Hospitality is the norm throughout Japan

The other day our class wondered into this temple area with grave sites everywhere and this lady came out and i was like Oh my god we just came into her backyard taking pictures how rude i feel so awkward!... she talked to Gary and he told us she said it was ok to look around. the grave sites here are so cool to look at no joke. I guess the lady gave us all these gift boxes made of origami paper, they are really pretty. hehe. so nice of her. today allison catherine jordan and I met this nice man on the bus stop who thought we didnt know our way home. he got on the bus with us wrote directions for us to get home, even tho we know how, and got off with us and pointed. jordan darted off to skype with his folks, and catherine went home. he was telling us that he was glad to meet us and that we were welcome to his home because he has 3 sons all moved out and he and his wife would like guests. so we said ok, and he said i will show you. omg soo freaky at first then we realized we are in japan and he doesnt seem like a creep plus hes old so no big. we followed him we talked about our hobbies i said music, and he plays igo. dunno what that is. you could see the mountains from the walk to his house. and he showed us where horses were. he said horses if you like. he also made sure to let us know not to walk there alone at night. we passed a dentist office and a greenhouse. we had soo much fun communicating and both kept saying that. he kept showing us that there were other ways to get there. he would pt to a road and say this way ok, and move along. hehe cute. and he showed us that we could get to his house from the back, this way ok, but let me show you, and i said "the formal way?" he said yes, i will show you. so he did, cute house long driveway it starts off a one story and goes down with the hill. he said they had to rebuild because it had been attacked by termites, he didnt know how to say termites. i said o termites, they eat houses? he said yes. also they call greenhouses temperature something. then he even walked us home and took us by the shrine that our class has been to. the one with the playground where i had the swing battle with sam. and he took us home that way this time. he gave us his email and i said i liked the houses here they are cute. he said nickname is rabbit house. because they are so small. tehehe. and then he offered to lend his bike to us if we have difficulties. i dunno what difficulties are but it was nice. and he said o i forgot introduce myself my name seki nagazami. and we introduced i said family name rutherford and then we ended up spelling it and i said call me candees. and he said candees easy to remember, and pointed to his head. hehehee so cute. he left and told us to email anytime. loved it. ok now i go to bed we have a field trip tomoro.
11:03 om

Mt Takao firld trip

8:44pm wed. its like mega raining but hot out... Today was a lovely day nice weather we took a bus to this little childrens play place by mt takao. Liz and I ate noodles with ketchup on them. it was actually really good. not going to lie. people were playing their ds' on the bus and i forgot how much i missed having a gameboy!! we all played against each other it was great but i sucked at mario cart and i was quite disappointed with myself. and I was super into it when jordan was playing tetris and lost. i won tetris once yay. anyway. we all went to the playground at this place. that was my favorite part of the day. there was a cool net in the middle with little holes in it that u could just chill in. like a pocket. and a tree in the middle. it was slightly bouncy and i ran around alot and was super crazy. I pushed jordan into a hole. i won! then i climbed the tree. Aya is the lady who is in charge of us here, she did the zip line it was so cute! I did it and then tried it upside down, jordan got a video! OH what fun, everyone got stuck in those little pouches on the net. sooo much fun. and we all watched mike try to do the zipline upside down, he never gave up. finally he got it. when we got to the mt we took this lanted cart up a track to the "almost" top. jordan allison sean catherine and i went to the monkey park. the babies were so energetic, climbing all the ropes and darting through little holes! the adults lounges. they had a cool little pool. one climbed up and jumped into a rainbow bucket, hehehe. the we went on a cool path down the flower garden. the path was very zen japanese ish. We found one of those vending machines that spits out the cup ice and whatever drink you want hot or cold. the playground was the best part i still say. and the bus ride it gave us all a chance to bond. we dont do that enough here i feel because theres school and a lot of times there are just so many other things to do than sit and chill with people. lunch time is good for that i guess. i dunno i can never decide what to do so when its all of us forced to be in one spot it makes it easier i guess is what im trying to say. it was also really funny on the bus we sat by fun people. people who can flip crap and let you do the same. and its never offensive its just hilarious. evan and liz great people. sam erin and liz. loves. and i also remember on the bus you could hear random voices throughout the whole bus like dangit i just got shot w a turtke shell. random but funny. i said something dumb on the bus and i could see evan brainstorming on something to throw at me and i quickly said, "shut up evan, cus i know ur about to say something dickish!" hahaha good peeps. apparently liz and evan went to radiohead concert tooo,yay! love them. i dunno why but i do. oh also flight of the concords just got into that. justin jonathan and jordan were talking about them the other day and i want to make songs liek them. "checkin out my suga lumps" i dig ppl w a good sense o humor. oh and aya handed sean his ticket for the cart that took us up the mountain and it vanished, so liz and i decided that the mt was magical. just sayin. anyway i should stop rambling it was just a great day

