First day!

So, yeah. I'm willing to bet 100 dollars (10,000 yen) that I had the longest flight. Anyways~

My flight was delayed by 2 hours and I felt sooo bad that the people picking me up had to wait so long for me. But I arived at 7 pm Japan time and was picked up by Mr. Umezawa, Mr. Nakamura, and his daughter. She has a son who was one year old, he was soo cute, he reminded me of my own little chunky monkey.

We drove out of narita airport and through Tokyo. Japan is such a contradiction, its huge, and small at the same time. The cars apear small and thin from the outside, but its alot like a prius on the inside. The wheels are on the opposite side too, and you drive on the left side of the road. It freaked me out how close together everyone drives, but they are all very carefull and everyone signals.

It took about an hour to drive out of tokyo (HUGE!!!) and we drove past Disney land. I said I wanted to go and Yuki (nakamura's daughter) is going to take me for christmas!!! When we arived in Kazo they took me too a sushi resturant, I felt bad because I didn't eat much, but Japanese sushi is alot different from american sushi, different fish and stuff. It was really hard communicating at first, but I've got the hang of it now. Most people speak Japananglish.

So they called Senzui mama from the restuant and handed me the phone. I wish they wouldn't because its 10 times harder to talk on the phone than it is in person (i've been handed a phone about 5 times). And she said she was coming. So her and Kana came to pick me up. Senzui mama has a pink car!!! Its soo funny, even the colors of the cars are different, baby powder kinda...

So Senzui mama's house is suuuuper old and traditional, aka SCORE!!! Its really cool being able to stay here. All the rooms have tatami mats, and sliding doors, and you can get to any room through any other room. Even the bathroom is super traditional (which I really like). I'm on the second floor and it gets really hot but I will get used to it. Every room has its own "aiacon" instead of central airconditioning, which is also very Japanese.

When we got here Kana and Senzui mama helped me unpack, I took a bath and went to sleep. Its really hard to beleive is only my second day because on the first day I did sooooo much!!!

First day activities:

I woke up at 6 am which really surprised senzui mama, and I ate a huuuuge breakfast. Toast, curry rice, eegs over easy with bacon underneath, and pears. I don't know how all the women are so thin they eat soo much at every meal, its really hard for me to eat everything, most likely because I'm used to eating at different times.

We went to a castle
the library
a small convenience store
drove to kana's house
drove to the school
went to a temple and went to senzui mama's parents grave
went to town hall
met the mayor (who is in rotary)
had my insurance card changed to Japanese
came back, ate lunch
OMG I ate a whole fish!!! It didn't have a head or guts, but it was a whole fish, and it was delicisous! (take that dad, picky eater huh!?)
I took a couple of naps
then we went to the mall
McDonalds is expensive here, a double cheesburger meal is about 6 dollars.

(I feel horible right now because senzui mama is cleaning my room!!! I can clean! gah~)

Today I had to wake up early and go to a Rotary meating at, geuss what, a shrine!!!
It was sooooo cool. Like how we pray for the deceased rotary members in america, they read the sutra in a traditional shinto shrine. The preist could speak english pretty well, and for some reason everyone thinks I'm christian. But I explained that I'm not religious and they are very understanding and don't make me do any praying or anything unless I want too.

There is a gray payphone near my house (only relevant to Tina) So I can use my phone cards and have already called dad.

So, that is all that has happened so far. Pretty long first blog. I'll be sure to get this address to alot of people but if you want it would be nice if you could pass it along.

Love you
Miss you
Diana