May 17th and 18th

I can't believe our week in Taiwan is already over! I had a blast in Taiwan and I hope Japan is the same way! We arrived in Hikone, Japan last night and took a 2 hour train ride to JCMU. It took forever to get through all of the different lines in the airport. We had to go through the swine flu line (or should I say H1N1 to be correct :) ), the customs line, the money exchange line and then the line where we could get our train tickets! What a production! It took like 2 hours for everyone to get throug. Once we got to JCMU we went to Coco's, a restuarant right next door and ate some pretty good food; it definitely wasn't Japanese food, but it was food no the less.

Today we had a welcome reception at JCMU. a survival Japanese class, Arrigato!, we went on a bike tour of Hikone where we ate some actually Japanese food, and then we went to the grocery store to buy some food so we can cook some meals. Let me tell you, it is very difficult to shop for groceries at a store you have never been to, where everything is in Japanese, in 30 minutes. To add to the pressure I apparantly can't shop for more than 1 meal at a time so all I ended up getting was some Special K, Bananas, yougart, water, milk, sunchips and a chocolate bar. I don't think that is going to get me very far! After shopping we went to a music concert at JCMU and then we went to a Reception afterwards.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of Japan in the next week! Oh and I am finally over my jet lag! I have no desire to wake up early in the morning!

-Lauren