July 25, 2011--Day 3 in 日本 (Japan)

hello!  I made it outside in the heat to explore a little bit of 岡山 (Okayama). My roomie, Ann, and I and a couple of the girls ventured off to find the Starbucks in hopes of finding some free wifi. Found the Starbucks, but no such luck with connecting to Internet. I did, however, have an appropriately named Americano and a scone that tasted like dried, crumbly shit. We headed over to the International Center and tried stealing Internet outside until they opened. There, we met a fellow American named Dan, originally from San Diego. Once we had our internet fix, we met up with everyone else and went to the castle and gardens in the area. The castle, although very beautiful, wasn't as exciting as I had hoped. But it had a beautiful view. Look!

Okayama Castle

                                       

View from the top!

I'm not sure what this is called..but it's cool!

We grabbed lunch at an "Italian" place where I shared pizza and pasta. Definitely no Olive Garden.

The gardens are so pretty!! Everyone soon found out that I am terrified of birds as someone screamed, "egret!" and I ran in the opposite direction. We all got peach frozen yogurt and made our way towards town, stopping at a shopping area along the way. This was the longest shopping corridor ever. Swear..it was like 7 blocks before we decided to hang a right somewhere. Found a button shop and I helped Ann buy a button to fix her jeans. 

Ann on a bridge!!

a little place to cool off

8 out of 11 of us..

it's peach!

Ann, Ben, and I went on a walk to find dinner. We stopped at a little place and all got donburi--like a rice bowl. I got 天ぷら丼 (ten-pu-ra-do-n). Basically tempura with rice. So yummy! The one thing I really dislike about tempura is that they coat it in such a heavy batter and fry it, that I never really know what it is. The only thing I could decipher was the eggplant..gave it away. I ate everything else, even though a couple of them I wasn't sure what they were. :-) We all sat around and talked and then went on a short walk to walk off all the rice we just ate. 

We have our first day of training tomorrow...I think I'm more nervous about how I am going to look in my suit than how intense training will be. I'm surprisingly not homesick, but it's only been a few days. I feel like it will set in when I move off to my own place in Shizuoka. I've had so much fun getting to know everyone so far. I really do hope we can all stay in touch and get together once we all part. 

Training starts promptly at 9:45am. I really don't know how well I am going to adjust to this whole punctuality thing...Wish me luck!! Until next time! またね!!

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New vocabulary:

~蒸し暑い  moo-shi-a-tsu-i     friggin' hot

~ピザ          pee-za       pizza

~スパゲッティ   su-pa-get-tee   spaghetti