Homestay Day 2
We slept fairly late and then R & M made us brunch. A massive salad with tomatoes and onion, eggs, sausage, fatty ham patties and fresh fruit. After we lazily ate breakfast, they took us to a nearby beach. M-san warned us first that the water was very dirty but we had no better ideas on where we would have liked to go, so it was off to the beach. The whole area was filthy; actually, it was the first time I’d seen so much litter laying on the ground. And water level was really low, so there was something like a 100 yards of mud between the normal beach and the water line. Still, there was a strong breeze coming off the water and the smell of the sea was much like I remember from visiting the ocean back when I lived in North Carolina. So it was very pleasant. Then as we were leaving, R-san bought us some Japanese style ice-cream. Basically it like a slushie, shaved ice topped with flavored syrup but they also added in some cream. It was delicious!
Then we went back to their place, exchanged e-mail addresses and got our bags so we could head back to the hotel. While we were there, I gave them a sketch that I’d done of their family as my bear characters. They seemed to like it a lot, which made me glad because D didn’t have any omiyage for them and mine1 seemed rather small compared to what I saw the other students take with them. As we were leaving to go back to the hotel; we got to see part of their apartment complex’s festival. The children of the apartments were carrying around a mobile temple while chanting something that sounded like wah-choi. Then we went back to the hotel and waited around for somebody to show up. AWelkin came down and got us into our rooms and then we relaxed.
1 A small jar of apricot preserves and a larger one of apple butter, both from the Amanas.
