September, 2014

2014 summer was super busy with Couchsurfing since we had been hosting almost every week in 2 month, but at same time, it was so much fun and we could have so much precious experience we had ever.  Finishing the last hosting with a couple from Montreal, my children's summer vacation also finished, I was going to stop the hosting in a while with end of summer.  I had felt it's time to giving a rest for my family.  However, I received a request. According to the request, they are bring a Guitalele. What is Guitalele?  Probably it's mixed guitar and ukulele? 

Oh, it's interesting since I also play guitar, maybe can we Jam together? Sounds great!  I accepted the request again.

They are a French couple came from near Lake Geneva in France and stayed my house 2 nights.

Listen to their background and travel story

Before we met, we discussed which is better the dates to meet for each other before we met. Fortunately they offered us weekends. Although I had my job in that weekends, anyway it's better for my family.  They came here after they have visited west side Japan including Osaka.
Although they are a French couple, one of them is originally from an island which is located Caribbean far from France. I didn't know France has such islands in Caribbean. They speak French despite located near English and Spanish speaking countries.... It's hard to image the situation like that for me. Japan is also " a islands country " but they are gathered.  Yes, world is so wide. I shouldn't finish my life only in such small country. They are traveling for 1 year in Asia and Oceania. In 5 months,  they have visited 5 countries India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and now they are in Japan.

They quit their jobs and decided to start this traveling.
How great.. 

In Japan, if we quit the job once it would be so hard to get another job again usually, but I met already couple of people who quit their job and started world traveling.  I wounder is it common thing in out side of Japan?  Sometimes I think about it, why Japanese people is working for long time such as from 8 am to 11 pm everyday? For what? What is the life?

Yes, I agree we have to work to get surely to alive and also have to work to keep the society. But I think Japanese society is unbalanced, it's too focused on job. When I was young I used to work in the same situation looks like 15 hours working everyday, but in fact it's not working, just stayed in office because my boss didn't accept we get back to home earlier. In my experience, it depends on just old bad culture not for efficient despite we can take long vacations without any problems on own jobs if we want, but we are not allowed to do so by society including customers and even in own companies.
So we can take only few holidays in a year. 3 weeks? 2 weeks? it's impossible. Just few days, it's like just performance to show " I am working hard". We can't do any abroad!  
Fortunately, I am not working for such situation anymore but Japan has to change this bad culture in near future otherwise we can't enjoy the life truly.

Chopsticks

Around that period, my wife had hooked to make Gyoza which is one of Chinese foods, so the dinner was Gyoza for the first night. Also, it was first time for them to eat Gyoza and they seems enjoying to eat. 

Speaking of meals, I was little bit surprised to see every couchsurfers use the chopsticks very well.  In my image western people is not use to using chopsticks and always confused how to use them well but it's not, so far.  They always say that they have some Asian restaurants in their countries and they have already used chopsticks for couple of times. Before I started Couchsurfing, I looked forward to teach some Japanese things to guests, and chopsticks is one of those. 

Hmm, it seems I lost one thing, but it's Okay. Anyway, it's good thing.

R and L, differences to distinguish sounds

Having the dinner, I asked them to try the game about R sounds and L sounds.

Although this is famous story at least in Japan, most of Japanese has weakness against some sounds in language and the difference between R and L is the most famous. For example, " right " and " light ", " wrong " and " long ", " read " and " lead ", " grass " and " glass ",  these sounds are completely same for us.

Moreover, not only R and L, also B and V, E and Ea, S and Th, etc. We have a lot of weakness, it's too bad! So, we can't distinguish the sounds of Bus and Bath, See and Sea, Boat and Vote... I heard that it depends Japanese language is consisted with few sounds compared to other countries languages such as English, French, Spanish. Anyway I have a game about this sounds on my phone. You choice the correct one, example from "read" bottom or " lead" bottom when you hear the sounds. I wondered that since they are french and has a lot of sounds in their language, so they might distinguish those sounds and could clear this game easily.

They said that they don't pronounce " H " sound usually, so they can't distinguish those sounds.  Oh I didn't know that, it's interesting!  I'm going to ask and try to other couchsurfers to find out another differences.

A small concert  with Guitalele and Guitar!

Second day, we couldn't spend together because I had to go to my job. They went to Arima onsen I recommend as usual, and had good time. They said that they tried to hiking to over the Mt.Rokko, but they were lost the way in the forest. They enjoyed to see small waterfall and relaxed there all day, instead.
In the night, they showed us their songs with Guitalele. Nice sound by Guitalele and beautiful voice by her.... incredible! I heard that he started to play Guitalele 3 years ago but he already plays well more than me.  They seems to make their songs while traveling to fit the locations. I couldn't understand the lyrics because those were French, but anyway beautiful. One my daughter brought my guitar so that I play and sing as well, I was embarrassed though. I played " Tears in heaven " of Eric Clapton and " Knockin on heaven's door " of Bob Dylan. While I am singing they joined with Guitalele and beautiful voice.  Music is great. We can connect through the music even we haven't grown up in same country and age, also we don't have same language! It was like kind of small concert. That was very fun!

Relaxing time and I noticed the thing about hosting.

Looking back to past hosting, I was always busy to take balance the hosting and working. I don't know why but, I think that I had felt something like pressure that I should continue giving something to make guest happy as shown my thank and hospitality. I noticed it is too much. This relaxing time with my guest is not bad.
Maybe, I should spend like this time more for both to enjoy and continue the hosting.




It’s not good to put too much pressure to myself. Finally, it seems I am getting used to hosting on couchsurfing.
In the end, my family and I went to a service area of high-way to help their hitchhiking.It was also fun to watch the friend trying to hitchhiking.
I was worried that whether they will be able to catch the car easily because my image about Japanese people is conservative, but they succeed very soon!
Great!

They headed to their next destination Kyoto.


Their travel goes on!