The Nakahara Experience

Hello again everyone! This is Steven Ichikawa here again to give a rundown on our Japan trip! Today I am going to talk about my stay with the Nakahara Family (Mom, Dad, Ryosuke, Sayo, Daichi, and Naoto). First of all I wanna say that I am glad to write this blog because I had a really great time and if anyone else had half the experience I did then they would be elated.

Okay so after I went home to their home, I was welcomed with open arms and full plates of food. It was my first time eating Shabu Shabu and it was delicious. After we watched Tonari no Totoro which is a pretty popular anime movie. To wrap up the night we had cake bought from Chopin Patisserie. Best blueberry cheescake in awhile.

In the morning we had a pretty traditional Japanese breakfast consisting of rice, miso shiro, bacon, fish, and salad. Nothing beats homemade haha. During the early afternoon I attended Ryosuke, Sayo, Daichi, and Naoto`s gymnastics practice. I was really amazed at how athletic they are. The flipping, rolling, jumping they were doing is like stuff you see on TV. Very impressive, really. After, we had Ramen at Jyuu Hachi Ban. It was also delicious. Notice a pattern with the delicious foods here haha? Afterwards, we went to a few malls to spend quality time and well, buy stuff. Upon returning home I had a warm bath and intend to fall asleep rather quickly.

Now that I gave a quick breakdown of the weekend, I wanna talk about how surprised I was at how nice and awesome this family is and how beautiful Miyazaki really is. When i heard we were visiting the countryside the firzt thing I thought was `Red Necks.` I was completely wrong. The area is surrounded by beautiful nature everywhere. It wasn`t just flat plains, there are mountains, waterfalls, forests, etc. Like Japanese Lord of the Rings, yeah? Anyway about the Nakahara family, everyone is THE BESSSSTTTTTT. Mommy and Daddy are definitely parents of the year material and mu little siblings are so cute OY MHY GOD! And then Ryosuke is chill too plus he can flip and stuff and he`s ripped as hell, no joke. Definitely a great and memorable time. The family paid my way for basically everything and they loaded me with gifts. Words really can`t express what a great and close knit family they are.

To conclude I just wanna talk about the impact of Japanese pop culture. Some of you may have heard of Arashi, a popular Japanese singing group. Now I like Arashi, but I didn`t realize how much of an impact they had on the youth and even the older generations here. You know if you can make a 7 year old boy cry and have a whole family know lyrics to your songs that you are really really really famous haha.

Okay that`s all for now, just wanna give a quick shoutout to the Nakahara family, I love you guys and THANNKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah. Till next time, be easy people!

-Steven.