Thursday, June 26, 2008

new hosts and new friends

So we're at quite the lull in the trip in terms of lacrosse...it's been a few days now since our last game in level 5 stadium and everyone including me is getting anxious to play again. Tomorrow we play a kansai U-19 team...which should be good, but obviously a bit young to be playing us, a team with way more experience and mostly older players. Shouldn't be a problem, but I'm excited to play.

I moved in with a new host family right after we got off the bullet train in Osaka. My host is a girl named Nana, who plays lacrosse for Kyoto Sangyo (industrial) University. She's way too cute, and it's been way too much fun staying with her so far. Her family is great, and I found myself sitting around the dinner table for a couple of hours speaking only Japanese. It was nice staying with Toshiki in his apartment and although it was small I really enjoyed it. Nana's house is BIG. She lives in a suburb of Kyoto in a town called Otsu. The town reminds me a lot of American suburbs, with neighborhoods filled with familes and children. It's sort of wierd...myself being from Lake Oswego, where the city is centered around a lake. Otsu is a suburb that sits on the edge of Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan! It's very scenic, and her lake is much larger. Her house is really big, rightfully so because she lives with her mom, dad, sister, two brothers, and her sister's husband and two children. It's pretty busy around here, but this is the last night with the family which is kind of sad, but they are great hosts and the meals I've had here are some of the best I've had in Japan.

Tomorrow we move in to Maishima Lodge, which is on a man-made island off of Osaka. The lodge sounds pretty incredible, and it was build to house Olympuc atheletes along with great facilities to accomodate the Olympics if they were ever held in Japan (the Olympics require cities to prepare beforehand to show the committee that they can sustain and event like the Olympic games). I can't wait to get back on the field, I feel that we have not played nearly enough lacrosse on this trip, but the life-long memories we've made off the field have been well worth it.

So...here's some more pictures. Enjoy!




yu-kun!



dungeon-style japanese bar

Kiyomizu temple


level-5 game

yu-kun laxin

papa-san!!



bullet train


Nana and Yu-kun






Nana and I

The next three days are going to be filled with lacrosse, we are playing 4 games. I will do my best to try to get some more pictures of us on the field because we have been spending so much time off. The facilities should be really nice, I'm hoping for some nice grass! I will continue to do my best to update...and I'm not gonna lie, I'm starting to get just a little homesick, I miss my friends and family and can't wait to get back to the states and share all my stories.

2 comments:

Reis Nielsen said...

is that your baby that Nana is holding??

Anonymous said...

dude you are sprung!