You'd think this thing would come equipped with some smilies...

California: January 7, 4:55 a.m.
Japan: January 7. 9:55 p.m.

Woo. Ok. This won't be very long, but I wanted to jot down a couple things since I've kind of been failing at this. ;)



For starters, let me fill you in on the people here. First, we have Mariko-ba-san and Gigi. They are ChaCha's aunt and uncle; grandma's sister and brother-in-law. Then we have Masato and Keiko. Masato is ChaCha's cousin, Keiko is his wife. They have two kids: Kento and Eri. Grandma and I are staying in Masato's (huge!) house. Mariko-ba-san and Gigi live right next door. :)



Japanese people drive on the right side of the car. And by "right" I do in fact mean WRONG! It's totally trippy! Yesterday, when we were heading from the airport to Masato's house, I sat in the front seat of the car... on the left side. I'm not going to lie, it freaked me out a little. I totally felt like I should be acting like the driver or something. ;) I guess being on the wrong side of the road made it easier to know it was ok for the stearing wheel to be on the other side of the car. :p

Another thing about Japan is that they have the strangest street signs. And they use the metric system! Don't ask me about the weather, it's in Celsius! Means nothing to me! :p However, I can tell you the weather has been nice. I was expecting it to be much colder than it has been, but no. I think it was colder in San Jose! Go figure that one out. (No, don't go there. Over THERE! Good, that's better. Now stay.) (No wait, come back. There's more to read.)

Since we were just on the topic of driving, I'll continue with that. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a vast majority of the drivers on the road are women. Now, that's not like a scientifically proven fact or anything, just a simple observation I made over the past day and a half. You can't necessarily quote me on that either, though, because I've been observing 10,000 other things along with the drivers.

Today was fun! I went to an outlet mall and (you'll never believe this), COSTCO! Eri's boyfriend... crap, I forgot his name. Grandma's asleep so I can't ask her... we'll call him EB. So EB came to the house around 10:00 this morning and drove Grandma, Mariko-ba-san, Keiko, Eri, and me to the outlet mall/Costco. They were in the same general parking lot/vacinity so it was easy. :D Shopping was fun. A lot of the stores I saw in the outlet mall are the same as ones we have at home (i.e. Adidas, Coach, Bose, Nike, Quicksilver/Roxy, etc.). Costco was identical to ours! That really surprised me. Frankly, I was a little disappointed by how "American" the Costco here really was. The layout of it was exactly as ours at home, they sold all the same stuff (with the exception of a few Japanese items which only differed from the ones we can get at the Japanese grocery store at home because they came in bulk), and even had the same exact menu in the food stand place! O.o
Moving on. I made a purchase at Costco! Well, ok, story time. So while I was browsing around Costco, I went down the ONE aisle that seemed semi-different from those at home, and I found a HUGE pack of ramen snacks! I love ramen snacks so I considered buying this bulk package of them. Come to find out, it's a pack of 30 individually wrapped packs. After thinking for a moment, I concluded I was not going to eat 30 packs of ramen snacks while I am here... nor was I willing to take them back home with me. I decided not to buy it. In my attempt to exit this particular aisle, I found something even BETTER than ramen snacks. I found a bulk package of my favorite SPICY OSEMBEI! (ChaCha and Bud know which one) At home, we buy them in packs of 6. At Costco, I bought them in a pack of 20!!!

After we were finished at Costco, it was time to begin the 45 minute drive back to the house. OH! I forgot to mention, while we were driving to and from Costco, I saw Mt. Fuji! It was gorgeous. Anyway, Grandma needed to go to a clothing store of some kind near the house here, so EB dropped us off. I thought everyone was going to go, but no. Nonetheless, I went with Grandma and Mariko-ba-san. We went inside the store and asked the clerk for what Grandma was looking for only to fine out that this particular item had been discontinued. Bummer. We then walked around the store for a few minutes and decided to blow that popsicle stand. The store being only about a five minute walk back to house, we began walking. On the way we stopped at a drug store. It cracks me up at how many things here are written in English. Unfortunately, 99.9% of those things written in English are not grammatically correct. :p Anyway, we stopped at a drug store where I bought a couple things that will make ChaCha and any other member of the Louis family laugh. And by Louis, I mean Louis, Silveira, Donnelly, and Gomes. ;) After the drug store, we continued down the road and stopped in a little convenience store where I bought two packs of Koala Bear chocolate cookie things and a bottle of Fanta Fruit Punch. Woo! All day today, I spent about 2,000 Yen. After I was all proud of my accomplishment, I remembered that 2,000 Yen is only $20. :p

Well, that's my day in a nut shell. I'm going to bed now. Goodnight!

OH, Smalls had mentioned something about live footage. Well I can't promise any of that, but I can give you videos! It's my goal to blog and make a video every single day. We'll see if that actually happens. Anytime I put a new video up, I'll post the link on here. :) Easier than sending yall out searching for it. ;) Goodnight!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI29cTEh0ao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnUNjru3uQ8