Toyohashi-shi, my future 2nd home *^*

I never realized how big the city part of Toyohashi is... I've never lived so close to such a large city before so hopefully I won't get super lost! I found my host family's home on google maps, it kind of made me feel like a stalker... to protect their privacy I will not be posting a map to where they live. They live in the residential part of Toyohashi, in between the downtown area and beach/countryside; the switch from city to countryside is really drastic in Toyohashi. ...yeah

Good times \(^@^)/

Saturday/Sunday I went to an super ooooober awesome AFS orientation. I met another girl who is going to Japan!!! She's been studying the language for a lot longer than I have but that just means I must work harder! >,< I also met two girls from Japan who are in the US right now, both were really awesome and helpful. There were two boys from Japan last year who are also awesome (awesome people are great) that I had met and they gave me a lot of info too, but I'd forgotten some of their advice :( ...If you all are reading this, HI!!! I learned that UNO, the card game, is not just in the US but in other countries to, like Japan, so I need to get my host bro a new gift...idk what but I have 2 months so I'll definitely figure it out by then ;) Anywho, can't wait to leave in a couple months and I really hope my COE (needed for the visa) comes soon, last year I got my COE so last minute that my visa wasn't processed till a week before I was supposed to leave to Japan. ...yeah

It's a New Year!!!

the past year I've been doing everything I need to do to catch up in school and what not, so that this coming March I can actually go to Japan!!! the whole nuclear situation is now under control and it's relatively safe to go to the country :) I'm going to be staying with the same awesome host family!!! It's only a couple months away but I want to go and board that plane tomorrow. I just hope that Japan will be ok now that they might pass some legislation that closes all nuclear plants over 40 years old, which will shut down 90% of their plants leaving only 4 open. But the Japanese people have many great ideas and will hopefully figure out a way to gain back the lost energy through other means :) ... note I added a link to a picasa album on the side of the page so that you can access pictures that I upload when in Japan, but it may change to flikr soon (I'm still deciding between the 2). oh yeah... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!! that was a bit late, sorry O_O  ... I know this has nothing to do with what I was just writing about but here's a cool link :)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkCuPrsPn_I