Home Visit

Ami and I went to visit a Japanese family today. They were very nice. We took the train to Makuhari, which is two stations closer to Tokyo than Inage is. The mom picked us up in a minivan and it was about five minutes back to their house. It is really scary being on the wrong side of the road in a car. I was unnerved. Ami was fine, because apparently in Indonesia they drive on the wrong side of the street too. The car had a GPS thing which was actually really cool because it had a map of where we were driving and you could see all the streets around. Then when she was backing into the parking spot, the GPS turned into a video camera showing the rear of the car. Which was cool. It was in color, too.

We had cookie-cracker things (one was Americanish and was cake with marshmellow filling covered in chocolate but flat and round, otherwise it would have been a hoho, and the other two were rice crackers and one had a soy sauce like coating and the other had frosting drizzled on one side and salt on the other) and talked to the two girls (12 and 15) and the mom. The dad was in Kyoto on a business trip. The older girl is going on a homestay program in Conneticut next year, but she didnt really speak English to us, but whatlittle she did say was pronounced much better than Japanese people usually pronounce English. Apparently we are the fourth set of foreign exchange students from Chiba University they have had visit them and they also are a host family when foreign kids come to visit the school the girls go to. For lunch we had this rice thing that had carrot shreds and mushrooms and some sort of seafood mixed in and egg strips, nori pieces (the dry seaweed that is on the outside of sushi) and this bright pink stuff that was really sugary on top. It was yummy. There was also "potato salad" which looked kind of like potato salad, in that it was that yellowish color you get when you mush up hard boiled egg with mayonaisse, but it also had cucumber and apple pieces in it and no potatoes. I was skeptical but it was good. And there was a lot of food. I was sort of expecting to not be fed enough to not be hungry, but it was definately a good size of food.

It's the 9th, so Silke and I went to Saty for discount crepes - the new seasonal one is Strawberry in "Rich Chocolate" with a piece of a brownie like thing, and we both got the gelato version. So good! We went up to the toy department and walked around and there were many things I wanted to play with myself. Then we looked at the pet department and it was kind of sad because the dogs were obviously barely old enough to be alone and looked so tiny. But they were all dogs that when fully grown are cat sized, so maybe it was not as cruel as it looked. The few cats looked unhappy being around so many dogs, but they were all closer to being full size. And they are expensive! All of them cost more than a THOUSAND us dollars. Animals are supposed to only cost how much the shots cost. And there were dog treats that were packaged to look like sushi. Now I really want to come home and play with Aaron's kitties.

I got this personal heater thing so I can put it in my lap or on my feet when I get cold without wasting electricity warming where I am not sitting. I was going to get a hot water bottle, but the electric heater cost less and would not require making hot water (which takes forever!). The guy at the store said you can use it to warm your bed but not while you are sleeping. I am looking forward to testing it out tomorrow morning.

Tonight I am going to either finish my law paper or start my econ one...