Kaspar! in Katsura

It's been almost a month since I last posted an update here, and over that month so many things have happened that it would be impossible to list them all. My social life improved a lot, I've made great new friends and started really feeling at home. But now that's changed again, because I have moved host families for the first time. I am now living away from Kyoto's city center, and in the Western suburbs of Katsura. I'm no longer with the Tomori family and now part of the Ota family!

I just moved yesterday, so my impressions and feelings are still all messed up and all over the place. The distance is a worry for me. Mainly because I feel more cut off from my friends as well as all the places familiar to me... That said, the scenery is nice. There is greenery and trees everywhere, although being a city boy myself I quite enjoyed the scenery back in the city.

The family is nice and have been very welcoming. I have an older brother and sister. The brother is 21 and is studying at Ritsumeikan University. The sister is 18 and studying at Ritsumeikan High School, and she spent one year on exchange in Adelaide last year. They are a busy family, which is different to the Tomori family. With the Tomori family, the father was always busy and I almost never saw him, but the brothers didn't do club activities and the mother didn't work, meaning there was usually at least one person home. This morning I woke up and no one was here, so I've been home alone all day and it's a really weird feeling.

There's not much point thinking about the negatives, because I have to live here at the end of the day, and it will take adjusting, but I just need to do my best to fit into this new family. Since it's Summer Vacation I have more time to get to know the area better, and hopefully get out with some of my friends, since I think that's what I really need most right now.