hmm

Not much really happened today, haha. I am beginning to realize though that I was wrong about a few things about Japan.

1. That I would lose weight while staying here. My family feeds me ice cream and brings home chocolate for me all the time, and there is a Mister Donut at thebus station. Dang it. I might actually gain weight!

2. Japanese people are very friendly. Although there isn't much talking on buses and trains as I mentioned earlier, I have had at least 3 or 4 experiences where people on my bus ride to school sitting behind or in front of me try to start a conversation. I apologetically tell them that my Japanese is very bad. I hate this, because I would like to be able to converse with some Japanese people. But learning the Japanese language in 6 weeks is beginning to feel impossible.

3. I stand out. Haha. I went to a festival the other day in Kurume, and Noemi and I were literally the only people who were not Japanese, and there were hundreds of people there! We get a lot of stares, but almost all are friendly and smiling. And little kids love us, it's adorable. They scoot closer to sit by us and my neighbors have two small children, ages 5 and 9, who come over a lot to ask if Audrey can come over to play Uno? And they've taught me some other games I've never played before. It's very cute.

4. Japan has insanely huge arcades. I went to one the other day that literally had 5 floors of nothing but arcade games.

5. Have you ever been in one of those booths where you sit with a friend or whoever and pose to have a small strip of pictures for your wallet? Well in Japan that is called purikuda, if I am spelling it right. But pirikuda is like extreme. You are in a large booth and pictures are taken of you, but you get to choose colorful backgrounds or funny scenes. And after your pictures are taken, you move over to another booth where you can personalize these already colorful photos. You can add Japanese characters or your own writing, or choose from a large selection of bows, hats, ponies, fish, ice cream cones, stars, hearts, peace signs and a million others. You can also type in your email address or cell phone number and the pictures will be sent to you! Then a couple copies of the pictures taken print out. I have done this twice so far, and they really are cool. I will probably do it quite a few more times, and I will have a wallet full of purikuda. Can't wait to show you all. :)