Found Family in Funabashi

From Oct. 21-27, 2026, I had the pleasure of going with the Moreau Catholic Jazz Ensemble to the city of Funabashi in Japan to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the sister city relationship between Hayward and Funabashi.

After leaving SFO on October 21 and arriving in Japan on October 22, the jazz ensemble were taken from Narita Airport to Funabashi City Hall, receiving a warm welcome from Mayor Toru Matsudo and his staff, as well as meeting the host families that pairs of students would be staying with.

A handful of families living in Funabashi volunteered to host each pair of students, giving everyone a found family that became a window into what everyday life in Japan was like. For example, Senior and baritone sax player Danny Landeza and I stayed with a family of 3, some of our peers stayed with a family of 5, so all of our experiences were unique.

As his favorite part of the trip, Junior and alto saxophonist Caiden Caguyong appreciated how welcoming his host family was, making him feel at home, despite being in a foreign place.

The first proper day we were there, the jazz ensemble was taken to Ichifuna High School, Moreau’s sister school, where we performed in front of the student body for a school assembly. Afterwards, we met the students of Ichifuna’s music program, who performed for us. And afterwords, we had cultural exchange with the students there, with a lot of fun banter despite the language barrier.

Sophomore and trombone player Elijah Sanders shared, “I loved how the Ichifuna students were so welcoming and so willing to talk to us, it was so nice and they never made me feel uncomfortable.”

It was inspiring to see how coordinated Ichifuna’s music students were, as they not only sang but also danced throughout the songs that they performed. Then, our group was split into two to experience two extracurricular activities offered at Ichifuna, Kyudo (japanese archery) and tea ceremonies.

Junior and trumpet player Boya Chu said, “My favorite part of Ichifuna was the tea ceremonies, they gave us traditional sweets and showed us how to make traditional tea. They also had us climb through this little door in the ceremony room that represented new beginnings, it was very interesting.”

We were also shown how to formally receive tea as a group, and were given a chasen, a bamboo whisk used for mixing tea powder with hot water to make our own traditional matcha.

Then, we were taken to Ichifuna High School’s archery range, where we got to try Kyudo. Compared to archery in America, which is already a high-intensity sport with the strength and precision needed to control a bow, the bows used in Kyudo, called a “yumi” can rival their archers in height.

Being able to meet the students participating in these activities taught us how extracurricular activities at Ichifuna, and by extension other high schools in Japan, are a lot more high-commitment. According to the students we talked to, it is really uncommon for them to do more than one extracurricular, unlike Moreau, because of the difference in intensity their extracurriculars have across the board.

After we left the school, it was interesting to note how we saw a lot of students leaving the school by walking instead of driving. As it turns out, a majority of people living in Japan live within walking distance from their school/work or live close enough to a train station that can take them to their school or work.

Danny commented, “There’s a lot of people walking and taking the subway, and public transportation is more used than cars. Comparing it to like, LA, where if you live there, you need a car, it’s like night and day.”

It’s intriguing how the country is able to have both strong emphasis on walking and public transportation while still having plenty of room for commuting, as there was considerable traffic there. With the recent turnout from the US midterm elections, I hope this aspect of Japan, having its cities be highly walkable, is something that can be incorporated into our communities today.

The following day, we went to Hokubu Public Hall to rehearse for our performance the next day at HC Andersen Park. There, we met the Yakigaya Junior High band and practiced the commemorative song, “The Funabashi Shuffle” with them, a song made to celebrate a previous milestone of the Hayward-Funabashi sister city relationship.

With their favorite part of the trip being the opportunity to play with Yakigaya Junior High’s band, Freshman and percussionist Sophia Tobler shared, “It was a fun, new experience being able to play with another school and that we also got to teach them the dance to Brujeria.” (Brujeria is a Latin song by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico we played at the ceremony)

Because this day was only dedicated to rehearsal, we got a lot more free time compared to other days of the trip. After we left rehearsal that day, we went home with our host family to go walk to the subway, where we took the train from Funabashi to the station in Tokyo Bay.

I will say this: the subway is not for the faint of heart. Unless you have someone guiding you, or have thoroughly planned your route, it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the crowd when everyone’s in a rush to switch stations.

