Grandparents

`ごはんですよ!` I quickly shut the dictionary and head into the kitchen. Grandma is standing at the sink, her stained floral apron tied tightly around her waist. She is grinning and I grin back ten times brighter. I check out the table, a usual ritual, to see what I`ll be putting in my mouth this particular lunch time. It seems I will live to see another day as the food doesn`t look too scary. Grandad has already started lunch, slurping his Soba like it`s about to dissappear before his very eyes. I reach for the chopsticks pot and pull out mine, they are new because the ones I had previously been using weren`t exactly the same colour, indicating that they perhaps weren`t the original match. Of course, that is not acceptable in any way, shape or form. So two nights ago, Grandad spent about ten minutes selecting just the right pair of chopsticks for me before tea while I sat there starving hungry, staring into my miso soup as it grew colder and colder...

Today`s lunch is traditionally packet food. Sorry to hurt any Japanese cuisine recipe seekers, but that`s the way it is. I pull back the plastic, cursing the difficult Kanji that explains just exactly what I`m about to eat. I say my prayers with my Grandma who has also sat down beside me, her legs folded underneath her in the most painful looking position.

The food is tasting quite nice until I come across my best friend, えび. In english this is the equivilant of shrimp or prawns, I am not a seafood girl... Now anyone who was at Steph`s house that fateful night knows how well えび　and I get along. We simply don`t. However, how times have changed. I eat this stupid えび　and don`t even pull that pained expression I usually get when I clash with my meals. I won`t say I like it, but the tolerance levels are slowly rising each day and in more ways than just food.

Grandad has things to do, hence he leaves after saying thankyou for the meal. Now it is just Grandma and I. Old Japanese people are my worst nightmare when it comes to my Japanese. I swear they don`t really speak Japanese but a strange dialect of some ancient language. I act super interested in my food, which is beginning to get hard because I am so full, however, Grandma feels chatty so I act like I am too. Smiling with a mouthful of rice I nod and pull the usual　`ah` and `mm`. Then she starts shooting the questions. I manage to chat about my family, saying what they do and how old they are etc. She then tells me about a wedding function recently, one of her relatives... not quite sure what else but she has something, what she has I will never know...

Whipping out the green tea, Grandma pours me a cup as I struggle to finish the rest of the meal. I try a technique I heard about on TV once and try and put a lot of it in my mouth at once, but then I am so full I can`t swollow. Grandma is offering me little bits and pieces and she is just so hard to refuse, very insistant. I survive and after slamming down the rest of my green tea and half dying on the little leaves that produce the strongest of flavours, I finally can say `ごちそうさまでした`. Grandma asks if I am finished and I say, yes, I am definately 100 percent finished.

I try and help clean up but she insists that I am on holidays, hence I should go to my room. So, now here I am. I have been doing a lot lately, the other day after school I went playing Kareoke. Just think a not so gorgeous version Cameron Diaz in `My Best Friend`s Wedding`. I hadn`t spoken english for so long but I sang english songs and at the start I had the scariest Japanese twist to all the words I was saying! I began to pronounce my L`s properly in a matter of seconds and finally I was ok! Also, I have recently had the chance to visit many temples which has been great and for those of you wondering why I`m not at school, this week is Golden Week in Japan, no school. I go back on Monday but on the Sunday, I think we are planting rice... Also, we have another holiday on the Thursday which happens to be my birthday, and Ayaka`s birthday, a girl in my class!

Well, going to study as much Japanese as I can without my text book which i smartly left at school! Hope the pictures are ok and I will post them more often now!

Love Melissa xx