Three years ago I got onto a plane from Cinncinati to Canada, hopped another plane to Tokyo, took another plane to Sapporo, and finally arrived at Shinhidaka by bus. I was fresh out of the eighth grade and beyond excited for my first experience out of the country.
As the bus rolled up to the train station where we were to meet our host families, I checked the time on my phone. It was four in the morning, which meant I had been traveling for over 24 hours. To say I was exhausted would be an understatement.
The first words out of my host mother's mouth were "HELLO! English no, okay?"
Well, shoot.
Rather than going into panic mode like I would usually do, I just got in the car with these complete strangers who spoke no English whatsoever and fell asleep on the ride to my new home. That's how tired I was.
The car finally stopped in front of a cute little house in the Middle of Nowhere, Japan, and my host family led me inside. All I could think about was how badly I wanted to take a shower, but of course, I had no idea how to say that in Japanese. And there was no internet.
So I just took a wild guess at the Japanese word for shower. (And let me just tell you this may have been the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me.)
"Shawa?" I said.
"Hai! Hai! Koko desu."
Apparently "shawa" is the exact word for shower, so not only did I get to take a shower, but my family was immediately impressed with my Japanese. Let's just say my guessing skills came in handy a lot while in Japan.
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