Thursday, July 27, 2006

Thursday Thirteen - Japanese Edition

Ok - I don't have time for the template again, mainly because we have guests from Japan. So here are thirteen things on that topic!

1. My daughter is in a children's choir that is part of an international children's choral festival each year. It's held in a different city each year and every other year, it's in a city in Japan. This year it's in Chicago.

2. We're hosting three people from Hiroshima, Japan - a mother, her 9 year old daughter and a 12 year old girl.

3. They don't speak much English.

4. We speak even less Japanese.

5. They brought us some wonderful gifts including a map of Hiroshima. We asked them to show us where they live. They also brought us some kick ass cookies. They apparently know what Americans like.

6. They are very nice but I think they wish we could communicate easier.

7. They're staying for five nights. We need to provide them with breakfast and snacks most days. While we know a little bit about what they might like to eat (and we even own and use a Japanese rice cooker so we have that going for us) we don't really know what to feed them besides rice and vegetables that they might like.

8. And the fact that we can't communicate very easily makes the food thing a little bit harder.

9. We're lucky to have enough room to have people stay with us. They're lucky to be staying with a family that lives close to most of the drop off places. Some people are staying in the suburbs and the outlying areas of the city. They'll need to commute into the city every day.

10. Until my daughter joined the choir, I wasn't all that familiar with choral music. Now I love it - some of the arrangements her choir does are incredible. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Japanese choirs perform.

11. Um, I guess I don't have 13 things to say about this situation right now.

12. They only just got here tonight (well, last night now that it's midnight here so it's technically Thursday).

13. I'm sure I'll have more stories to tell by the end of the week! And hopefully they'll be more interesting than this list has been!

Check out the sidebar for more Thursday Thirteens! If you want the codes for fabulous Thursday Thirteen banners and stuff, go to the Thursday Thirteen Hub.

6 comments:

Just D said...

We had exchange students from China once - take your guests to the grocery store and let them pick out some things to eat. Our girls just REALLY liked to eat noodles and rice for breakfast. It took them 2 weeks to finally enjoy a bagel or toast! They also LOVED spicy spicy foods! Have fun with your guests - keep trying to talk and use hand gestures and have fun with it...our girls laughed at us a LOT but it was so much fun!

Carmen said...

enjoy your guests. I think you'll learn how to communicate without words. :)

Anonymous said...

I guess you could pantomine? And smile a lot. My 13 are exceeding the speed limit.

Jessica said...

Guests from Japan? How exciting!

Anonymous said...

This will be so interesting. I bet by the time they go home, you will have figured out a way to communicate....

Anonymous said...

Ooh I would love to host a family, someone that wasn't used to 'our' way of life. Though we don't have the room here so it's out of the question.

Thnx for sharing, I do hope you can find something they like to eat.. maybe it would be worth trying new stuff.. they might get a taste for it :=)

Mandy