Staying with the locals

This was probably the most anticipated part of this whole entire trip.  No one was
for sure what to expect, but everybody was ready for it.  I heard that some of the
host stay families forces you to learn how to eat with chopsticks, and before
coming to Japan I could not use chopsticks to save my life.  With that in mind I
tried very hard on the trip to learn how to use chopsticks before hand so I would
not get a lecture.  Thankfully I did!  So first appearance of the town we are staying
at, reminded me we are in the country, and I was correct.  We were transported up
a hill to where our host families were.  It was not a small hill either I mean it was a
huge hill.  We finally met our host family.  To tell you readers the truth I'm really
horrible with names so I do not remember what their names were, but they were
extremely nice.  My host mom even gave me a scarf to borrow because it was really
cold that day.

Before we got to move in with our host family, we got to explore the local shrine.
It was a very beautiful Shrine.  The caretaker of the shrine did a ritual for us and
gave us a quick tour of the place. We then got to see a swordsmith making a
sword.  While watching him make a sword, there was a video guy that filmed us,
so hopefully we end up on tv.  Lastly we went to a green house, which was growing
roses.  I picked a purple/pinkesh one and then gave it to my host mom later.

The real fun began at the host families house.  During the stay it was quick to realizes that our host family did not speak English, so we knew we were going to have a huge language barrier.  One of the two other students that was with me spoke some Japanese but not enough to have a full blown conversation.  Yet, somehow we made it.  I feltl a little embarrassed that I had to download Google Translate.  But I want to make sure they knew what we were saying and there was no misunderstandings.  Our host mom made us dinner, first we had sushi, which for me I was panicking at first since I'm allergic to fish, but it was a vegan kind so I was not going to die.   It was egg wrapped around rice and that was dipped in some sauce and it tasted really good.  We then had a pot full of food, it was similar to soup just bigger, and of course that tasted fantastic

To me this was my anime dream coming to life, because our host mom showed
us to our room and it was literally like a getaway trip in anime.  We have the
futons, a tv, and even a room to play cards in.  Then the door slid too, ah,
I geeked out on the inside.  The next day we had breakfast similar to what we
had been eating at the hotels, rice, egg, toast, sausages, etc.  Then the mochi
making time came.  It was really fun making the mochi, the only problem was the
hammer to pound down on the rice was really heavy so I had a hard time lifting it.  
The mochi tasted okay, I guess I'm not a fan of pounded rice.  We then said thank
you to our host family and said our final farewells.  If you have the opportunity to
stay with a host family, do it!  Even if you don't talk the language it's a fun way to
learn the culture.