Day 2: Introductions and learning my way around

I still don't really have access to the internet, except via the family's computer, but it should work out.  It just means I can't post pictures or respond to messages easily until I'm at school, which starts tomorrow.

I woke up tired a little before 5:00 am, but forced myself to stay in bed until about 9:30, because I knew I'd need the sleep.  Still, adjusting to the time difference has been surprisingly easy.

The first event of the day, after breakfast, was Ranmaru's softball game.  He's 6, and was playing in his first match ever today.  I met his grandparents, and we all went to a nearby middle school, which seemed to be having a sports day of some sort.  There were lots of different teams for different games from different schools.  I've never really been into sports, but it was fun to watch him play.  His team won, but Ranmaru himself didn't really help.  He did manage to hit the ball once, though, which is more than some of the other young children.  I got a few curious looks at the game from some of the students, but not as much as I'd anticipated.  At least, not that I saw.

After that, we had lunch and my host parents took me to the local church, where I met the bishop and arranged a ride with one of the members for the next three weeks.  I had been writing down directions, but apparently I won't need them.  We also went by bike to the school, so I've learned that route (I hope).  It was probably about 20 minutes getting there, but they were riding pretty slowly.  I'll probably do it in 10 or 12.  Speaking of riding the bike, there are a lot of streets here that don't have any sidewalks or anything, and barely enough space for two (very small) cars to pass each other.  It's kind of unnerving, riding my bike on the wrong side of the road, with traffic behind me curving just a few feet out of the way to not hit me.  The main roads have sidewalks, though.  It's just the smaller residential ones that are problematic.

I spent the evening playing piano and talking to my host family.  The mom, Yukie, speaks English to some extent, but the dad, Hiroto, doesn't really speak much English at all.  So far, we've managed to communicate the most important things, and we usually find some way to say what we want to.  Almost all in Japanese, unless I can't understand something they say and they look up the English word online.

As for the piano, I started off with an American piece, then Korean, then basically all anime and games after that.  Hiroto requested Final Fantasy music, particularly from 6, which I am fortunate enough to be able to play and have with me.  They all liked my playing, and said I can play whenever I want, so I plan to do it frequently.

I should probably be heading to bed soon.  Oh, before that, about the food: So far, everything has been pretty good.  I'm eating everything they serve me, which is usually enough to push me well into "full" territory.  I've had fairly normal meals, but something new each time.  I've also managed to eat everything with the chopsticks so far, except for a little bit of the very first dinner last night, where they gave me a fork.  I'm going to try to keep that up.  Actually, they gave me my very own chopsticks before we ate.  They have my name embossed in them near the top: セイン.  It's kind of cool.  I wasn't expecting that.

Alright, that's enough for today.  I'm sure I'll have more tomorrow.  Oyasuminasai.

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.