I'm only going to look at the positive. I'll be like Pollyanna and play the happy game. Saturday Rebekah (a friend from California) and I took a walk through a beautiful park near our houses. It has a temple and graveyards and ponds and a lake, it's really neat. The moquitoes ate me alive too. It's a good thing I don't have to worry about Malaria or West Nile Virus here, I would definitely be dead by now. Saturday night we watched Independence Day, but it was dubbed in Japanese and had English subtitles. I have to say that Will Smith speaking Japanese is an absolute riot. I almost died laughing (Japan really is a dangerous country, I'm having all of these near death experiences). Sunday I laid around the house watching TV (on their giant plasma flat screen TV) and reading. My host father made tempura which is absolutely wonderful! We dipped it into special salt which is (get this) fortified with calcium and gold. The Japanese believe that eating gold is healthy for you. I actually have had tea with gold in it several times. I bought a vial to put in my cooking, more for amusement purposes than health reasons. I like pretty food, and with gold in it the food has to be pretty!
Today was the first day of classes. Before class we�@went to a bank to exchange our traveler's checks. no can do. There is only one bank in all of Nagoya (maybe a slight exaggeration, but the only one I can find) where you can exchange money. So we went this morning (after checking two other banks) and it turns out you can only exchange money between the hours of 10 and 3. Which happen to be the hours that I have class. We tried to ask why, because it really doesn't make sense. But of course no one could answer that for us. Japan is a strange country. There are certain ways that everything has to be done, and as a foreigner I don't understand why. In America if you can't do something, you find another way to accomplish it. Go to another bank, call someone. Here there seems to be only one way. They are very inflexible about things.
So we were late for class after the bank experience, but they hadn't started. We just did things that were review, but I really don't want to switch to a higher level. I have a feeling that it is going to get a lot harder and I am perfectly happy where I am. My Econ class this afternoon was canceled. YEAH! Tonight I am going to do Karaoke with my host family and my host father's son from his first marriage. We are going to sing Beatles songs! I will actually be able to read the words. I am so excited.
Today was the first day of classes. Before class we�@went to a bank to exchange our traveler's checks. no can do. There is only one bank in all of Nagoya (maybe a slight exaggeration, but the only one I can find) where you can exchange money. So we went this morning (after checking two other banks) and it turns out you can only exchange money between the hours of 10 and 3. Which happen to be the hours that I have class. We tried to ask why, because it really doesn't make sense. But of course no one could answer that for us. Japan is a strange country. There are certain ways that everything has to be done, and as a foreigner I don't understand why. In America if you can't do something, you find another way to accomplish it. Go to another bank, call someone. Here there seems to be only one way. They are very inflexible about things.
So we were late for class after the bank experience, but they hadn't started. We just did things that were review, but I really don't want to switch to a higher level. I have a feeling that it is going to get a lot harder and I am perfectly happy where I am. My Econ class this afternoon was canceled. YEAH! Tonight I am going to do Karaoke with my host family and my host father's son from his first marriage. We are going to sing Beatles songs! I will actually be able to read the words. I am so excited.
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