Chapter 2: The First Meeting

I felt someone shook me as I awoke from my slumber, it was Mr Sato shaking me on my shoulder, it seems we have arrived at our destination. I turned to wake up Christine. But..... she was gone!!!!! I asked Mr Sato where she had went and he said that she had got down from the Shinkansen at an earlier station because there was where her foster parents were. We were living in different parts of Hiroshima.

"ARGH!!!!!" I groaned in my thoughts, I did not even get her number and now I won't be seeing her for the next 3 weeks, just as things were beginning to get good. Sighing, I quickly retrieved my luggage and hurried to get down from the Shinkansen with Mr Sato behind me. As soon as I was in open air, I saw a sight which slightly embarassed me. I saw a man holding a poster with "Welcome To Hiroshima, Mr Aaron Lee" printed on it. I was like, so wowed, I'm just a student, no need for that. I walked over and thanked the man.

"Aringato Gozaimasu!!!" I said to him.

"You know Japanese!!!" the man gasped and proceeded to laugh with joy. I joined him laughing. The man was as tall as me, but it was evident that he had some kind of skin allergy as his skin was pink and he was scratching all over. he had really small eyes and a very kind expression on his face.

There were 3 men there to greet me at the station, Mr Umeda(my Otosan, the guy I laughed with), Mr Hatakeyama(smelled like cigarettes) and Mr Higashi(a really old man with a full head of white hair, all of them wore suits to greet me. I bade farewell to Mr Sato and the other 3 men escorted me to the parking lot and we chatted a bit along the way. I got to know that they were all Lion's Club members and also very eager to know the way of life in Malaysia. I told them I will of course be willing to explain to them in the future our way of life.

They tried very hard to converse in English and I also tried to keep my sentences simple so that they would understand, my Otosan was the only 1 who could converse well. We got to the car and Mr Hatakeyama passed me a map of Hiroshima and bade me farewell, but hinted that we will meet again in the near future. I also bade him farewell.

Now, I am alone with my Otosan(meaning father, since he is my foster father) and we were shy at 1st, but it was quite pleasant in the end as we managed to conjure up a few conversations. He was quite a quiet man, and I got to know that he was in the "Sake(Japanese wine)" business, he said his factory was just behind his house and he worked with his wife(my Okasan, as in foster mother). I also got to know that he and his wife had 3 sons, one is 23, one is 21 and another just older than me by 1 year. As the conversation ended, the scenery around me caught my eye.

It was the suburbs and you could see small shops and pinball shops all around. Most of the shops were general stores and with a lot of colourful store signs. The roads are bustling with activity, people walking up and down the streets, some riding in cars and on bicycles, rarely were there motorcycles on the roads. Roads were confusing as the are like all tied in some kind of knot, you need to be someone who is accustomed to Japanese roadways to be able to maneuver around them. Overhead bridges were every where just to ease the traffic jam of the town. You could see people in suits taking bicycles instead of driving cars which was quite a sight because in Malaysia, it would be really funny if this was seen, haha. People around were wearing thick clothing due to the cold weather and I even saw and electric notice board by the roadside telling you how cold it was outside, it wrote 7 degrees, quite cold.

Anyway, enough of the long winded introduction of the suburbs, we reached the house after an hour's driving. FINALLY!!!

Otosan parked his car in his garage just behind his house and I saw that he had 3 cars, 1 of them was a Mazda RX-8, which i was like thinking, COOL!!!!! I asked him if he droved it frequently, and he said no. I just sighed........ Man, if I had this car, I would drive it everyday and he just leaves to dust up.

After we got my luggage out of my boot, we walked past a house which seems to be his but did not enter. We walked to another house, and entered via the backdoor, weird eh? My Okasan greeted us with a sweet smile as she opened the door.

"Lee-Kun!!!!!!" she said when she saw me," welcome to our home!!!"

She was quite a fair lady, kind looking with a mole on her nose. She had a motherly smile and also very polite in using her words. She was slightly shorter than me and had short hair like a boy's haircut. She wore an apron when she greeted me, so I guessed she was preparing dinner.

I smiled at her and greeted her too. Walking into the house, you could feel the cold air around it. The dining was connected with the living room. It was a small house but looked quite comfy. We introduced ourselves and chatted a little before Okasan asked me something.

"Would you like see your room 1st?" she asked.

"Yes, I would like that very much." I replied. After dragging my luggage along for 4 hours, I would really much like to put it down, haha.

She showed me to my room and I found out I was sleeping in their prayer room, lol..... it was quite small and there was not much light except for the small light coming from a small light bulb above on the ceiling. My Okasan introduce me to a few things in the room, like the hotbed(to keep me warm at night), the "hot cond", the switches and then left the room for me to unpack my luggage.

I unpacked my luggage slowly and started to have the feeling of being homesick, it hit me so hard all of a sudden, due to the tranquility of the place and dimness of the house. I missed my parents, my bed and surprisingly...... my very loud auntie..... I couldn't help feeling that I wanted to go home, its so so different. I guess that is what people feel when they are outstation for the 1st time on their own. I changed into my home clothes and pulled out my notebook from my bag pack and started to check for Wi-Fi connection. I was desperate for contact with my family and friends at home!!!!!!

I switched on my notebook, waited for it to start up and searched for a connection.

"WHAT THE HELL!!!!!" I shouted as the notice wrote, "no network connections found", I was so disappointed. Sulking, I shut down my notebook and walked out to the dining for lunch as instructed earlier by my Okasan which prepared hot beef noodles for me.

The lunch was very quiet though the meal was scrumptious, we had nothing much to talk about at 1st as we were new to each other, I just keep smiling to my foster parents as I had no other reaction towards them for the time being.

Finishing up, my Okasan announced to me that, there will be no activities for the rest of the day and I was free to rest. I was like, ARGH!!!!!! What a boring day!!!! At least let me do something fun!!!! I'm damn homesick now!!!!! I grudgingly gave a smile and asked to be excused into my room. I did not want to show them my discontented face.

Back in my room, I took out a doll from my bag that I brought from Malaysia. It was an anime doll which I bought for someone that I did not get a chance to give to, it made me even more depressed. I switched on my notebook, trying to look for a connection again, but to no avail, I stared blankly into the screen, thinking.... was this such a good idea????

End of Chapter 2.....