Nihon kara
All right, so I know not many people read this or anything, but I am in Japan. I'm in Makino, in Shiga Prefecture. It's a little hick town (a dude from Kyoto called it "bumpkin" yesterday. Actually, he didn't call Makino bumpkin, he called Imazu bumpkin, and Imazu is about 4 times the size of Makino.), but it's gorgeous. The lake is swimmable, the kids at my school are frightningly genki (this is a Japanese word that has no direct English translation...it kind of means happy and healthy and hyper all at once. It describes junior high schoolers quite well), and all the teachers are nice. I have a cozy little network of other JETs here. There are only 8 of us out on the bumpkin side of the lake, but with trains, we're all within 15 minutes of each other. I am a little short of cash at the moment, because they didn't tell us that we would have to pay two months rent before we got paid, and Japan has a wonderful system of renting apartments in which you have to essentially bribe your landlord to rent from them. But I get paid on Friday, so no big deal. Really, I wouldn't have been short on cash at all if I didn't keep spending it at the hyaku-en stores. (Basically, everything is a dollar, but they aren't like the dollar stores in the U.S. They give you NICE stuff for your dollar.)
As for strange food in Japan, I have eaten:
Canned muffin
Eel spine
Yyyyeah, they barbeque the eel meat and eel spine separately. It sucks to be halfway through your eel spine and going "hmm, this is kinda crunchy, but alright" and then have your friend tell you exactly what you've just eaten half of. Yes, I ate the rest. Yeah, I kinda liked it.
Brett, I'm sorry I didn't email you back. Things got pretty hectic near when I left the U.S. I'll be in Nashua the week after next, if you want to get together. I don't really know what the schedule for bridesmaids is, but I'm sure I'll have some time while Nao's at work.
I'll see some of you soon! Yay! I can't wait.
As for strange food in Japan, I have eaten:
Canned muffin
Eel spine
Yyyyeah, they barbeque the eel meat and eel spine separately. It sucks to be halfway through your eel spine and going "hmm, this is kinda crunchy, but alright" and then have your friend tell you exactly what you've just eaten half of. Yes, I ate the rest. Yeah, I kinda liked it.
Brett, I'm sorry I didn't email you back. Things got pretty hectic near when I left the U.S. I'll be in Nashua the week after next, if you want to get together. I don't really know what the schedule for bridesmaids is, but I'm sure I'll have some time while Nao's at work.
I'll see some of you soon! Yay! I can't wait.