Placement &Host Family Information!!!!

I am so excited I don't think I can control myself.

Hi guys! I received my Host Family information today. YES. YES. YES. The last few weeks were brutal waiting, but now it has PAID OFF. There are 5 weeks until I leave, so I got my info a little after the 6 - 8 week window. Still, this is AWESOME.

Excluding myself, there are 5 people in my Host family. I'll be living with my host grandparents, and my host parents. I also have a 13 year old sister. I know one of the things I wanted most family wise was a sister, so I'm very, very excited my wish came true!

My home city will be Eiheiji-cho*, Yoshida-gun*, Fukui-ken*. Fukui is located right next to Kyoto actually, so I wasn't far off from my dream city!

I took this picture of Eiheiji from the wikipedia :) The town seems to be a little smaller than Zionsville. The 2003 census is around 6,500 people, but I'm sure it's grown since then. I don't have information about my school yet, but I'm thinking that it'll be like Zionsvile size wise. It'll be interesting to see the similarities and differences between town in America and and Japan that around the same size...huh?

Here's some fun information about Fukui Prefecture, too! Apparently, there have been a lot of dionsaur dig sites in the area, there's even a museum! Fukui is also home to the city of Obama, Japan. Helena tells me they flipped out when he won the election in America, and they sell a lot of Obama merchandise. So funny!

Fukui also has a distinct dialect which is so interesting! For example, for "okay," instead of saying "hai" I would say "hoya hoya" ahahah. I think that will add a special something to my stay, but might make it a little more challenging at first. I pulled a quote from the Wikipedia, too. You guys have to read this.

Speakers of Fukui dialect tend to talk in an up and down, sing-songy manner. Speakers of Kansai dialect and Kantō dialect tend to look down on Fukui dialect as being hopelessly provincial, or inaka (rural). That being said, Fukui-ben is not without its own charm and even homespun elegance.

....I'LL BE HOPELESSLY RURAL.

Look forward to more information soon. Thank you AFS!!!!

*If I think of this correctly, 'cho' is the suffix for city. So something like Zionsville. 'Gun' is for the district, so like Boone County (I'm not sure about this one). And 'ken' is for the Prefecture, or state, so like Indiana. And then Japan!