A Quickie

This will be short and sweet, because I'm using a public computer and I have only 10 minutes left.

This week flew by! We had a bunch of orientation activities every day except Thursday, so I was kept very busy. The best day was Wednesday, when we took a bus ride to Mount Tate (called Tateyama here; "yama" means mountain), and we hiked to the top! Well, almost to the top. It was actually really bad weather, foggy and pouring rain, so we weren't allowed to go past 2,700 meters. (The summit is 3,200 or something like that.) So, we all got soaking wet, but it was great fun nonetheless! I have some cool pictures on my computer, but I won't be able to upload them until I get internet in my apartment. (Not having the net is driving me mad!)

One more great thing that happened was on Thursday night: I had just heated up some frozen fried rice and a pre-cooked fish patty for dinner, when I got a knock on the door. It was my next-door neighbors, delivering a home-cooked meal! It was SO cute of them, and the food was delicious! Two eggs, a hamburger patty, cucumbers, carrots, eggplant, and potatoes. It was the first home-cooked meal I had had since... well, since I left home! They also gave me a little mango-flavored Haagen Daaz cup of ice cream for dessert! In return, I gave them 3 hawaiian tea bags, a key chain, and two postcards, and attempted to speak with them in Japanese. It really made my night!

I'm off, but I hope to write again soon!