“Welcome to the Family Jess-ca and Welcome Home Shota”

Sunday afternoon was wonderful! Three of Chisa’s (Shotas Mothers Sisters) and their partners and children came over for a BBQ, Japanese style.

The BBQ was pretty similar to an Australian BBQ, only there are chopsticks and cabbage involved…although a fork was brought out for me (just incase).

Nobutaka, Shotas Father had the job of barbequing the meat and fish, a job taken seriously by all men I think.

The day was lovely and I even ended up with a beautiful piece of artwork from Shotas youngest cousin, it was a portrait of myself and has my name Jess ca written in Japanese at the top of the page. I felt very special J

Shotas family is very lucky, there house is not overly large, three bedroom, one bathroom two (bottom washing) toilets and one Tatami Style room. And a large garden. Not many houses in Machida have gardens, so they are lucky that they can sit outised on a sunny afternnon and host BBQ’s, lovely. They even have quite a bit of land at the back of the house where they are growing fruit and vegetables. Shotas grandparents used to live next door, so the land was all shared with them, but still in Japanese terms quite a lot of land.

Its so sad when walk around the neighborhood and all the houses are so close to each other, only a tiny handful of them have gardens and this is usually used to grow vegetables and their car parks are soooo small! Shota and I found one so small the other day, we stood there for ages trying to figure out how the car reverses back out of it every day. Shotas family have two car spots in their garage, another luxury in Japanese terms. Although we can’t fit into the car when its in the garage, they still have them and they have roller doors!

So getting back to the BBQ, ok I know that Australians can drink, but I wasn’t prepared for Japanese to be big drinkers too! Shotas Father will get along quite well with my own Father, as they both enjoy a glass of red… Although I am quite sure the first bottle that was finished in minutes was actually sherry, but the label was in French and no one spoke French so hence all the glass were filled to the top and down rather quickly. In saying that, they were big drinkers, but by the end of the night everyone was still standing and acting politely.