Bye Bye 3rd years.

I just found out that all the 3rd year students leave the kendo club so they can study after school. Today we foted a new captian of Kendo club and the winner was Yamada!!! should be interesting, He has a new routine set up for daiyly practice and he has included a new techniqu that I have been wanting to practice scince I seen it. I have tryed, unsuccessfuly to pull it off but now we will practice it everyday and that is a good thing.

He took control today and we start training under him tomarrow... not a lot of diffeance I suppose. Just a new routine.

I gave all the People that fought in the tounement CDs with video's of the game I took on my phone, They liked that... A lot more than I thought.

今からマールする・・・

Kendo shiai[tournament]

I got to see my first official Kendo tournament today and yesterday. I didn't fight mind you, but I did watch. I also took about 20 movies of fights. I was looking for videos of Kendo matches on the internet and found about 5, I will put my own on the net and then people will be able to find them more easy. My gift to the internet, along with my Japan pictures.

I'll put of the movies when I get around to it, You know how that could end up. Its taken 2 month's for the pictures to start getting up on the net and over 8 months for descriptions...

any ways,the games were awesome! The teams were from all over Kumamoto prefecture. Kumako lost all 3 of the individual games on the first round but today..... Today we won one team battle! Yah Kumako!!! And in the next battle, the club captain won his match but the rest of the team lost there's so we didn't move on, no one expected a win during that round.

I have no clue why some people won and others lost, it was too fast for me o see anything. My camera on my phone is too low quality to really get any detail either, but I managed to figure out a few battles.

All the aikido people are in some special training thing and I didn't go because I didn't think there would be any time, That also means the normal practice was canceled. OH well, I didn't think I would make it back in time in any case.

tomorrow I will start to choreograph my speech to Kumako for my good bye farewell thing. Its so fast! I also have to do up a 3 page report for Rotary on the 16th of next month.. .I was thinking of printing out my blog and given that to them. Its about 97 pages more then they asked for, but whatever.

I Just did a count, I have 88 pages of posts since starting this blog. That is text only posts, no links, no pictures, no formatting, just the date and the then the post. I am afraid, very afraid... I have to spell check that at some point in time before printing it off... I best start spell checking posts as I post them then.

jya ne

Osaka International Convention 2004

It was just me and my previous host family that went to Osaka. we took a flight out of Kumamoto at 8:00am and arrived in Osaka at 9:05. from there wee took a bus to a train station. After finding out the way to the train we took one train to somewhere. got on another buss that took us to the hotel taht RI was being held at.

I think the hotel's name was "the Royal Ryitz" or something Like that. we sign inand got our badges. We took a look around the convention center after getting lost in the guest room sectin. I was correct in saying that we should to teh next biulding over, but no.... they seid to go to the 3rd floor and implied that my host father knew that it was the other building. We get in the elevator press teh 3rd floor button and the elevator starts going, no minding the fact the light on the 3rd floor button wasn't on. after gettign to teh 6th floor we are puzzeled and other people get in with us. I do some translating for some people and tell them what floor we are on, I met an exchange student that seid there was a TON of people from michigan there. over 20 at least.

now we have tried the elevatores and various thing trying to get to the 3rd floor, my host father says we should go to the 4th floor, then use the stairs to go downa flight... the was nothgin on that floor at all, just more rooms. he greed that I was right in that is was the other biulding. The elevator would also not let us leave the 3rd floor eather so wee took the stiars back to th 4th floor and the elevator down.

We all are registered and all that fun stuff, I wanted to check out the RYE section on the 10th floor and we do so, I met a few exchange students and we left for Kyoto.


Kyoto was a short jump from Osaka, we got to the station and I remembered the place from my previous trip to Japan. IN the year 2000 I came to Japan and we seen the station and Kyoto Tower, then went home. But this time we got on a bus and went down to a famous river. It is on TV all the time and in many movies. I don't knwo about it but Okamura was enjoying seeing it. then we waled down some famous road that was way too narrow and linned with expenceive bars and resturants. Then after a long walk and I took a movie of walking down the road, we headed kyosuido... I think taht was the name of the place, IT is a big tourist attcaction for the waterfall that is there and a large temple there.

