This Week

So this week has kind of stunk, since I've had class Monday-Thursday from 9:00 to 6:00, which lift me with very little time for anything but going to class, eating, and studying/doing homework. I did go to the Yasukuni war memorial shrine on Wednesday though, which was pretty cool (though I was technically going there for a class)

The shrine and surrounding area are beautiful, but the best part in my opinion is the war museum next to it. I only had about 30 minutes to tour it before it closed, so I didn't get to see/read everything I wanted to, but it was really interesting to see Japan's perspective of all the wars it's been involved in.

I then wrote a short presentation on how to get there (thank you Nakama 2, chapter 6!). All the other people in the workshop who decided to go there were in the class above me and were talking about the museum or the shrine or even the controversy surrounding them, so I decided to do something lighter and simpler.

Today (Thursday, my last day of class this week), I went out with some peeps and tried okonomiyaki for the first time. It's sort of a big pancake with meat and vegetables and (in our case) noodles and it's quite tasty.

After that, Ethan 1, Carrie, and I took the train to Shinjuku to visit the top of the Metropolitan Government building. The view at night from up there is pretty incredible, lighted buildings as far as the eye can see. There was a lot of glare in the windows though, so we couldn't take very good pictures.

There was also a drinking fountain up there, which are almost impossible to find in Japan!

After that, we wandered around the east side of Shinjuku station for a while which we discovered was full of 2 things: Restaurants and shady strip clubs.

Tomorrow, I meet my host family and stay with them for 2 nights. I'm a little anxious, but it should be interesting. A lot of people were already contacted by their family by e-mail, but I wasn't, so all I know is that it's just a couple in the house (aged 43 and 33), they don't smoke, they don't have pets (which is too bad), and I'll have a western-style bedroom.

I'll be staying near Machida City which is about as far from Tokyo as you can get while still being considered part of Tokyo.