Surprise Day!!!?

When I woke up, I had no idea what I'll be doing today. Every time I asked I always got the reply of 'It's a surprise'. As I headed downstairs for breakfast I could hear the Dad preparing something, but I didn't know what it was. My host dad works for a company called Namiki. This company makes fountain pens utilising the Japanese traditional art of 'Maki-e'. He's showed me pictures of his work and its so cool. Like wow!!!
After eating the dad prepared something on the table and when I was finally allowed to see, I was so surprised. On the table were 3 ink caps, paint brushes and red ink. We were going to decorate the ink caps!! Thankfully that dad has already drawn butterflies on the caps so we had an outline. Junna, Takao (Junna's brother) and I all sat around the table and decorated our bottle cap. After painting we were all able to dust gold powder over our creations. This whole experience was really fun and I enjoyed learning more about the dad's job. 

Putting our caps out to dry, we all got ready to leave. Takao is very good at soccer and gets not many days off. I looked at his schedule and this whole month he only has 2 days off. Luckily today was one of these days. Firstly the whole family took me to a nearby mall. This mall was huge, I bought a lot of stuff and we played many games at the arcade. After about an hour we left. I had no idea where we were going. 

During the 30-minute drive, the family showed me Takao's school and where he trains for soccer. His school is opposite a beach and every day for soccer, his team runs along the beach. He says its hard. Finally, the family told me where I was going. I'm going to an island!! 
We crossed a bridge to get to Enoshima Island. It was so beautiful. We spent the rest of the day here until it got dark. We went into a cave, ate dinner, took many photos and visited a shine. During this trip, I've been to many shrines. Because of this, I know what to do but it was so cute getting taught by the dad and Junna how to do everything. 

After the sunset and we were exhausted, we went home. It was about a 40-minute drive and we all fell asleep (except the dad of course).

Later on that night, after watching tv and resting the dad came downstairs to present me a gift. I was so shocked and impressed. when I opened the gift I saw a Namiki pen and a bottle of ink with my cap I painted that morning on it. I can only imagine how much this would cost and I'm so grateful to receive this awesome gift!! I will definitely use it! 

Arigatougouzaimasu Chidia Family, today was more than amazing!!