The accuall palace was up a long road lined with gift shops and I found a shop that sold swords taht kyoto and Osaka are famouse for... cheap, nice looking, aluminum swords!!! I knew that I would find one while on my trip and that completedd one of my goals for coming to the reigon. I was looking at the one ai wanted 7000yen, 70$ abouts, and another american that knows nothgina bout swords walks in and pretends he does, he "strenth tested" the aluminum sword..... Baka.... aluminum sowrds are for looking at only and have no real function, you CAN use then to start practicing sword fighting, but the ceap ones are never the right length, they are just set to whatever looks good, the blade is also about as dull as a table counter, It wont slice even the air correctly whiel swinging it. The swords that are fit for such training are about 300$ and up in Kumamoto. I suspect Kyoto and Osaka will have a much larger selection of price. Kendo shinai's are 1400yen for just the bamboo and 25 for a full shinai. the prices will go up a little soon though, the cheap ones will be discontinued.

Back we seen it did it enjoyed it and left, we picked up my sword as we left the temple, I didn't want to carry it and left it at the shop I bought it at. We walked down to the main street for shopping in that particular area and then a bus to the kyoto station and headed back to Osaka. After getting to Osaka and asking for directions we go to the Bussiness Hotel. THe room was smaller then anythign I ever seen and te beds we so close together I thought they were one bed. Becasue of teh convention there was no rooms left when my host family reserved the hotel... I told them to do it in december but no one lisened to me, every hotel was booked for this weekend by febuary. 58000 people in one city will tend to do that though.

THat night we just walked the streets of the shopping district witch was really close and ate some taco-yaki [Literaly means baked octopus; don't let the name fool you, octopus is really good!!! cooked or not. If you can eat a McDonald's chicken nugets, you can eat octopus. don't let the suckered stick to the roof of your mouth...]

For dinner we ate yaki-nikku[ cooked meat! isn't that a hard one to swallow] I suppose Osaka is famus for it of somthing, the sause is realy diffent, slightly sour compared to Kumamoto. we had to try 4 differnt resteraunts before finding any open tables. It was good stuff.

After taht we went to the hotel and slept. tath was pritty much it for the day. we did small pointless things and stuff and seem street proformers and a canadian or american sellign knock-off watches and other stuff get bused buy the police and he had to pack up his table. We seen another guy, the next day, get busted for the same thing in the same place.

The next day we got up and went to the conferance. we get there and eat breakfast, it was lunch type food, for breakfast. we stood at a table with no chairs out in a loby food center type place becaseu all the tables we taken in the dining hall already. during this time I talked to numerous people that were walkign by and convinced them to eat some things they never whoudl have if I didn't tell them it was good. One old lady shivered at the thought of tryign to eat taco-yaki... I wondered If I was ever like that and how you could have such a closed mind to other cultures... I must have adjusted to all of the things I see by now but I think I would eat snake or somthign like taht if I went to Veitnam or something. She wouldn't even eat Japanese food.

Whiole at this table a canadian came by and I got him to eat some chinese thing that was nearby, It waws rice and chicken wraped and steamed a bamboo leaf. while talking and reading his face at the surprise taht it accually tasted good, I translated a conversation between my Mr. Okamura and him. He gave Mr. Okamura a banner from his rotary club, Swan City Rotary Club. I thought that was cool taht I could do that, I had been doing it all the time at the conferance, helping people talk to eath other, I had been there about 4 hours between the 2 short days of being there.

After eating, we left for the Osaka Dome, where the opening Cerimony was to be held. We walk to the shuttle bus stop and the tell us we have to wait for 40 minutes before the first bus leaves for the Dome. Also they say that is is 1000 yen for Japanese and Forginers are free.... I would have a free ride but the lot of peopel I was with waiting were all Japanese! I was a little mad at that little fact, and they were too, I didn't think taht was fair. I also seen a lot of special deals that were for non-japanese people only, like all you can eat buffet that is normaly 60$ was 30$ for non-Japanese. there were numorus other things as well. Later I fugured out the resoning behind this. Japanese can figure out the way to get there withought the bus, Forigneres will likely get lost trying when the most of them don't speak ANY Japanese. It makes sence, but still isn't fair. They had over 30000 people to get form the hotel to the dome, You have to ensure the safty of the foringers that don't knwo what they are doing walking into the FRONT[You get on a bus in the center of the bus in Japan, not the front like Europe and other places] of a public bus.

We decide to use the free Kansai Pass taht was given to use from the conferance. Whith all registrations all regitrants get a pass that grants free public transportation use. Busses, subways, trains, trams. TAht stuff. We go and take a subway and get lost with this other Japanese couple. They were really nice and funny, we traded cards right before seperateing at teh dome. dduring the trip on the subway we were told to get off at the wrong stop and had to talk to the station maaster to get on the right track again. we needed to go one more stop and transpher.

