Caved in to Craving

Relating to today's title, I finally got to try Japanese McDonald's today. I had the teriyaki burger with fries and soda with a view of the Kotoen Train Station. I was really wanting those fries and soda - so good. Although the food was different and slightly better than the McDonald's I'm used to, it's still McDonald's and fast food so it wasn't amazing. But my curiosity has been sated.

Yesterday and today were pretty productive, Tuesday being leg day and crunch time for homework/study with Wednesday (today) has two tests. I also have met two of my host family's daughters and one of their boyfriends. The youngest, who lives in Indonesia, gave me a souvenir
from Indonesia! It was so unexpected and nice! Most likely Indonesia-only Coconut Oreos. I tried some tonight and they are pretty good (I have been taught under the doctrine of the double-stuff so the creme seemed lacking). I loved coconut and oreos so it was a nice combinations.







I also had my first bento today, which my host dad bought since the parents, one of the daughters, and her boyfriend were going out to eat. When telling me their plans, they kept saying "the four of us" so I knew it was a family-only event and not even including all the kids. I think this is an important week for the boyfriend or something, but I can't quite tell. They are all super nice though. So far, the daughters are about my host dad's height and have adorable glasses as well as nice personalities and smiles. The boyfriend is super nice too and, although the daughter said he uses super heavy Kansai dialect a lot, he talked very quietly and politely (I bet he's impressing the parents). It was all very cute. We watched a video of him doing kyuudou (traditional Japanese archery). Apparently, he is the daughter's (who is level 2 in kyuudou) teacher and they still do archery togehter - adorable!

Plans for future trips are in the process of being formed so they are all jumbled. For instance, we may fly out to Tokyo instead of taking the Shinkansen since there's a sale for flights right now; however, we already made the discount reservations via the school (though we haven't paid yet - also that day was super last-minute). I'm also trying to organize a group to go somewhere this Saturday. We'll see, we'll see.

Bees are buzzing, everything is thickening with lush, bright green, and swallows are everywhere. The weather is gorgeous. However, every now and then, we find bugs in the house - there was literally a caterpillar on our dinner table the other night and, just now, a giant ant on my wall. We just take them out, but we ended up comparing: Vegas has the occasional scorpion while Japan has the occasional centipede. Apparently, the more south you are, and the hotter it is, the more bugs and more centipedes you are likely to encounter or host in your house.

Hopefully I can catch up on e-mails either tomorrow or over the weekend. Still solidifying a nice schedule. I keep learning new things, inside and outside the classroom with topics ranging from academic to cultural to sight-seeing (the latter sometimes affecting my schedule ;-) ).

Good night!