Typhoon?

    Soooo, there...might be...a...typhoon. Headed this way. It's already hit the Philippines, and parts of Taiwan and China, according to the online news sites I found last night. We've got typhoon-by-product-rain here, and more is supposed to come, especially Saturday. Our opening ceremony, which is tomorrow, might get canceled, as well as the Kyoto tour. :( I was looking forward to learning how to work the train system and see some historical sites, but safety first! Also, homestay meetings on Saturday might have to get rescheduled depending on how much rain we get. However, multiple staff have assured us that, besides being wet, we will be okay!

    Speaking of homestays.... I GOT MY HOST FAMILY INFO!! We got the notices in our mailbox, and everyone (I was with a group with 4 other girls) started jumping excitedly, reading our papers, and talking over each other to tell about our familys. My family has one daughter. She's sixteen and in high school, and they want my to teach her English. The famiy says they don't speak any English. They have hosted a foreign student before, so they should be familar with making themselves understood through complicated hand gestures, etc. And They have a KITTY! I hope it's a friendly cat! :D My Otosan (father, お父さん、おとさん, pronounced o-toe-sah-n is an office worker, and Okaasan (mother, お母さん, おかあさん, pronounced o-kah-ah-sah-n)is a part-time worker. It's a 50 minute commute from the campus, a 25 min. walk from their house to the train statioin, a 13 min. train ride and then a 15 min. walk to campus. I'm so excited to meet them!!!!

    We had a really long meeting about the homestay agreement and how to interact with your host family. They basically went over things that most of us knew already. For example, most Japanese familys take showers at night and then take a hot soak in a tub. Quite a long time was spent on this topic, because lots of Westerners like to take showers in the morning and find it annoying to not be able to. I've always preferred to take my showers in the evening, right before bed. Also, they explained the shower/bath arrangement in great detail, which is good if people don't know about it already. But I already knew about it and I think most of us did. I mean, for the most part we have studied some Japanese culture already. The different bath set-up is one of the main differences discussed with foreigners, so I think the staff was over zealous in going over some of the minute details of the interactions we'll have with our host familys.

    On a brighter note, I met up with one of my Japanese friends, Aiko, and she taught me and the other students we were hanging out with some Kansai-ben. Kansai-ben (かんさいべん, pronounced con-sah-e-beh-n) is the dialect of Japanese that's spoken in this area. She taught us two words.

1. English: Thank you
Regular Japanese: arigato (ありがと)   
Kansai-ben: ookini (おおきに) pronounced: o-o-key-ne(as in neat)

2. English: Yes
Regular Japanese: hai (はい) pronounced: sort of like Hi!
Kansai-ben: soyane (そやね) pronounced: so-yah-neigh

How are my explanations of the Japanese words working? Some people asked to see the Japanese writing systems, and others wanted to see pronunciations of the lesser known words, so I'm trying to do both.