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This wonderful and memorable trip started with every homestay participant gathering at Changi Airport on the night of the 16th of Dec. I was there pretty early, only 1 other, which I can't really recall who already, beat me to it. Me with my backpack and a medium sized luggage were soon joined by the rest of the homestayers as the clock ticks by. The Orientation for this trip held a couple of weeks back did us some good as the ice was quickly broken. But such was the friendliness of the homestayers that even those who did not went for the orientation were made to feel equally at ease almost immediately. Linghan and Samuel comes to mind on this note. I was happily chatting away with some of the homestayer that all thoughts of worries about baggage being overweight and all soon evaporated. Yea, I did weight my luggage at a weighing machine provided there and it was a whopping 28kgs.
The part of the airport that we gathered at were soon filled with chatters and laughters. And finally the main man arrived. He is none other than Kenny, our co-ordinator for this homestay. He was instantly jeered by everyone for being late (he set the time you know) but all in the name of fun. Admin stuffs were quickly and efficiently settled and we were checking in our luggages in no time.
After all the hassle at the check in counters and everyone relieved of their oversized luggages, we gathered again to take group photos, to sort of mark the beginning of the homestay i suppose. Everyone shoved their cameras to Melvin and co and flashes were aplenty as the cameramen did their job. On a side note, I was pleasantly surprised to see Rowena (my VJC classmate) there. Apparently she was Junlong's friend and was there to send him off. Nice to see her after so long!
Ok, here I shall skip the boring part where we board the plane and what went on in the plane. Its all as normal as it can get. And so after about 7 boring hours, we arrived at Narita Airport, we deplaned and made our way quickly to get the limousine bus tickets to get ourselves to Haneda Airport for our domestic flight to Sapporo. It wasn't much of a trouble with Kenny and a few other Jap speaking guys around. We soon found ourselves loading up the bus and on our way to Haneda. But then lousy part was that the supposedly "limousine" bus is not that big and spacious after all, it was pretty squeezy in fact. The trip didn't take as long as we expected though which was a good thing. Kenny checked us in again at the Haneda Airport and we are all gonna meet our host mamas in no time! And oh yah, did I forget to mention that we sat on a Polemon plane? It was really cute! Yup, and off we flew on our way to the New Chitose Airport.
When we came out of the Airport after we arrived, Kenny's host mama was there waiting for him with the Kenny poster. He was so embarassed! But hey, he got the nicest posters among us all k! Yup, we all got ours abit later.
We had a bit of time since the next train will not be coming anytime soon and we all went around the airport looking for food to fill our empty stomachs, Some headed for MOS burger, but me and quite a few of us settled at a noodles stall. I had Nishin Soba and oh my goodness, it was delicious! It was my first authenic jap food meal and I was so satisfied and so were the others.
After the meal, its time to head for the train station to make our way to Sapporo station where we will then be picked up by our respective hosts. A little hiccup occurred as some of the homestayers didn't managed to board the train first time and we were therefore split into 2 groups. But it proved to be of little consequence as they soon caught up with the next train,
When we arrived at the station, we were greeted by a host of Japanese holding out placards with all out names plastered on it! (Yup, this was where we got our names). I was a little taken aback by the warmth shown but soon felt comfortable with them as everyone introduced themselves. I then realised that the person, Peko chan, who received me wasn't my host. She was in fact receiving me and June on behalf of our hosts as they were working that day. Linghan met her host mama, Yuka chan while Wai Kit and Junlong were received by their host mama, Kira chan. These few names are specially mentioned, as little did we know we will be termed as the Teine Go Nin (Teine 5 People) soon after.
Linghan and me were sent to Yuka chan's (Linghan's host mama) place and June came shortly after. We soon came to learn that the Teine (the district in Sapporo where my host stays) group of Hippo members are very closely knit bunch. And therefore the 5 of us met up on many ocassions as the hosts gathered at each other's place.
Yuka chan had to rush off for a couple of hours due to some work commitments and now this is the embarassing part. I pondered for a while whether I should include this but I guess there's no escape from reality. We were made to learn a dance from a DVD. The song was called Mecha Holiday. I haven't heard of this song before and it was sang by a girl but the dance was taught by a Gay. So it pretty much ruin my first impression of the song. It was funny though learning the moves. Looks complicated at first but once you break the moves down into segments, its pretty easy actually. Thanks to some dance trainings back in halls days in University, I picked up those moves pretty quickly I guess. But being the first day, I couldn't remember all of it and the fact that the DVD was all gay, it really didn't attract my interest.
Alright, so Linghan and I stopped after a while and sorta explored the home. Then June came along with Peko chan who left us soon. The 3 of us checked out the house admiring the photos put up on cupboards, etc. It wasn't long before Yuka chan returned. To my horror, she wanted check our progress with the dance and a more horrifying news ensued, we had to perform the dance for a party on the coming Saturday at a Hippo Party!!!! I was like Oh My God!!
Nevermind that for a while, as it got dark, which was pretty early around 4 plus as it was winter, the Teine host mamas came to Yuka's place with all their little kids. And those kids I tell you are the cutest ever! Let me try to recall all of them. There was Kaito and Koharu with Peko chan. Then there is Momoko, Ryuuji and Takaya with Miyan chan (June's Host mama). Also present was Rina and Yui the sisters. And last but most importantly, Mebae was there! She's my host mama's lovely 9 year old daughter.
And yup, I tried to warm up to those kids, and little did I know the warm up will soon really become a "warm up". I was furiously playing with them swinging and flinging them all over the place. And there was this big blue aerobics ball around and they started playing with the ball and I defintely wasn't spared from it either. I had to balance them on the ball and all! I was totally shagged out man. First the dance then the kids. But it was so fun and the kids were all so cute that I totally didn't mind the tiredness at all.
And later into the evening, my host mama, Ron chan, arrived! Her real name is actually Hiromi Kawakami but there, everyone uses their Hippo name. I was so glad to see her. I was so eager to meet her ever since I received her profile from Kenny. We then had dinner which was Jap curry rice, some spaghetti and a couple of the local Sapporo Beer which was fantastic!
After a couple more of dance practices and kid swinging, it was time for each of us to go back to our respective homes. And so home I went together with Me chan (Mebae) and Ron chan. Ron chan drives a Honda 7 seater. Most of them drive a 7 seater by the way as they have such big families!
Back home, I was shown to my room and i wuickly put down my luggage so I could go on and meet her son and elder daughter. Her daughter is Chihiro and she is a Yoga instructor and she is so pretty! Her son Naoto is a avid gamer and a futsal player as well.
I excused myself for a while to go back to my room and bring out all the gifts and Singaporean foodstuffs I brought along for them. And also the photos which I brought along to show them about myself. Me with my limited japanese then tried to explain to them about myself. It was tough initially but I guess I managed to sent my message across. Not bad for a first time ok. I felt really bad that my Jap is so lousy man.
Anyway Ron chan then took out photos of their family on a trip to Tokyo Disneyland last winter for me to view. It was then I found out that Me chan love Stitch. Then surprise, Me chan brought out a cassette tape and a baton. It then hit me that her hobby was baton twirling as written in the family profile and she was gonna perform for me! I'm in for a treat. Chihiro helped her rewind to the correct song which was the M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E song! Cute song and she was good at it.
It was late and Ron chan invited me to bathe. Its called Ofuro in jap. Having been briefed about how to go about using japanese Ofuro from the oreintation, I had no problem. It was really comfortable soaking in the Ofuro! After that I returned to my room to rest. Ready for more for the coming days.
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