Host Family Stay

Over the weekend we were each assigned to a host family where we spent the weekend. I stayed with Kazunori Nishino and his wife. Kazunori-sun is on the Board of Education for Eniwa and is the person that has been in charge of arranging our entire visit.

Eniwa is famous for its gardens and the Nishinos are right there with the best of them. They have made use of every inch of land. They have a traditional Japanese garden and vegetable garden. For lunch we had pasta made with a tomato and vegetable sause that all came from the garden.

After lunch I was taken to a Tea Ceremony. Several of the other host families also brought some from our group there. I am still not sure of the purpose of the ceremony other then to charge tourist for drinking really bad green tea.

But the kamono's looked good and the place had a very Japanese feel to it and I can now say I have been to a real Tea Ceremony.

After the Tea Ceremony, Kazunori-sun took me to visit his 94 year old father and 89 year old mother. Both still work every day out in the fields and both still drive. They got a big kick out of the big American guy visiting them.

We then went to his sister's farm. She, her husband and son run a farm that grow vegetables. They had hot houses set up in the field filled with pepper plants. As we were leaving she ran to a different hot house and gave me a big bunch of fresh cut basil. It was used in the dinner that night.