Been on blog vacation for a while. Selling our house in a declining real estate market proved to be more enough for our family. De-clutter the house, clean, open house, clean, open house….on and on week after week. The last thing on my mind was blogging.
Finally settled into the new digs and life is returning to normal. We recently opened our doors to the homestays again and, because our house is more conveniently located in Honolulu, we’ve had lots of people looking for placements.
Right now we have 3 really fun girls from Japan; one high school student and two college age students. Our children have three new playmates and the house is lively again. Need to brush up on the nihongo!
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Hi, I have enjoyed reading your blogs. I live in Southern California and would love to open my home as a homestay for Japanese or Chinese students any age.
I am English and Spanish speaking and my husband is English and Chinese speaking. He is a teacher and I am not working now, and do not have any children. As we don’t have kids I really would love to have elementary students but I can’t find a reputable agency or contact.
Reading your positive stories have encouraged me. My question is where do I find the students? I have been searching the Internet but cannot find where I can turn to. Do you have any suggestions for me to start with? I would really appreciate any help or resources you can offer.
Thanks in advance,
with warm regards,
Vicky W.
California
Left by Vicky Wu on October 27th, 2009
Aloha.
I’ve been reading your blog since our son went to Honolulu to stydy. I am currently looking for his home stay next school year 2010 – 2011 and would like to inquire which agent you are registered or how to get more information about your home/fee.
I would appreciate of you can let me know.
Mahalo,
Lina
Left by Lina Kaspers-Taekuchi on November 23rd, 2009
Hello Vicky,
As a mom who send her son to a homestay, there are few ways to get yourself known.
1. Contract with homestay agent.
If you have preference like Japanese or Chinese, then check on google which agents are owned by Japanese or Chinese. We have tendecy to rely on agents of same national (I’m Japanese).
2. List yourself in independent hosting web pages.
http://www.homestaybooking.com
http://www.homestayweb.com
3. Advertise in local yahoo or google, such as Yahoo Japan or Google Japan, etc.
4. Send your info to Japanes/Chinese touris info in Japan or China or directly to Language schools.
I hope you can give pleasant experience for the students. In many cases, problem will be with the middle agent and not the family itself. I’ve read some comments in Japanese web site about how parents were not happy with the home situation, etc. Only if there’s a way to see that hosts are reliable, I’d rather do direct booking.
Good luck.
Left by LKaspers on November 26th, 2009