November 10, 2009
Entertaining the Kids from Japan
For me who never ever had a sitter for Matt, the time he was in Japan seemed like a lifetime. I was so happy to be back up in the rental house in Foster City, awaiting his return home.
Part of the exchange program through the Kiwanis club is that Matt went to live in Japan first with a family and then when his time was up we had his host "brother" stay with us.
That was great except that the other two kids from Japan had learned that our family owned the "Sunset Gower Studio" in Hollywood and they wanted to be with us and not their host families. They did not realize that they couldn't just go visit the studio one afternoon they would have to fly from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and stay with us in order to do that.
Luckily we did have enough room for the three of them to stay comfortably, all they needed to do was have their host families agree to pay the round trip airfare to get them here and back again.
Looking back at this now all these years later, it was amazing how simple it all seemed because when the three Japanese exchange students were here without the other host families, a little drama started to unfold. There were two boys and one girl.
Of course not being able to understand Japanese myself and the kids spoke little English, I had not idea that the boys were teasing this girl until one night around midnight she was crying so hard I had to have my son Matt come up to her room and find out what was going on.
It seems the two boys had ganged up on her about her looks, her style or something personal like that. She simply could not be consoled. So I found out thru Matt that she wanted to call home. What could I say, of course I said yes. It was a month later
when I got the phone bill that I realized she had spent nearly an hour on the phone or that would amount to a $2,000 phone bill. Wow, I had no idea she was on the phone that long or how much it would cost. We just had to shrug it off and pay the bill. What else was there to do?
I was just happy that for two of the three weeks it was just Matt and his host family kid. The other two were only here for 4 days and they were hard because the girl was so moody and in the end, even I who love kids felt helpless to make her enjoy herself.
She didn't enjoy any of her stay it seemed. I was thrilled when the day came to fly them all back to the Bay Area. That also included myself and Matt. It was time to start getting ready to go back to school.
The Airport was intense. Flights were being canceled left and right due to bad weather in San Francisco. And I HAD to get those three back in time to catch their plane home to Japan the next day. We were at the airport for hours and I was so grateful that Bob wasn't there, he never did have the patience to travel much and this was intense. There simply was no room for 5 of us.
No being one to give up I called another airline to see if I could fly them into San Jose on the last flight. As miracles go I got us on a flight but we had to run all the way across the airport to another terminal.
Imagine me trying to explain that to three kids who did not understand one word that I said to them.
Matt really saved the day, he got them all together and explained the best he could what was going on. Then we picked up our bags and ran like hell so that we did not miss the last flight out that night.
Lucky for us the parents in the Bay Area were so cool, they must have been worried also because they were responsible for getting those kids home to Japan on time just as I was.
The next morning was a relief, back to SFO to get them all off to Japan, I was exhausted and just happy to be with Matt in our little rental house in Foster City, anxiously awaiting what would turn out to be the beginning of an entirely new Matt.
Part of the exchange program through the Kiwanis club is that Matt went to live in Japan first with a family and then when his time was up we had his host "brother" stay with us.
That was great except that the other two kids from Japan had learned that our family owned the "Sunset Gower Studio" in Hollywood and they wanted to be with us and not their host families. They did not realize that they couldn't just go visit the studio one afternoon they would have to fly from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and stay with us in order to do that.
Luckily we did have enough room for the three of them to stay comfortably, all they needed to do was have their host families agree to pay the round trip airfare to get them here and back again.
Looking back at this now all these years later, it was amazing how simple it all seemed because when the three Japanese exchange students were here without the other host families, a little drama started to unfold. There were two boys and one girl.
Of course not being able to understand Japanese myself and the kids spoke little English, I had not idea that the boys were teasing this girl until one night around midnight she was crying so hard I had to have my son Matt come up to her room and find out what was going on.
It seems the two boys had ganged up on her about her looks, her style or something personal like that. She simply could not be consoled. So I found out thru Matt that she wanted to call home. What could I say, of course I said yes. It was a month later
when I got the phone bill that I realized she had spent nearly an hour on the phone or that would amount to a $2,000 phone bill. Wow, I had no idea she was on the phone that long or how much it would cost. We just had to shrug it off and pay the bill. What else was there to do?
I was just happy that for two of the three weeks it was just Matt and his host family kid. The other two were only here for 4 days and they were hard because the girl was so moody and in the end, even I who love kids felt helpless to make her enjoy herself.
She didn't enjoy any of her stay it seemed. I was thrilled when the day came to fly them all back to the Bay Area. That also included myself and Matt. It was time to start getting ready to go back to school.
The Airport was intense. Flights were being canceled left and right due to bad weather in San Francisco. And I HAD to get those three back in time to catch their plane home to Japan the next day. We were at the airport for hours and I was so grateful that Bob wasn't there, he never did have the patience to travel much and this was intense. There simply was no room for 5 of us.
No being one to give up I called another airline to see if I could fly them into San Jose on the last flight. As miracles go I got us on a flight but we had to run all the way across the airport to another terminal.
Imagine me trying to explain that to three kids who did not understand one word that I said to them.
Matt really saved the day, he got them all together and explained the best he could what was going on. Then we picked up our bags and ran like hell so that we did not miss the last flight out that night.
Lucky for us the parents in the Bay Area were so cool, they must have been worried also because they were responsible for getting those kids home to Japan on time just as I was.
The next morning was a relief, back to SFO to get them all off to Japan, I was exhausted and just happy to be with Matt in our little rental house in Foster City, anxiously awaiting what would turn out to be the beginning of an entirely new Matt.
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