The morning after the jazz performance I went to see, all HIF students headed to Onuma Quasi National Park on the outskirts of Hakodate, where we would spend Saturday night. In the afternoon we hiked around the lake, then got together in the evening for an HIF dinner party. Traditional Japanese food was served (8+ individual dishes) and we played charades in Japanese. After dinner we sang karaoke and then went into the onsen. The next day I returned to my host family, bearing omiyage (local souvenirs).
Class felt easier in the third week than in the second, perhaps just because it was the lull before our “semester final” in the fourth week. My afternoons were kept really busy this week with a lot of cultural classes: I listened to a traditional Japanese benshi performance, tried out kyuudou, and made some misshapen wagashi.
The weekend was busy too. A few of us went to see artifacts from the Jomon civilization on Saturday, and then I went to quite a few site seeing locations with my host family on Sunday, ending with a visit to a naturally erupting geyser and foot bath about 45 minutes out of town. Despite having the feeling that I had just met the Itsukaichi family, our time together seemed to be drawing to a close already. Any nervousness that had come out of the second week was gone at this point.