10-2-09 friday
today we met the japanese class. So much fun. During our lunch with them one of the girls gave me her email asked me if I wantef to dance and said I was so hot. I said, “temperature wise?” haha they all laughed I honestly thought they might be asking if I was too hot. Nope, she was like, “nooo sexy..” hahaha anyway she wants to go have drinks and do karaoke. Wonderful. she wanted to know where to get crest white strips cus she told me i had white teeth. Then I sat with a group of girls who really liked disney. We all went around and said our favorite characters. Yay. Then we had an after party with them and I left a lil early. Fun times. Woot.
then saturday Allison and I went out with our language partner to tokyo. his name is Akira btw. he brought his friend who was really nice but spoke like no english. we didnt do much that day but they did order me food minus the chicken! yay!! it was delicious! Soooo since nothing really happened that day
Sunday Jordan took me out to Akihabara (spelling?). My snack for the train was white bread with pudding inside. WEIRD! i thought it was a sandwich or pastry nope. white bread with chocolate pudding in it! ahhhhhh. He took me first to the imperial palace.people walk around the place like greenlake. it was funny i made that connection then jordan said it. You get a little tag when u go inside so they can track you i think. the garden was sooo pretty. We saw the teacher gary before we took off. sorry for the side notes. Then Its soooo cool there we videotaped some girls performing on top of a bus. it was for a radio station. We met some japanese kids who inquired about our travels. It was sooo awesome there it was like anime city. I bought some merchandise from toradora. i love that anime. i hardly watch anime and i connected with that one the most. they didnt have many items from that show so i bought a 26 dollar pillow case. MY COUCH PILLOW FROM HOME FITS IN IT! SO I CAN SLEEP WITH IT. I wanted like a wallet or charm but i didnt know the other animes. i bought a placemat from K-on. Also the stairs when you looked up at them had haruhi painted on it. cool. it was so bright tons of lights. and we were lead to a maid cafe by another maid. i was looking confused and she took us to a building and went on the elevator with us and everything. we snuck pics. you are supposed to pay. i wanted to do that. we ate a green tea and bean paste cake. then we took a picture of some character lady in a pimped out car.
monday i wasnt feeling so hot so i came home during school and slept. then whitney came over to check on allison and me. we had quite a discussion. lots of info. ;) ladies we need a sleepover. then tuesday i cried during japanese again. AHHHHH i hate that. it makes me feel like such an idiot. i mean im not the smartest but i am somewhat smart. after class i found out that liz cried too. she erin and i went to the dollar store and i got some japanese cheetos. yuck they are like sweet. then at school whitney emailed her language partner, utas phone so he could help us find glue and he replied right away saying hed come to help. in all caps. tehe. what a nice dude. he saved me money on making sure i didnt spend 2 bucks on crappy glue. yay. benri na uta des. hehehehehe now im at jordans apartment trying to do our photog hw. its weird its raining but i dont like to where too many clothes cus ill sweat its so humid here. eek

its thursday

The other day I had to squat to pee in the bathroom. I had to face this little shield and pee. Weird!!!! I had to double check n make sure I wasnt in the boys bathroom. Nope it was the girls. Sooo I had to take off my boot, my tights and my skirt and go to the bathroom and I had to make sure I was going super slow because.. well ya know. Omg it sucked. Allison and I had to meet our language partner the other day and while we were waiting this guy came up to me and said “nice to meet you.” I said the same back but forgot to say my name. He told me he was from china. I said I was from seattle wa in the us and asked him if he new where it was. He did. I was still unsure if it was impolite to ask his name I dont know why I thought thatd be weird but I did. Then I asked what his hat said. It was slightly covered. He said “I hate my job, and I do.” hahaha I was like ya me too. I asked what he does he said engineering, and I asked why he didnt like it or why he was doing it. And he said his cousin said you should do engineering and he said he couldnt say no to him or his cousin would say, “go back to china!” haha wonderful. We went to tokyo the other day and visited a shrine. Very spiritual experience. But when we got to the little charm buying place I cried because it was like charm for good luck a charm for victory, a charm for peace of mind, a charm for swift recovery. I was sad because my dad would be going into surgery on that day technically tomorrow from when I was thinking. But still the 30^th US time. OHHHHH my family needs all the luck we can get, but were strumming along so far. Ahh its just hard for me not to be there with them. Sad beans. We went to harajuku and we saw a store called candish. Thats the language I speak! Haha. We totally did not get to spend enough time there. Soo many cute clothes that are nowhere near the states yet. And it was cute that some of the people who worked there were dressed in cos play. :) um ya.

hello

Sooo i cried during class today because the teacher was teaching japanese and only writing in hiragana which i dont understand. So when it was time to repeat and talk I was just like ahhhhhhh. and started crying. :( she grabbed my arm and was tellin me it was ok. i felt bad. Also good news my online banking is going to wrk as soon as i call during business hrs. Thank god. i was like how am i supposed to call when i dont have a phone. the payphones here at school have english numbers. YAY! oh thank god. thank gooooddddd. I want to go exploring really bad!!! I hope we go bowling tonight i heard it was really fun. I took a video today of lil kids. they were all wearing pink hats and there was one kid conducting the rest who were singing soooooo cute so so cute. i dunno why they were at the college?...

first day of class. soooo intense want to die. walking sooo much. the ppl here are so interesting and so is the fashion. its weird cus i wanna people watch but everyone stares at me cus im the only american or in the only group of americans at the school. so if im looking at people they are most likely looking at me. love the clothes. LOVE. i want to buy everything. and i love how japan makes everything so pretty. the cards that we slide at school make a swooshy fairy noise. and evrything is so decorated. there is a cemetary by jordans place and we peaked in a little. normally im afraid of them but again the one here is sooooo pretty! i want a phone so bad. ahh i am afraid to walk home from school alone cus im afraid of getting lost. oh dear. im going to try. wish me luck

at home its 8:30 pm. here its 12:30 pm weird