Once we got to Lalaport itself, it became really evident early on that malls in Japan, and Asia in general, are a completely different beast. Lalaport has a north, south, and west wing, all connected with 3 stories’ worth of stores, much larger than the average American mall.

Being gobsmacked aside, stores at Lalaport not only included a pop-up Disney store, groceries, different fashion brands, restaurants, and other novelties, but also the main target of our excursion, the Pokemon Center. It was both bewildering and awe-inducing to see an entire store dedicated to a franchise you enjoy, and it was a lot of fun.

Taking the subway back to Funabashi, we then ended the evening by walking to a local Karaoke bar, enjoying the close, intimate space with food like sushi and takoyaki while singing our hearts out to songs like Leave the Door Open and Bohemian Rhapsody.

After that fun night was the big day of the performance at HC Andersen Park. We arrived at the venue in the morning to set up with the Yakigaya Junior High band before the ceremony began. The venue was greeted by Mayor Matsudo and the city’s international relations supervisors, as well as representatives from Hayward and Moreau, such as Mr. Patrick Landeza, school president Dr. Elizabeth Guneratne, and video messages from Mayor Mark Salinas and former Moreau president, Mr. Terry Lee.

After the performance, we got to enjoy the international festival. HC Andersen Park itself is a spacious outdoor park taking visual cues from Denmark and houses colorful flower arrangements. At the festival, there were not only performances on stage from locals, but also vendors selling food from different cultures.

Unfortunately, our time at the festival was cut short due to heavy rain, which is routine in Japan, but we spent the rest of our day at the Hokubu Public Hall, where we had a farewell party, celebrating the bond the Jazz Ensemble members forged with their host families.

On our second-to-last day of the trip, we were given a guided tour of the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko, a more rural city that has scenic views of the mountains and the aforementioned Shrine. It’s important to note Shintoism, an indigenous religion in Japan that worships “kami,” the spirits that inhabit the natural world as well deified historical figures.

In the case of the Toshogu shrine, it is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan from 1603-1868. Before you enter the shrine, there’s a spot where visitors can partake in a tradition, where people can rinse their hands with spring water to purify themselves before stepping onto the holy ground.

At the shrine, visitors can observe various historical architecture, pagodas from the Buddhist faith, ornate carvings on the wall depicting mythical creatures and deities, as well as torii gates, which mark boundaries between the human and spirit world at shrines. One of the main attractions there is the mural depicting the Three Wise Monkeys, sharing their message of do no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil.

Before returning to our host families, we also stopped by Lake Chuzenji, the highest natural elevation for a lake in Japan. Tucked among the mountains, the lake looked incredibly scenic combined with the fall weather, given an air of mystery by the fog that day. It made for a picturesque backdrop for photo taking.

On the day of our flight back to the US, we bade farewell to our host families and got a tour of a different shrine, the Naritasan Shinshoji Temple, toured around by local volunteers. Dedicated to Acala, a figure related to fire with a statue dedicated in the main temple. The temple grounds featured a lot of preserved shrines that people visited, made offerings and prayers at, as well as having a ceremony in the main temple, blessing particpants with protection from theft.

After going through the various temples at the shrine, we passed through the shopping street leading up to the temple for lunch at a steakhouse before one last detour before the airport, the AEON Shopping Mall in Narita. The daughter in my host family shared that AEON is a Japanese retail chain, with malls across the country. The closest equivalent here in the US would be something like a shopping outlet.

In the 35 minutes we were given to shop, I want to highlight BOOK-OFF, a Japanese bookstore chain that sells books, manga, CDs, vinyl, and video games. It’s a great place to look if you’re interested in older media, as there are a couple of stores in the US. It’s where I managed to buy a copy of Pokemon Platinum for the Nintendo DS.

Finally, we arrived at Narita Airport. With our flight leaving that evening, our stay in Japan felt like a journey despite only being a couple of days. As someone who grew up in the Philippines before moving to the US, having any opportunity to experience life from the perspective of a different country and culture is always a welcome opportunity.

Though we as people are divided by the individual experiences we’ve lived, being able to live through and experience those differences becomes a horizon-broadening moment. People in Japan experience brainrot memes, get stuck in traffic, get caught in the rain without any covering,just like anyone in the US or any other country would. It all goes to show that no matter who we are, what we look like, or how far apart we live from one another, we are all part of one big human race.