed.

Jessica managed to steal her grandma's hat for a bit...
We always love the bird show. I think it is the girls' favorite thing about the zoo ... that and giraffes of course.




After the bird show, we managed to catch the end of the elephant show. They are trying to teach the baby elephant to play in the water. For some reason, the adult elephants do not enjoy the pond that the zoo built for the elephants so they are encouraging the baby to play in the water (startig with this little pool) with hopes she will play in the pond as she gets bigger.


The big elephants reach up high to get their food ... good exercise and it keeps it from the baby. The baby is mostly still nursing and eats the left overs that fall to the ground.
Next, was the reptile house ... which my dad took the girls into because my mom and I don't care for the snakes. Then came the big cats ... unfortunately they were all sleeping.
Finally, our favorite ... the giraffes.

Another successful day at the zoo!

Dinner American style ... barbecue

Sunday the girls broke out the origami... they spent quite awhile after church folding butterflies, dogs, frogs, crickets, little purses and Alyssa even managed a swan using the book that Nao gave them. What a treat for them ... a gift of her culture that they can use long after she is gone.

What better way to welcome a visitor to the USA then barbecue with good old hamburgers and hot dogs? Since Jenny and Chris also had an exchange student, we invited them over for dinner on Sunday night ... after we watched the USA vs Japan Soccer game in the theater. The game was great despite the final results ... although Nao would say that was the best part. :)

So the Meeks came over and we taught Nao and Sakina how to barbecue.


After our barbecue, we decided to go for a walk to visit another family in our neighborhood who was also hosting an exchange student. But before we got far, Nao noticed our neighbors little dog... so we stopped to play for a minute.
We wanted Nao and Sakina to meet the Cardons since we would all be carpooling together. The Cardons weren't expecting us but were sitting on their back porch and invited us to join them. They have chickens which were roaming around the yard. The kids all enjoyed that.
It was fun to watch the kids all interact with the three exchange students. They played tag, basketball and on the swingset together.
Then they taught us another hand game that they play in Japan. The goal is to get your opponent to put 5 fingers up on each hand. To play, you add. You each start with one finger up on each hand. Player 1 taps the hand of player 2 which adds player 1's one finger to the one finger already up on player 2's hand. So, player 2 now has 2 fingers up on the hand that was tapped and just 1 on the other hand. Player 1 still has 1 finger up on each hand. Player 2 now uses one hand to tap the hand of one of player 1's hands. If they use their one finger, player 1 adds that one finger to their one finger already up. If player 2 used the hand with 2 fingers, player 1 adds that 2 fingers to their one, making 3. If a player has 3 fingers up and is tapped with 3 more, that makes six, so the player holds up one finger. The game continues until someone has five fingers up. That hand is then removed from the game. The game continues until one player loses both hands, leaving the other player a winner. Steve played several times and could never win...
When it was time to go, our kids took off on their scooters and bikes but we managed a picture with the Cardon kids, Nao, Mami and Sakina.
We headed back to our house, where we enjoyed some yummy brownies. The girls thought they were pretty rich. Another successful day...

Weeeeeeee......

Our exchange student, Nao (pronounced now), asked for a few things in her first letter. She told us she wanted to go to a movie or concert, an amusement park, and a handball game... we met her requests, except the handball game. We had a hard time finding that one. But, she brought one for us instead - we watched a DVD of her playing a game last fall. :)

Day 1... Nao arrived Friday night and we figured what better way to keep her awake all day on Saturday then to take her to ride roller coasters! It definitely worked! We started the day with Alyssa and Nao on JetStar.
She loved it! She was the perfect roller coaster rider ... arms up and screaming the whole time.
The Samurai was our next stop ... Alyssa wimped out and wouldn't ride, so I did. :)
Since the Tay and Jess can't ride the bigger rides, we split up. Me, Alyssa and Nao headed for the big rides while Steve took Jess and Tay to ride some smaller rides. Next stop, The Bat...
After the Bat and the new ride, BomBara, we bumped into Steve and the girls. He had convinced the little girls to try BomBara. THEY LOVED IT!! Yikes, my little girls are riding the big rides ... just wasn't ready for that. But it was hot, so we took a break and headed for the water park. So glad that Nao's knee was doing well enough that she could traipse around Lagoon and get wet and cool off in the pool.
After the water park, the girls all wanted to ride BomBara again. Since the roller coasters remind Steve and I that we aren't as young as we once were, we sat back and watched.
Although it was exciting that the little girls could ride the big rides, it made me a little sad. No traditional picture of the girls riding the little kid boats that have been there since Steve was a kid. But, it does mean no more ridiculously slow moving lines in the kiddieland. And it meant that we could all stick together and they'd ride all the rides. But first, we still rode the carousel.


Off to Mousetrap!! This was Jessica's favorite ride of hte day! She loved it! Taylor loved it and wanted to ride again right away. But we did convince her to try some other ones first.

Spider was next!
Tay loved Spider. But next came Wicked. Alyssa rode it last year and convinced Jessica and Taylor to give it a try. She promised Jessica a "treat" if she didn't like it. So off we all went! Steve sat on one end, with Jessica, then Tay and me. If you don't know what Wicked is ... it is a propulsion launch so you go from a stop to high speed almost instantly and you go from a dark tunnel to staring straight up into the sky as you shoot vertical into the air then peak at the top and go straight down before you spiral into some loops. ... I'd give a lot to have a picture of their faces as we rode this ride. Taylor laughed and giggled and screamed with joy all the way through.... a real adrenaline junky! Jessica, on the other hand, lived up to her "baby of a million faces" nickname we gave her when she was a baby. Steve looked over at her when we reached the top at the beginning of the ride and as she looked over the edge and realized she was going to be heading straight down, she didn't look panicked or scared ... just pure MAD! She got this angry look like "nobody told me about this!" expression. It was priceless When the ride stopped, she had a very stern, grumpy expression. When we asked her what she thought, she angrily told us "I'm mad at Alyssa. She owes me a treat." Steve and I both cracked up laughing ... which made her even more angry.
All in all, a wonderful day! We all enjoyed it so much, we agreed it would be fun to bounce back a 2nd day! :) So, more to come!

After Lagoon we went to a late night dinner at Applebees. While we waited for our food, Nao taught us a hand game called Yubisuma. Yubi means thumb. Everyone puts their fists into the center of the table. Five people means 10 thumbs. One player says yubisuma and then a number. The number represents the player's guess of how many thumbs the players will all put up. As the player says yubisuma #, all the players tap their hands to yu-bi-su-ma and then they each put up zero, one or two thumbs as the player says their guess. If the player said 5 thumbs and 5 thumbs go up, then that player removes one hand and the next player continues. If their guess is wrong, than they keep both hands and it is the next players turn. Play continues with the next player saying "yubisuma" and their guess. When a player has guessed correctly 2 times that player wins. Our kids loved it. I'm sure we will play it for a long time to come.