After my stay in Tokyo, the next (and final) stop was Kutchan, where my host family lives. It's a medium-sized town in southwestern Hokkaido, with a population of about 15,000. It actually seems a lot bigger than that because most of the people live packed in at the center of the town. Once you hit the outskirts, though, everything turns into farmland and forests. The area is known for its powdery snow in the winter, and supposedly a lot of Australian skiiers and snowboarders come up for the winter (my host mom said that the population of the area doubles in the winter!). The main street of the town is lined with little shops and restaurants, and the town is pretty busy during the day. The pic to the upper left is a shot of the main street from the train station (it looks much bigger in person).

Outside of Kutchan town, though, it's all about the nature. Hokkaido is the least densely populated island of Japan, so there are still a lot of untouched forests and sprawling rice paddies across the area. The dominant natural feature of Kutchan is Mt. Yotei, a huge dormant volcano (6,227 ft. tall) that dominates the view south of the town. Here's a pic of this impressive mountain in comparison with Kutchan town:

Here's another pic of 羊蹄山:

Mt. Yotei and the nearby mountain range aside, though, the area kind of reminds me of Connecticut. Hilly, rocky soil, winding country roads...it feels pretty familiar, but different at the same time. However, there are a lot more farms out here than there are in Connecticut.

Now to my host family. I am living with a father (otousan), mother (okaasan), 23 year-old sister (Kanae) and 15 year-old brother. (I can't post any more pictures in this entry, but I'll show you pictures of the family at some point in the future.) There is also another brother who's 21 years old but he's in a nearby town studying in college, so I haven't met him yet. The family lives in a two-story house, but my immediate family is confined to the second floor. My host father's mother (who I call obaasan) lives on the first floor, but I only see her when I go downstairs to take a bath at night.

Because I haven't started going to school yet, I spend the majority of my day with okaasan. She can't speak English at all, but my two years of studying Japanese at Taft has given me enough vocabulary to carry out a basic conversation (and I always bring a dictionary in the car just in case). Okaasan has taken me with her on grocery shopping trips, visits to friends, and even one day we drove out about an hour away to meet her older sister who lives in a fishing village. That day I saw workers in the fish yard gutting freshly-caught octopus, which was quite a sight. One of them gave me a fresh part of the octopus which okaasan said was called "tonbi," but I still haven't figured out what part of the octopus it is. They all started eating tonbi during their break, and the worker handed me my own piece, so I decided to eat. It was actually pretty tasty, to my surprise. Also, okaasan is a very good cook, and my meals are always filling and delicious.

I also spend a lot of time with Takuya, because I live in his room. We share a lot of common interests, among them: baseball, guitar and videogames. He's really into baseball, which is good for me, because I love baseball too. Takuya is definitely not the quiet type, and he frequently asks me questions about how to say something in English or about America. I'm happy that he's asks a lot of questions, because I'm always happy to answer.

Otousan is very kind as well. I only see him at night when he comes home from work, but he's not the kind of Japanese salaryman that you hear about in stories, you know, the kind who gets out from work late and hangs out in a bar with his buddies getting drunk until 1 in the morning. He's a nice guy, and he was very happy to find out that I liked The Beatles. Consequently, our bonding method has been through music: he asks me a lot of questions like what bands I've heard of or what songs I can play on the guitar. Last night I even went to a little jazz concert with him in a nearby town, that was a lot of fun.

Kanae is very friendly too. I only see her at night as well, but when I do see her she is always very nice and outgoing. She often asks me about American pop culture and boasted that she loves the Powderpuff Girls, which I thought was pretty amusing.

Overall my stay in Kutchan has been fun and rewarding. Although I haven't met too many kids my age yet, I've still made good relationships with my hosts and I really enjoy living with them. Kutchan is a beautiful little town, and I'm really happy that I'm staying up here in Hokkaido (luckily I get to avoid the brutally hot weather that my southern-dwelling YFU friends have to endure).

Next post I'll tell you about my first weekend in Japan, which I spent living in a Shinto shrine overnight with Takuya and another exchange student in order to experience the omatsuri summer festival!