I'm here

So, I've arrived in Japan, safe and sound after a 23 hour trip, plus the two or three hours between landing in the airport and reaching my host family's house.  I managed probably about 4 hours of sleep split across my three flights (mostly the 2nd and 3rd).  Somehow, I've actually not felt tired until just a few minutes ago when I sat down to write this.

Getting through customs was a lot faster and easier than I thought it would be.  After they took our papers, we got fingerprinted and sent through, picked up our bags, gave some other people other papers that said our bags didn't have anything illegal, and went on our way.  They didn't even check anything, which really surprised me.

I do have some pictures, but I'm using my host family's computer tonight, because for some reason mine can't connect to their internet here.  They don't have wireless, either.  I'll upload the pictures when I'm on campus sometime.

It didn't really start to feel like I was in a foreign country until I met my family here.  The construction is remarkably similar, and the plant life is only slightly different.  The farther we got from the airport, the more different things became, though.

My family's son is very cute, and somehow both shy and invasive.  It's interesting.  It seems like half of what he says is "Thayne," just to call me over to look at something.  The surprising thing is that he actually says the "th" correctly.  So far, no one else has been able to.  I didn't even have to teach him; he just did it.

The parents are both very nice, but it's really hard communicating anything complex.  I can understand their instructions on how things work, and I can answer most of their simple questions, but anything requiring an explanation is beyond me.  The two winning questions for today (translated from Japanese, of course): "Why doesn't your church let you drink tea (or coffee or alcohol)," and "Why do you (or people in general) have a middle name?" For the first, no matter how I try, I can't seem to find any words that would work to explain yet. I'll try to come up with something before I leave, though.  For the second... I have no idea how to explain why people have a middle name.  I mean, they just help to distinguish people further.  It never occurred to me that it would be so strange to them.  My answer so far was barely more than "That's a good question."

I should really get some sleep before tomorrow.  It's going to be a busy day.  I should be able to post from this computer again at least.