Almost two weeks now...

I should probably update this. I don't really know what to write about, though. I've been pretty busy (well, active at least). CIEE keeps us moving, even if it's not always the most exciting thing. But I guess that's good. I've been going around Tokyo a lot, doing lots of karaoke and the like. On Thursday, the CIEE group left for an overnight trip to Nikko, which is a small town with lots of shrines and temples, about 3 hours North of Tokyo. The weather was nice, and the area was very pretty (see photo).

Other than that, I am just waiting for classes to begin. Oh, my phone is super advanced, even though it was the cheapest one I could find. It has infrared! So if you want to exchange contact information, simple touch your phones together and it does it automatically! Lots of other nifty features, too.

Hajimete. 日本は楽しい。

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Oh god, all of my blog menus are now in Japanese. I'm in Japan! I've only been here 2 days so far, but I've been very busy with orientation, and also just exploring the city separately. It's an amazing place! I heard about how different Japanese culture was, but actually being here, it really hits you. I do love the mix of traditional and modern. Also, such a contrast to my Russian stay - everyone here is so polite (whereas in Russia, they were often pretty rude on the street). I'm not very confident in my Japanese yet, but I suspect it will get better (I just moved in with my host family today, and they speak no English at all, so I had to get over my hesitation to speak Japanese).

We've been on a few bus tours and the like so far, which I didn't really get any pictures of (because it was inside a bus, and therefore crappy). But I got to walk around some very nice streets, I'll just post a few photos.

I deleted a bunch, because the formatting was really weird. But these two are of Shibuya crossing (the most famous Tokyo area probably), and an all-purpose store.