Day 4: Meeting Our Host Families

I woke up at 4:30-5:00 again today. Hayley and I realized that part of us getting up so early is probably because the sun rises at 4am here and our curtains were left open. I had forgotten that Japan doesn't do daylight saving, so the sun is up super early.
The weather is a lot nicer today. Here is the view from our room at 5:00 and the boat from yesterday a little bit later:

I got another coffee at the vending machine, and thought it was cute how this one said "おはようございます！" (Good morning!) on the display. I liked this one. Not as much as the rainbow one or the blue one, but it was light and a little bit tangy.

There I heard music playing and birds chirping in the hallway and figured it was probably coming from somebody's room, but then noticed it was actually coming from speakers in the celling:

I'm studying kanji right now, but we're heading down to breakfast soon. Later, we will check out, walk with our luggage to the HIF building, have the opening ceremony (with lots and lots of "日本語だけ" (Japanese only) speeches), then we will meet our host families and go home with them. I'm really looking forward to it!
I don't know if I'm going to have wifi over the weekend, so I'll probably have to wait until Monday after class to finish today's. We'll see.

Later:
Breakfast was pretty incredible again:

That's rice with sesame seaweed and some sort of pickled vegetable, miso, and tomato juice across the top. The tomato juice was okay, but I'm not as big a fan of the juice as fresh tomatoes.

Left to right, top to bottom:
More salmon sashimi and pickled salmon roe: I really love salmon
Red shrimp sashimi: I'd never had this before, but it was pretty good. It was a lot milder than I thought it would be and tasted a little bit like the fish section of Pike Place Market smells.
Squid sashimi and salted squid: I'm warming up to the squid sashimi here. I didn't like it much at the first hotel, but it was better today. The salted squid, however, I really didn't like. I probably could have finished it, but it was just too salty, it felt like my mouth was being assaulted... because it was a-salted. :D ...anyways, it tasted like I'd imagine it would taste if you were to open your mouth under water in the sound and have a squid swim on in.
Pig sausage and a baron potato croguette,
A rolled omelet, kombu firewood, and a pickled plum.
Cheese, cooked lotus root, and more cucumber.

I ended up putting some of the salmon roe in with the rice and seaweed and thought it looked pretty:

 Also, more natto:

 More famously fresh milk, a piece of bread with some sort of sweetish cheese stuff on it like a Danish, and orange marmalade:

 Also, vanilla ice cream:

 Finally (as recommended by D.White), Japanese apple juice. It was really good and was light like a lemonade, but sweet and fresh and appley:

(Also, I found out from D.White that people in Japan usually peel their grapes because the skins on Japanese grapes are usually bitter and thicker than on other types of grapes. Thanks Daniel!)

Pictures of me (Love you, Mom and Dad):

A picture of my roommate Hayley and me:

 A pretty dress that was in the hallway on the way to the opening ceremony:

 The opening ceremony:

There was a stage up front with all the HIF staff sitting on one side and some important community members on the other. The students sat in front of the stage and the host families sat a ways behind us. There was about an hour of speeches in Japanese, then all the students turned their chairs around and one by one each student and their host family were called. When you were called, you would stand up, walk to the center, meet your host family, have your picture taken, then go back to your seat. Then, once everyone was matched up, the ceremony ended and we went with our host families to get our luggage and buy a bus pass or train pass. I got a bus pass. It turns out that both of my host parents work in the city, so I will ride with them to their work, then take the city tram to school from there. Likewise, unless I am doing a class in the evening (in which case I will have to bus the whole way back), I will meet them at their work and ride home with them at 5:30.

They took me to a very good, very traditional sushi restaurant for lunch. I got to try a lot of sushi that I had never tried before, but I don't actually know what a lot of it was. The owner/cook and his wife were very sweet and kept showing me things like the shells that the mollusks came out of, and my host mom pulled up pictures of the fish on her phone, so I had a general idea of what I was eating but I don't know the English names of the fish and forgot most of the Japanese names they told me.
I mentioned that I really like salmon, and that salmon is famous in Seattle, so we had that first and it's the only one I got a picture of:

 Some other notable ones were a very good sushi with flying fish eggs and a small, raw, bird egg; some small yellow fish eggs that stuck together into a hard, crunchy block that I wasn't fond of; and "まぐろ" = maguro = tuna which is only really notable because I keep forgetting the Japanese name and I don't want to forget it this time.
All of the sushi there was pretty fantastic. My host parents told me it is the best sushi in Hakodate.

After lunch, my host mom had to go back to work. Here is me in front of a lego version of Hakodate in city hall. (there are stormtroopers and a ghost under the bridge right behind me).

Then my host dad drove me around/walked with me to the tram stops I would have to use to get to and from school, then drove us home.
Here is my room:

After that, he drove me to a bookstore that is close enough to walk to and got me a map of the city to use which was really nice of him. The "bookstore" is huge and has a Starbucks, a convenience store, and much more. It's kind of like a little mall in and of itself.

Then we went and picked up たくん (ta-kun) from kindergarten, and こちゃん (ko-chan)from school. The other kids freaked out a little bit when they saw me and kept asking me lots and lots of questions. My host brothers are super sweet and remind me a lot of my cousins when they were younger.
The younger one stares at me a lot and giggles when I stare back. He asks lots of questions, but I can only understand about half of them, and sometimes he can't understand what I say back, but he showed me how he can count "One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Seven, Nine, Ten."
The older one likes to explain how to use things and show me where things are.
When we got back to the house we played Uno and the Old Maid (which has a different name in Japanese that I can't remember).
Then we walked back to the bookstore. I got a day planner for class and got to look around a little while the two boys played with the display video games.
Day planner:

My host dad told me that tomorrow we are going to have a combined party for my host mom's birthday and my arrival and that we will have a barbeque. On Sunday we are going over to たくん and こちゃん's grandparent's house for dinner.

When my host mom got home we had sukiyaki for dinner which was really delicious:

I tried a little bit of Japanese sake with them after dinner and was surprised by how sweet it was.

Then I gave them the おみやげ（souvenirs) I brought from home:

The two boys really loved the shirts and cars my mom brought back from Costco, and my host parents really liked the homemade jam (especially my host mom). I also brought chocolates in Seattle themed boxes, lavender tea from my mom, and a Yoda puzzle.

I'm really going to have to review my vocabulary. There is so much I hear that I know I should know.

Today was really great!