Japanese Kids!!

Andy signed us up to have some local Japanese kids stay at our house for 24 hours. They live on a tiny island just off of Okinawa and their English teacher arranged to have the kids in his class come and see how Americans live and to work on their English skills. One thing to note: Japanese kids are usually quite shy, but man, that is an understatement when it came to our kids, they were beyond shy...Kouji (the boy with the flannel) was very apprehensive about everything, but Yuuma was a bit more easygoing and kind of took the lead. Everything that Yuuma did, Kouji would too. Andy made his yummy bbq teriyaki chicken for dinner and we had roasted potatoes and baked beans. Yuuma ate everything and didn't seem to mind it, but poor poor Kouji. He was gagging it down. I had my Japanese friend Rumi tell them that if they didn't like the food they didn't have to eat it, but in their culture they would never do something to offend you, even if you told them that it was okay. So, both boys cleaned their plates. I can just imagine what they told their families when they got home! After gagging down dinner we had them play a little Wii. We have the Japanese one so they could at least understand that! By the way, they spoke NO English. They did say thank you (very very quietly), but that's about all the english that was spoken.




After the Wii we broke out Guitar Hero. They seemed to like it, but again, they were really shy about it. Ethan brought out the board games and they really liked Operation Hulk and Perfection. After Ethan had gone to bed, we kind of ran out of things to do. We watched t.v. for awhile and both Andy and I were tired. Japanese kids go to bed really late, but by 10:30 we told them goodnight and went to bed. In the morning we noticed that they had come prepared with books and flashlights. I guess someone must have given them the heads up!

In the morning Andy and Ethan took them to the flight line to look at jets and planes and then they came home and played a little baseball. It was cute, Yuuma brought his mitt with him!




While Yuuma and Andy played baseball Kouji and Ethan explored......


We took them out to lunch and then came back to the house. We went over to our neighbor's house and found out that they had never jumped on a trampoline before. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get them to get on it, but they had a blast! Well, Yuuma had a blast, Kouji was hanging on to the net for dear life the whole time! Ethan also introduced them to the art of having Nerf gun wars. It was the 3 boys against Andy and they loved it. When we had a little down time Ethan broke out the scrapbooks and went to town! He was like "this is me, and here I am again and oh, here I am ....etc. etc. The poor kids were bored beyond belief! It was funny to watch. I finally had to tell Ethan that it was time to put them away. Our time with the kids was fun,but also trying. We tried not to let them just sit here and get bored, but the language barrier was rough. All in all it was a great experience for everyone. We took the kids back and got to meet their parents which was really fun. After we said our goodbyes and got into our car, Ethan started bawling. He has such a tender heart. He was really really sad to see them go. When we got home I printed out a picture of the kids for him and he carried it everywhere with him and even took it to bed. Sweet boy. Oh, they gave us a thank-you gift and inside it they gave us homemade Okinawian doughnuts, oragami books and paper, pineapple marshmallows (SO GOOD), some ginger chip things, and a bag of dried squid! We have tried all but the squid...I just can't bring myself to try it. Any dibs?!