Konnichi wa!

Hello from Japan! I just spent a fabulous weekend with my friend Miyuki! I stayed with her family just outside of Tokyo. They have such a nice house. It's traditional Japanese, and very homey. They cooked some of the most delicious foods! Some of them I had tried before (I did live with Miyuki for a while at USC) but many were very different from anything I had tried before. I even ate salmon eggs! Squishy!

Tokyo is a huge city. Probably more like New York City than anywhere else in the U.S. Public transportation is key -- there's nowhere to even park your car in the city! And all of the buildings are very close together and go up rather than across. The average department store (many of which are attached to train stations) is 6 or 7 stories tall. I think the strangest thing about them is that they dedicate at least one of those floors to food. Who needs one bakery when you can have 20? But seriously, the selection of fresh baked goods was unbelievable. We picked up a couple for dinner :)

I am now in Kyoto. On my own for a few days before meeting up with another friend, Joel, also from USC. I will admit I had a bit of an awakening today when I got off the bus near my hostel. I was trying to read the map but it didn't do much good because I couldn't read any of the street signs! At least in Tokyo I had a trusty guide in Miyuki! Well I eventually found the hostel, but it does remind me to give myself extra time to get places!

Well, my BlackBerry sadly doesn't work on the Japanese network and this keyboard is cramping my left wrist because the spacebar is unusually small and every time I try to hit it with my right thumb it turns the whole thing to Japanese. So I am calling it a night.

Until next time ... sayonara!