Big Buddha; Classes Start

Hello from Tokyo on a rainy Tuesday evening. Adding on to last week's small earthquake, we've been getting rain here since Sunday thanks to a typhoon. I guess I'll just have to wait so see what Mother Nature throws at me next week.

Last week I started my homestay and our group went on some field trips around the Tokyo Area. We went to Kamakura last Thursday, which has a bunch of very old temples and this incredible 750 year-old Buddha. Very cool.

Classes started yesterday, and I've been to three already. I had 3 hours of Japanese this morning and I'll do the same on Thursday and Friday, so a grand total of 9 hours of just Japanese class. Add that to the fact to always being surrounded by Japanese, on the train, homestay, etc. my brain is getting a serious workout. Everything involves constant thinking. It's kinda exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time.

And I've been making the intensely crowded commute for the last two mornings. And I decided my big, bulky backpack was getting in the way entirely too much, so I decided to go for it and buy a satchel or "man bag". Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has one here and I can see why. My backpack was incredibly inconvenient bumping into everybody else on the train. While some of the guys' bags here could be worn by women in the US (one of my friends accidentally got hers taken by one of our Japanese guy friends, who has a similar bag), I think I managed to get one that I can be used in the US without ridicule.

Good things happening while away: Titans are 4-0 and Northwestern is 5-0(!)

But apparently the American economy is sucking big time. Get it together America.