Last month I went on a homestay to England. I stayed in Oxford, which is a small city about one hour north west of London.
When I landed at Heathrow airport, my host father was waiting for me. He was holding a big piece of paper that said “EITA – WELCOME TO ENGLAND”.
He took me to a cafe for some lunch, and then we went to Oxford by car.
I was very sleepy after the long flight to England, so I fell asleep in the car!
When I woke up, we were just arriving at my host family’s house.
My host family’s house was cool. It was a regular English family house made out of brick. It had a small front garden and a bigger back garden. There was also a long drive and a garage for the car.
Inside there were 4 bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and 2 bathrooms. It was really cosy.
My host family were so nice and friendly. The mother and father helped me so much with all my school work, and they took me to school by car everyday too. I also had 2 host brothers. One was older than me and the other was younger than me. We got on really well with each other. Like me, they both liked playing basketball, so we played basketball together every night after school.
Oxford was a really nice place. It was very old and there were many interesting places to see.
Oxford is known as ‘The City of Learning’, so I was very lucky to have the chance to go and study there.
I went to the local school everyday – Monday to Friday. My school started at 8:45am and finished at 3:30pm. Lunchtime was from 12-12:50pm and was very fun! We finished eating lunch at about 12:15pm and then after that we all went into the playground and played until 12:50pm.
We got some homework everyday, but we didn’t have to go to cram school. There is no cram school in England!
Of course, all the lessons at school were in English. I studied maths, history, science, music, geography, art and French all in English, so it was difficult to understand everything, but I think I did OK. All the teachers and students were very patient and helpful, so I really enjoyed it!
I spoke English everyday. In fact, I hardly spoke Japanese, so maybe I need to practice my Japanese for a bit now!
Here is a photograph of me and my classmates at school. The boy in front of me in the red shirt is one of my host brothers.
We exchanged email addresses so we will keep in touch. I hope he can come and visit me in Japan one day!
I had a great time in Oxford. I made lots of friends and I’d really like to go back one day.
