My Experience from My Trip to Japan
Carolyn Ruth Sabol
From December 2 to 16, 2014
Stayed in Aira-city, Kagoshima

In December of 2014, I got to accomplish my dream; I got the opportunity togo to Japan. I got to do something that I never thought I would ever be able
to do, and after it all, I have to say that it was probably the best experienceof my life. And I will never forget the people I have met, or the experiencesthat I have made while I was there.

I lived in the town of Aira, which resided in the Kagoshima prefecture in Japan.
I lived with the Yamashita family, and I had host parents as well as threehost siblings. My parents are nurses, and they accepted me into their homewith open arms. My sister Sumire, who is sixteen years old, is in an English
Conversation Club at her school and is very good at speaking English. My brother
Taiga, who is fourteen years old, is in Track and Field at his middle school,and he is very good. And my youngest brother Eisho, who is ten years old, isvery energetic and cute.

I live in Auburn, California and I’ve lived alone with my mother for most ofmy life, and living with the Yamashita family for two weeks made me so happy
to have gotten to stay with such a big family. I have three older brothers,
but our age gaps are so large, that when I was growing up, they were alreadygrown up, so I loved having siblings who were closer to my age.

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Where I stayed in Aira was in Kajiki. The town was very scenic, with a sideof Japan that I had not seen very much of prior to my trip. The climate seemed
to be similar to Auburn during that time of the year, except maybe a bit colder.

When Sumire and I would walk home after school, the area that we walked wasvery peaceful, with barely any cars on the streets. But there were also large
spiders that were commonly seen in webs above where we walked. I’m not very
nervous around spiders, unless they are big, and even though Sumire said thatthey were harmless, I still got scared when I would notice one above me.
Apparently the spiders were used for spider fights, known as Kumo-Gassen.

MNCC Japan Homestay 2014-2-Kajiki High School was a very nice school that was also quite big. I enjoyed
my time there a lot, and I was able to see differences between KHS and my highschool, Placer High School. One thing was that they don’t have janitors, so
after lunch it’s cleaning time for the whole school. I helped girls from ourclass clean the girls’ bathroom that was on our level of the school. And cleaning
time was done every day of school. Also, during lunch time, the students ate
either in the cafeteria or in their classroom. At Placer my friends and I wouldeat outside of the cafeteria by the gymnasium, and students had the choiceof leaving the school for lunch if they wanted to, and students could eat where
they wanted to around the school. Classes were also quite different, notnecessarily the subjects, but the students stayed in their classrooms
in-between classes, and the teachers would walk to different classrooms fordifferent classes, so that was pretty different to me, and it was nice thatyou had the same classmates for the full year for every class, while many highschools in America have the students get new classes halfway through the year,and for every daily class there would be different students. It was lucky if
you got 2 or more classes with a friend for a semester. The teachers were very
nice to me at Kajiki High School, especially the English teacher of Sumire’s
class, who helped me a lot. Sumire’s classmates, friends, and other students
were very eager to talk to me, and they were very nice. I had not met a single
rude student at either of the schools I went to in Kajiki. I found that there
was a nice mix with the students, where during the classes, they gave theteachers their attention and respect and were quiet unless asked otherwise.
And during breaks in-between classes, lunch time, and after school they werelively and comparable to many American teenagers. At my high school, it usually
felt like there were students who were either respectful or lively, so I waspleasantly surprised by the students at Kajiki High School and Kajiki JuniorHigh School.

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The students attending Kajiki Junior High School reminded me a lot of myclassmates from my middle school, and I had many good memories brought backjust for being at Taiga’s middle school for two days. The students were very
cute, and even though their English wasn’t as good as the High School’s, they
were still so eager to talk with me. After school, I got to see how many students
partook in sports, the majority of students in Kajiki were on sports teams
and would practice after school, Taiga practiced with his Track and Field team
everyday, even with a hurt knee, he would still go and do as much as he couldout of his own freewill. He was very dedicated.

In Japan, I got to do so many things I had nevergotten to do before; I got to ride on a train,I got to ride on a ferry, I got to see the active
volcano Sakurajima, I got to sing karaoke with
Sumire and our friends where they threw a
Welcome Party for me, I got to go to a Japanese
movie theater and watch a movie with my family,
I got to see Kumamoto castle and go to the top
with my family, I got to take Purikura photobooth pictures with friends and family, andI got to eat foods that are either not imported
to America or are made differently. I’munbelievably happy that I got to do everythingthat I did in Japan.

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The two weeks that I spent in Japan were the happiest two weeks of my life,and I feel like I will never be able to thank everyone I encountered there
enough for giving me the experiences that I got. I wish I could have stayed
longer, but I’m grateful that I at least got to stay for two weeks. I am notsure if I will ever be able to go back, but I’m going to make it my personal
goal to earn enough money to go back as soon as possible for a visit. I got
to live my dream this year, so now my new dream is to go back and visit, andto learn more Japanese so that I can express all of the gratitude I have forthis experience.
To any American students who are like me, and don’t think you would ever beable to go to Japan because you know you wouldn’t be able to afford it, butit is your dream to go to Japan, I wish you luck with getting an opportunity
like mine, and I hope you can achieve it soon.

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