Today, Mr. Potato Head is enjoying his new home!

So today was probably the first day I was not totally homesick / sad. First, we had to check out of Sakura Hotel, which while I loved the rooms, I was ready for a change of scenery. So we went to Waseda and heard Alumni speak about their experiences, which is cool. I was kind of sad no Earlham alumni were there cause I know there's some in Japan, but eh. Urrbody busy. Anywho, THEY HAVE DOMINOS IN JAPAN!!! However, you know how Dominos was BEFORE they did the whole "Let's Change our Sucky Pizza!" campaign? It tastes like what it did before... OH, and I was right, THEY DO PUT CORN AND MAYO ON PIZZA! I tried to be adventurous and eat some japanese pizza, but only one of them was good.. the other had WAYYY too much onion.

THEN, we met our host families. My okaasan (host mother for the sake of this blog) showed up. I felt so bad because I had  no questions for her, and she had a LOT for me, mostly about food. I was SUPERRRR nervous too. So then we headed "home" and my commute is about as much walking as actual riding, which is pretty short... not bad. My mom made tempura (fried stuff) for dinner, which was AWESOME. I also met my host dad, otousan. It feels weird to have a "dad" considering I've never had a "dad" before. However, he's the easiest to understand.

We had a "pow-wow" like thing about our homestay manual, and it was ALL in Japanese. I've taken Japanese four years, and wow. I feel SOOO unprepared. My parents are as good with English as I am with Japanese.. aka the first app I need to get on my iPhone is a Jisho app. Yeah, I'm probably getting an iPhone. My logic: new iTouch when I go back to the States. Otherwise, what else am I gonna do with said phone after Japan?

My room is AWESOME, by the way. It reminds me of a dorm room (desk, bed (NO FUTON), closet, etc). I'm a crazy person who LIKES dorm rooms, so it's a dream for me. The house is huge too... I feel bad, though, cause apparently my family had a dog, but it must have passed away. The pics of him are super cute, too.

The only downside to all this: I'm getting sick already. If it gets worse, I'm going to clinic at Waseda on Wednesday, but I'm thinking it's just a cold / flu thing.