It was so funny. I had been sitting at my computer for hours stressing out about this introductory email that I wanted to write to my host family. I posted a draft to multiple forums to make sure everything I wanted to say was appropriate and correct. As I was reading some corrections somebody had made ("say お世話になります instead of 宜しくお願いします to be more polite and to kind of thank them in advance for taking care of you!"), I got an email titled, 日本からこんにちは Hello from Japan.
First I started to panic! I felt so rude that I had let my host family contact me before I had the opportunity to contact them! I opened the email and was immediately relieved, because what I saw was a very friendly and warm message.
Fukami Mihoko, my host mom, told me that right now in Nagoya, it's so hot that everyone's exhausted every day. She told me not to worry though, because by the time I arrive it should be nicer weather. She told me that she was happy to hear that I like cooking, and she offered to teach me to cook Japanese food. She gave me news of both of her children, a man and woman both in their thirties, and living away from home (I think...)
I'm sure my new okaasan tried to write simply for me, but she used a lot of kanji that I didn't recognize. I had to use a translator to get the gist of the email. I emailed her back and told her how excited I am to be staying with her family. Hopefully my broken Japanese gave her a gauge of how far I have to go...
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