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After coming to Japan, the most rewarding experience so far has been the time I spent with my host family. From the first moment I came to the decision to study Japan, acquiring the experience of living with a Japanese host family was always what I wanted to do. Through deciding to stay in Japan during this summer, I had a precious chance to become a member of a Japanese family, study Japanese and of course, learn more about the culture, customs, and lifestyle in Japan.
Thanks to my host family, I could improve my Japanese Language within this short period of time. Even though my host mother is fluent in English, I tried to speak in Japanese with my host mother and father. When I had some problems with understanding, she explained me in English and whenever I made mistakes she always tried to teach me what my mistake was and how it should be corrected. Due to this I have become more familiar and natural with daily-spoken Japanese language and have gained confidence, which has allowed me to communicate more comfortably with Japanese people. Most of the time my host mother and I spent hours talking and enjoying. I loved to listen to the interesting story about her life. Once she told me about her experience as a university student, staying with a host family in the USA and it was the favorite story of all the conversations we had. She was nice and extremely talented. Actually she was not only being a host mother for me but a trustworthy friend as well. She started the day making me my favorite breakfast of all time and for lunch she and her husband took me out and made me taste various kinds of traditional Japanese dishes. Apart from these, she taught me how to cook plenty of Japanese as well as Western cuisine. In the evening, my host father accompanied me to beautiful places for sightseeing which I had never seen before. In this way, they always tried to make me happy as much as they can, doing completely different things each day, driving away the monotony of life.
                                                 
Truly when I was with my host family, I never felt I was far away from my parents. They were the family to me here. Saying goodbye to my host family was one of the hardest things I had to do. But even today, they still keep in contact with me and whenever they have free time they come to see me and take me out. For those who haven’t experienced staying in a host family, I suggest you to once do home stay and look how thrilling it would be.

By Hiroshima (Civil Engineering, Class of 2014)