Well, I'm finally starting to settle into life by myself in a foreign country. My apartment is really nice - a 2-bedroom place with 6 tatami mats in each room (for those that don't know, that's like a standard of measurement here). My fridge/freezer is tiny, about the size of a bar fridge. I guess that means I'll have to do groceries every other day or so. The toilet struck me as odd: there's almost a faucet-looking thing above the toilet tank. Like a kitchen faucet, but without the actual taps. When you flush, water streams out the faucet and into a hole in the top of the toilet tank. My predecessors left handsoap above the toilet - Are you supposed to wash your hands in that? I guess it makes sense, I mean, it's clean water flowing in, and you may as well conserve water. I asked Toshio about it, and he said, "yeah, I don't do that. You're probably supposed to, but I don't." I haven't been, and after his advice, I don't think I will either. The water pressure in my place is great, the shower feels excellent, especially after a day in the excruciating heat. I hear Ottawa is feelin' a little hot and humid too, but I think something about the humidity here is just that much more gross. You skin constantly feels wet. There's a reason why everyone has towels around their necks, and I see now why my sister gave me face-mops as a going-away present.

On that note, I did a load of laundry, and my clothes dried within a day. Glad I bought a dehumidifier off my preds! I'm also glad I have an air conditioner. It's definitely a way to make friends - "hey, wanna come visit me? I have a/c!"

Something else very different here are the bike locks. Basically, the lock is ON the bike. When you lock it, something goes through the spokes, effectively preventing it from being ridden away. When you insert the key, the lock releases, and you drive around with the key in the lock. Toshio told me that these locks are quite easy to break, and that he's had 2 bikes stolen in the 3 years that he's been here. I asked if he stole any bikes himself, and I guess the correct answer to that would be "3" hehehe.

Other than that, things are starting to settle. I have a couple of friends over here, like Toshio, and Joe. Toshio is my good friend from high school, in fact, my grad date. He's all the way up in Ibaraki tho, so I'm not sure how often I'll get to see him. I'll certainly be able to talk to him though. Joe was a surprise. I knew he was in Japan, but I didn't know that he was THAT close to me. I'm glad I ran into Azuma-sensei at the embassy and she told me that Joe is actually in my prefecture, studying at Okayama University. The world is indeed a small place. He says he's like 2 train stops away, which is just mind-bogglingly close. And, there is a couple that lives not far from me, and they're from Toronto. I think I'll forgive them for that, and try to be friends with them anyway...at least until playoff time when they'll probably refuse to cheer for Ottawa from the sidelines. :) Unfortunately for me, everyone is going on vacation soon. Toshio is going back to Ottawa (go figure he goes back when I finally get here), Joe has gone to India, and the Toronto couple is going to Indonesia to help research orangutans! Things will definitely pick up in September, but for now there are a few other JETs in the area that hopefully I can hang out with.

So yeah, I'm meeting lots of people, eating lots of new things, going lots of places, and seeing lots of stuff, but don't think that I've forgotten everyone back home! I miss you guys lots, and even more, I miss Canadian TV. The only English channel I have here is CNN. Ack, yeah, I generally just leave the TV off. If anyone *ahem Victor* wants to send me some movies, that would be greatly appreciated!

So for those that haven't heard yet, I finally made it to Tokyo safe and sound. That's the good news. The other good news is that it's really easy to make new friends - we all have a new common enemy, affectionately re-named "Northworst Airlines." Everyone at the meetings is all dolled up in business suits and you see the occasional person in running shoes (me) or cargo shorts. Just say, "Do you hate Northwest?" and you've made a new friend!!

The adventure started in Ottawa, when our flight to Detroit was delayed due to mechanical failure. We weren't sure if we would make our connecting flight, but they *reassured* us with a "if you miss the flight, we'll put you up for the night in Detroit." ACK!! Our flight attendant was a little spacy, and on numerous occasions had me thinking, "I'm SURE that wouldn't be acceptable if she were working for AC..." Anyway, because there were over 30 of us, they held the flight for us in Detroit, so thankfully we didn't have to stay there. The angry glares of all the passengers was worth it!!

After arriving, we all herded down to the baggage carrousel, where...a lot of luggage didn't show up. The lineup at the NW counter was quite long, as a lot of Americans didn't get their luggage either. We found out that our bags had sacrificed their lives for us....they spent the night in Detroit whereas we didn't have to. After a small *language barrier* with the customs folks, we finally got on a bus and went to the hotel. All in all, we had been travelling for about 25 hours, and we were exhausted, but hungry enough to go look for food near the hotel. We Ottawa folks stumbled upon some restaurant that was still open, and yours truly went for some big bowl of sashimi. It was delicious, and it had this one meat (it was clearly some sort of meat and not a fish) on it as well. It looked just like the picture of the meat in the menu that had the chinese/japanese word for "horse" under it. You all know me.... I ate it and it was delicious!!

Hotel-wise, I am staying at the Keio Plaza hotel in Shinjuku. The place is massive! I'm on the 28th (of 45 floors) of the main tower. The south tower is just as tall. So it's no wonder that we all fit in here!! Can't say the food is all that wonderful, but I guess they're cooking for a coupla thousand, so I can cut them some slack. I was excited to have congee/jook/okayu for breakfast yesterday tho, talk about comfort food! **edit: since I wrote that, I saw an Irish guy have a bowl of jook for breakfast and instead of putting pickles and salty fish in it - he put a whack of STRAWBERRY JAM....DISgusting!!**

So far we spent all of yesterday in meetings and workshops, so at night, the Ottawa Jets met up to explore a bit. We got as far as about 8 blocks from the hotel, but the city is huge! All the buildings are massive, so you really do feel rather tiny. It's a bit like walking down Bay St. but with all the lights of Picadilly Circus or Times Square. Same sorta deal today...workshops and stuff. I was stupid enough to actually go to them instead of skipping them to see stuff. Bah. Then we went to the Canadian Embassy for a welcome reception, which sucked too. We had to get there ourselves - either take the train or cab. Cab was Y17-1800 ($17-18) split between 4 ppl, one way. I figured we should drink enough of the free (Molson's Cdn Dry) beer so as to compensate for the cab fare, buggers.

The Ottawa crew is going out again tonight, but I don't think I can do it. I'm about to pass out at the end of every sentence I type.