Shinhidaka Student Exchange - By Marguerite Jouet
Hello I am Marguerite Jouët, I am 14 years old living in
Lexington, Kentucky and recently went to Shinhidaka Japan as a foreign exchange
student for Lexington Sister Cities. In Japan I got to experience how a family
lives their life and explore all the interesting parts of its culture. I loved
everything about Japan and I hope I can return again one day.
To begin, our group starts at the airport.
Of course to get to Japan you must brace yourself for
lengthy plane ride; which doesn’t seem that bad if you manage to sleep, talk,
and (quietly) goof around on the plane with your fellow group members including
our wonderful chaperone. But once we arrived and I finally got to meet my counterpart’s
family, I was reassured that all this traveling was worth it.
My family's hospitality and kindness was one of my
highlights of my trip. They cared for me and made sure I was comfortable at
home like my family at home would and made sure that I had fun or at least
learned something new when we went out together.
One of my favorite experiences with them was at the amazing
arcade in a mall with an array of different photo booths to help anyone look
like a model with unrealistically large eyes and perfect skin. (My host brother Hikaru is on the right and
his brother is on the left.)
When touring with the group we went to Sapporo, the largest
city on Hokkaido. There we went to a shrine. Where our group got to meet the
head priest who taught us about why the shrine was built and took us to look at
caravans used in parades to carry the gods.
Afterward we went to this huge mall where I got to eat a
Hokkaido specialty, Miso ramen. Which was amazing, I even bought some
ingredients in Lexington to make it.
Also inside the monster mall was a Pokemon center (!!!!)
where I bought some legit Pokemon cards and went to another photo booth.
The following days only got better from there. The group got
to tour Shinhidaka where we met with the mayor, rode on a horse (it is our
Sister City after all), and observe some "creatively interesting" art
work and look at the world’s largest oil painting.
I got to eat at a restaurant featuring a sushi train, and it
was as amazing as it sounds. My host family brothers ate at least 8 plates of
sushi each, and then some giant ice cream sundaes.
The last days while in we were in Japan there was a summer
festival where nearly everyone wore yukatas (a type of summer kimono), ate tons
of delicious grilled noodles and other healthy Japanese fair food. And on the
final day the Americans got to dance in a parade!
We also visited a kindergarten class, where I felt like a
celebrity and had some of my hair ripped out because the children had never
seen blond curly hair and wanted a keepsake.
I visited my host students high school earlier that week
where I was asked to take so many selfies my cheeks hurt from smiling! The
Japanese high school experience is a lot different from ours. The first thing I
noticed was you have to wear special shoes and visitors needed to wear
slippers, which were too small for my feet so I brought my own. The group also
got to make our own udon noodles in the schools kitchen. Yummy indeed.
In the end there were many tears of happiness and sadness. Japan was a beautiful place to live and I hope that many
more people in the future can have an experience just as great as mine. I can't
wait to bring my family to Japan.
Marguerite Jouët
