Japan

So one of the first things that I have noticed is the difference in food. While the food in America is good and filling, the food here is subtle and light. I can definately see now why so many people in America are overweight compaired to the people in Asiatic countries. Of course I guess when your primary diet is fish and rice you are really not getting too much in the way of fats. Yesterday we ate at an Okinawa restaruant took a while to get there but in the end it was worth it. It was really good. We had fish that was still moving, very tasty. Also fried squid, and then the fish bones and head that were left over from the still moving fish were put into the frier and then we ate those too. Nothing like the mixture of fish eyes and brains. Then there was the fish ovaries in rice which we were told to put green tea over, this made an intresting soup. Then there were the snails, these little tiny things in black shells that really had not too much nutritional value, they could not be much over thirty grams in weight. And it took so much effort to suck them out of their shells. I used the sucking skills that I was complimented on by Lisa and somehow managed. I too was told that I have some skill with chopsticks, although trying to use toothpicks as chopsticks was extremely difficult. At first I could not get the beans out of the salty been pod but Maurice proved more than able at sucking the slaty tubes. Maurice bought some dried salty fish that he wanted to try, they ended up being awful. Like really bad, like there was not a redeeming thing about them, they stank and they were hard and they did not taste good at all. They smelled like they had been picked off the beach at low tide and packaged fresh to serve.

Off of food to other things, when I first got here I dropped my ticket to Fuk somewhere in the Tokyo Airport. I was called up to the counter later and they had found it. I had no idea. Some nice people helped me with the phone which was giving me problems calling Maurice. Then I got to Fuk and met Maurice outside of Baggage claim where we greeted one another and started to walk to the train station at which time we caught the last train to the town next to Maurice's caught a cab to his apartment and went for a walk for a one in the morning snack of mochi, before going on a trek to get the magical bike of riding. So then after making the comment of how much Amanda is not going to like Maurice's bed at which point I was informed that if you throw enough pillows on anything then women will like it. Double if the pillows have frilly lace. Then I crashed only to wake up a few hours later to find out that I did not know how to work a Japanese toilet. I turned the nob to the direction away from the one that looked like water coming out of a faucet and towards the one that looked like a person. This had the water running for a long time, had to go and tap the sleeping giant to make sure that everything was supposed to be happening.

School was cool, everyone was really nice and I was told that I should not help with classroom management. Which is good to know because there was one kid that I was going to go over and 'assist' with his paying attention skills.

We rode to rugby which was canceled on acount of a possibility of rain. Ended up talking and throwing a football around, also watched some little league practice. Watched some movies after dinner and just cooled off after so much happenings of the day.

Went and hung out with the other Alts. They were really nice. Maurice beat me at VF4 only because of the controls. If I had the L1 L2 R1 R2 buttons he would have gotten his handed to him. But in the third out of three fights it was all over. Then we went upstairs to play some pool. That was a lot of fun. I don't think that I lost a game all night. Although two of them were more luck than anything, one scratch on an eight ball and one the eight ball sank before they were ready, ended the night at Lisa's place where we watched a movie and fell asleep got moved to the floor and fell asleep again. Then I met Angus. Who seemed very nice.

Went walking after football and found a giant tree that had stairs up inside of it, but there was a sanctity in the air and a spirit guardian sitting on the fence surrounding the tree which told me to not disturb this hallowed ground. So instead I went off to climb bamboo. There have been many adventures and more yet to come.