June 21-22 Japanese Cranes and Host Family stay

After a 5am last "onsen" at Lake Akan, we packed up and headed for Kushiro City about 1 hour away to meet with our homestay families.  On the way we visited the Lake Akan Eco Museum to learn about their environmental education efforts.  We received a lecture and walked a 1 mile path to the lake.  This area reminded me of Yellowstone, though a much smaller scale, with the odor of sulfur and some hot bubbling mud pots along the trail.  A film crew was using a drone with a go-pro camera mounted to film a PR piece on the area, which was fun to watch.  One interesting feature of this lake are these spherical algae growths called "marrimou" (spelling likely incorrect), very unusual.  The visitor center was beautiful, with the entire floor one giant aerial photograph of the lake and surrounding volcanoes.

The next stop was to the Japanese Crane Reserve, where active efforts are being done to breed captive cranes and return them to the wild to reverse a dwindling population.  These cranes appear in old Japanese folk tales, and are an important symbol of beauty and grace for the Japanese people.  We saw a number of cranes and even a few ungainly chicks.

Finally we arrived at Kushiro City, the main city in the area with a population of about 180,000.  After dropping off our bags at a hotel in town and packing an "overnight bag", we stood about nervously awaiting our homestay families to pick us up (practicing our Japanese welcome phrases).  Families came one by one, and I felt a bit like a pound puppy hoping to be adopted as my American colleagues were taken away. Finally my family came, quick introductions were exchanged, some papers were signed, and off I went.

My host family consisted of Mr. Minoru Takao, a principal at one of the area elementary schools, his wife Chizuru (whose name I think she said means "1000 cranes") who teaches part time at a different elementary school, and their adult son Yuta.  I was immediately put at ease by this family as they were so warm and gracious, entirely genuine and friendly.  I was fortunate that Minoru-san was a former English teacher, so his English was quite good and we were able to muddle through our conversations relatively well.   They live in a tiny apartment where everything is carefully organized.  A wonderful authentic meal was made by Chizuru-san, and she kept bringing out dish after dish of Japanese foods, it was like magic the meal that came out of that tiny kitchen (I suspect she spent much of the day preparing this meal for my visit)!  The rest of this evening was spent eating, chatting about our countries/families/interests/politics/education, and drinking some exceptionally good sake!  The evening ended with a traditional Japanese bath.

The next day (after breakfast and Japanese green tea) was spent seeing the sights of Kushiro City.  We visited a beautiful museum, Buddhist temple, and ate some amazing ramen soup at their favorite "hole in the wall" noodle shop. The men here have been cooking ramen in this same spot for decades.  I was reminded that slurping one's soup is an important custom to express gratitude for the meal, so I tried to slurp as loudly as possible since the food was so great!  Later in the afternoon we were returned to our hotel, goodbye's were said, and we had a couple hours to rest and catch up on business (such as writing these latest blog entries).  Later in the evening the American teachers got together over dinner to share notes about our homestay experiences and swap stories.  Everyone had a great time!