haha yes!! I stayed in a town outside the city of Nagoya for a little over half a year and it was the best thing I ever did. I wanted to get out of my boring small town and experience something new and what a true culture really was, kinda just threw myself out of my element and I think it really made me grow as a person.

I went during my actual school year, it was pretty much the 2nd half of 11th grade so after x-mas vacation I was in Japan and I did not come back till a few weeks into my 12th grade year. I took japanese classes with exams so that credits for that time would just transfer over to my USA school, sadly the only credit they did not count was History, which was super funny since I DID learn history in Japan (about WWII, ironic) but the school said it was not OUR history so they made me repeat that class when I got back :/

I used a program called "youth for understanding" aka YFU, they did a great job with placement and kept track of me while I was with my family to make sure everything was ok. Loved that program, I hope its just as wonderful now. I had to apply, have a certain GPA, and be able to write a check (thanks mom), and had several interviews before I got approved. I think they like to make sure you are serious and dont wanna go away to screw around :D

But yeah, my school was awesome and I made great friends~ and since I was alone I picked up a lot of japanese quickly + reading super fast. I went over there only knowing maybe "konichiwa" and "Choto Matte Kudasai" but came back with enough vocab to communicate fairly well (although my grammar was poor)