Norika & Iyo

Norika & Iyo, two Japanese students I'm so glad to have met.

They came at the end of January and they left last Friday so they only stayed here for one month. They came with their Japanese school, Kasukabe, and they always come in couples, that's why two of them stayed in the same house.

Iyo was 14 years old when she came but we celebrated her birthday here, while Norika is 14 too. They came to my school so we had to take the school bus together. Once there, they went with their Japanese friends and they used to do some English activities, games or sports. They also had the chance to visit Niagara Falls, Toronto or to go snow tubing, which is really fun!

Unfortunately it was the worst month of the year when the coldest week was around -40 °C so we couldn't do as much things as we wanted.

The worst part was that they were always speaking Japanese, and that was reaaallly annoying!! They knew no English, believe me, so it was really difficult and funny at the same time when we were talking to them. They were always together so they worked as one, Iyo was the one who talked to us in English while Norika was used to speak in Japanese while Iyo tried to translate her.

Japan is such an awesome country but so different at the same time. When we first showed them the kitchen they didn't even know what a toaster is!! What was really annoying is that THEY USED TO WAKE UP AT 5AM!! I have no idea what they were doing but I guess it was because of their culture, cause Norika once told us that her grandma wakes up at 1am (yes, just after midnight) and she goes for a walk for 3 hours, so she has breakfast at 5 am ish. Crazy, isn't it?

Whatever, I hope they had a great time in Canada and I really liked this experience, to host international students from a different country than mine.

Watching the Super Bowl

On the way back home, one of the coldest days of the year

Two days before they left, in a goodbye party with all the 120 Japanese students that came to Barrie for a month. They showed us some pictures of their Canadian adventure and some Japanese typical dance and song.