first day in Okayama August 26, 2007

Today Lindzy, Kanika and i took on Okayama. we went exploring and found a billion amazing little clothing shops. We found this awesome street with vintage clothing, the dollar store where i bought a cute little umbrella to use as shade from the stifling hot sun (it’s sooo ridiculously hot here. like tropical, i’m not even exaggerating) and adorable pink chop sticks. We also found a grocery store where we bought food for dinner, went back to the dorms and made a delicious salad and had sushi and endamame. Now i’m just hanging out in Lindzy’s hotel room, drinking some free espresso (they have free internet here which is the best thing in the entire world) unfortunately it’s like 5:45am back home so none of you guys are on msn which is depressing. Lindzy’s just taking a bath, Kanika’s taking a nap next door, soon I’m going to head back to the dorms and shower and get ready for a fun evening on the town. Lindzy and I grabbed a 6-pack of tall boys, some beer called “Green Label” and it says it “guarantees a good time.” There was an amazing rhyming slogan underneath that which I can’t remember, but I’ll definitely write it down and post it because it was the only reason we bought it.
        The locals are amazing. the most adorable school girls were soo excited when we asked them if we could take a picture with them. There were a couple girls in one of the clothing stores who could hardly speak any english at all, but were so happy when we understood what they were trying to ask us where we were from and what we were doing here.  It was neat when we told them we were here to teach and they said “OH! Sensei”. Yeah, I’m a sensei. A big thing with the kids here is wearing t-shirts with English slogans on them. The funny thing is that none of the slogans make any sense whatsoever and you know they have no idea what they mean since they actually don’t mean anything. 
       Funny story, there’s actually a girl staying in the dorms who’s with the AEON group (I’m in the Amity group, we teach kids, AEON teaches adults) and she’s from stoney creek. She lives on Green rd and went to OP. what a small world it is indeed.
        Since Lindzy and Kanika have the net in their hotel room I’ll be able to be in touch this week. Hope to talk to you all soon, keep the facebook updates and emails coming. I love hearing from you.

hugs and kisses
-alyssa