Hey all,

So I`m not sure how I want to organize this blog yet, so these entries may be all over the place - just a word of warning.

Well I arrived in Japan on Thursday around 2:45 pm Japan time. The flight wasn`t really all that bad. I mean it was 9 hours, but they had 6 movies I could watch that replayed every 6 hours as well as a couple of TV shows. The movies weren`t that great (if you haven`t seen Evolution, don`t). I did watch this documentary on the lemur though. Apparently, all the lemurs in Madagascar descended from one `proto-lemur` and there are now about 30 species (thought you might appreciate that Colleen).

Once I arrived it took me a little while to find Erik, he was in the other terminal, so I had to shuttle bus over there. He had already met up with his friend Akiko, and we headed over to her house. She was nice enough to find a place for us; there is an older couple who had moved out of an apartment a building over from her, and the new tenants weren`t moving in til October 1st. Talk about a sweet deal. Her house is definately cozy, there`s a room for her, her mother and her sister, a kitchen that`s about 9 x 12,a living room that`s the a little bigger, and a washroom, shower and laundry room all integreted into one.

Well, her mother had prepared a great meal for us. She doesn`t speak much (if at all) English so Akiko did the translating for us and I tried to speak what little Japanese I know. We had zushi, which are hand-rolled sushi rolls. Basically we take the nori (seaweed) put on some gohan (rice) and then whatever `toppings` we want. There was tuna, salmon, octopus (which was really good), cucumber, nani (a sticky nut mixture), sprouts, as well as a couple other things. We were quite hungry and she kept on encouraging us to eat, so Erik and I went to bed with full tummies.

Later,
Drew

PS. Japanese commericials are absolutely hilarious!!