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So, we got up and ate breakfast in the hotel Kishotei. We were actually checking out that morning, so I had to give my suitcase to the porters and pack a day bag with 2 days' worth of clothes for the homestay.

We left the hotel and split into two groups. I was in Hirado group, and the other half of the delegation was in the Ojika group.

Later, Hirado group would break into two, Neshiko group (who would stay in the general area of Hirado) and Shijiki group (my group, who would travel to a town called Shijiki farther away from Hirado). However, our Hirado group stayed together for a while before we separated.

We went down/up to the Matsuura Historical Museum to recieve our directions for the day. Basically, we would be walking around town all day, telling passwords to the townspeople, and recieving something from them. One of the missions required us to wear kimono, and we walked around town for a while in them. Once we were done, we got to take off all of the kimono and have lunch!

Here's all the things I got from the townsfolk:
A depiction of the kanji for love (ai, 愛) by a local artist
A picture of myself and my two groupmates wearing kimono
A pair of chopsticks
LUUUUUUNCH! heart Was good. My stomach kinda hurt, but it was OK.

Anyway, after lunch I ended up sitting all alone in the restaurant >< My group had left because of my stomach hurting, so I ended up walking alone in Hirado, but I fortunately found the leaders and explained what had happened to them (and apologized about 20 times sweatdrop ).

Anyway, after that it was all OK. We ended up going back to the Matsuura Museum again (basically the de facto meeting place in Hirado) and we got to actually walk through the museum part of the museum, which was cool. ^W^ Then we got onto the bus (provided by the hotel) and went to school.

Yes. Summer school. biggrin

Actually, in Japan right now school is still in session. So we got to see Japanese school going-ons.

Yukokan High School is awesome ^W^ It's kinda old, but the students are really cool. First, we got to talk to the students. They spoke a little English, and they could communicate with us basically. After that, we got to see them doing after school activities. They had many sports, like archery, kendo, judo and karate. They also had baseball, but we didn't get to see them playing ( I think they were jealous biggrin ).

After that, we got on the bus and went to Shijiki. Maiko, Rei and Masao went with us, while the other staffers went with Neshiko and Ojika groups. When we got there, we were welcomed by the leader of the program (whose speech was translated for us by Masao). Then, we left to go to our homestay mother's house. At the house, I stayed with Taylor (who slept in the same room as me) and Masao (who slept in the room next door).

Of course, Masao can speak Japanese and English and thus can translate for us, but on the first night he disappeared with his coworkers for about two hours. However, I had a dictionary and so could form sentences (albeit simple ones), and the kids could speak a bit of English, so we kept pulling out our dictionaries and directing sentences at each others or showing each other the definitions in the book.

Masao finally came back about the time when I was halfway through dinner (Taylor had already finished). By that time, I was comfortable in the house, and he talked mostly to Yoshie (the mother) in Japanese.

That night, I felt a lot like I was on parade sweatdrop A bunch of people came over to see us. I finally went to bed after taking a shower. ^_^