Nobuko was an exchange student in my family's home in 1968. She was a few years older than I and very eager to take advantage of this opportunity. I was 16 and generally snarky to everybody. At that time, Japan seemed impossibly far away. She came and visited my parents and me about 10 years ago. Dennis and I went to visit her in 2010. And now Naomi!
Yamagata City is a provincial city a four hour bullet train ride north of Tokyo. In the mountains; Yama means mountain. A prefecture capital, it has a university and a city center, temples and shrines. And manageable. Especially if you have Nobuko. On our trip, we also visited Kyoto and Tokyo but I thought Yamagata was the most interesting.
Many thanks to Nobuko. Being immersed in English at age 18, spoken English usually comes back to her. She always worries that her English will not be good enough but she does just fine. Her house is somewhat unusual; a bit more western than her peers. Her father had had a small hospital on that site. She and her husband Tadeshi(now passed away) built a new house. He had studied in East Germany so they both wanted to incoporate some western style living spaces.
Nobuko's daughter Natsuko was also an exchange student in the US in high school and she spent two weeks with us shortly before our trip to Japan. It just worked out that way!
A picture from Jackie's facebook; there they are together in Nobuko's living room.
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