When we arive at teh Dome finaly it was the same time that if we took the bus we would have arrived. The dely at the wrong station really set us back, we got to the Dome an hour before the gates opened to admit people in any case. We walked around teh perimiter looking for a place to get a drint or somthign but every table in ever resteranunt and every bar was paced with people. We finally JUST found a seat at Mcdanolds and grabed it like starved pigs..... Seats were hard to come by. Mr.Okamura went and bought drinks, He thought it woul be funny to bring my the 1 liter sized cup with coca-cola... I made thenm drink part of it. That was a massive cup of cola.

we finally get in to the dome, It was huge! peopel were slowly filtering in and then they started playing music. various live performances including traditional Japanes music and Korean music, an Orcastra, and soem orcistra from Newyork doing rag time style performance. the Korea girl song a song in English, teh theam fomr Titanic.... It wasn't good, but it was REALLY nice that she gave it a try. I thought that was much more important than the song in any case. The New York Rag Time guys also played a Japanese song and tryed to talk in Japanese, I kinda chuckeld at a few of there mistakes. When you say desu in Japanese, you say dess not desu the u is silent. No one told any of teh people who talked in Japanese. On the otehr hand, The song that the guy sung was REALLY good, He must have practiced a lot on that song. pronounciation was really good, but when he spoke in normal speak it was the same as all the rest of them. "desu"...... The point is they tryed to be multi linguale and considerate to the other parties involed.

after all the music,about an hour and a half, the stadium was full, hardly an empty seat to be found, there was an expecter 58,000 people there. The speah started half an hour or so late waiting for important people. that left us with 10 minuites before we had to leave to do the last thing on the list of things to do while in Osaka. But in the 10 minutes we seen a tranditional Noh play. My host father says that it is thing only Rich Japanese like to watch and understand. I kinda think I go tthe point a little bit but not really. we left right at the end of that.

What did we do? we went back to teh hotel to get an earing that mrs. Okamura forgot and eat Osaka modainyaki..... It was good. really good stuff, Osaka is famous for it as well, Kumamoto is famous for Basashi[horse meat] if your wondering. Basashi tastes bad at first but I got used to it and it is just a normal food now. I hope Mr. Bell back in America dosesn't read that... I won't be passing his class next year if he does..... ;P Mr. Bell is a science teacher that breeds horses, for those that don't know him.

after eating that late lunch we headed to the Osaka station. got on out train, got off at Shin Osaka Eki[New Osaka Station] and bought shuttle tickes to the airport. We get near the gate and a garurd says that we will miss our flight if you wait for th bus and should hurry to catch a taxi. WE go and get a taxi on teh uper level of the station and we are off, they driver "forgets" to turn on the meter and charges us 4800Yen... yea, right, FORGOT to turn it on... we made out flight with lots of tiem to spare, I got omiyagi[Gifts] for my host family and then had a glass of water while they had a parfae. I was too full form all teh other food I had eaten in the past 2 days to eat another parfae...

The plane ride took an hour and five minutes and we had no problem getting my sword though security, I did have it personaly HAnded to my when Exiting the airport though. It didn't come out on the convayor belt with the rest of the stuff.

That was teh trip to Osaka, I didn't get to meat up with a few frinds taht I wanted to see again, but they also didn't emat any of there friends either, There was just to many people to find each other without a cellphone, and the 4 people that I wanted to meet didn't have a cell phone...


I did find that I enjoy translating for people, that was really fun. And I got to see the Japan that people think of when you say Japan, shines and temples and then the night life. all teh flashing bilbordsa nd neon lights. the bums and foringers... A great ime in all, Even If I didn't get to see much of the COnvention itself.... accualy, I saw none of the accuall convention, we left before the first speach was given. there will be future years I suppose. I just have to figure out the whole haveing to be in Rotary to Attecnd these thing, and to be in rotary I have have a bussness. Small details I suppose.

Next planed trip, a trip to America. I wonder what that is going to be like. I don't Know if my ENglish is good enought to find my way around America, I hope there is lots of Japanese information boards.

ちゅんぼじゃない！[chunbo jya nai(I'm not lazy)]

I'm not lazy, honest, I have a lot typed up now, Its not finished yet though, letme type more when I'm not tiered tomarow, taht way you can read teh full story, for today, Just check out the pictures, I have 5 new ones up you never seen. updated daily!!!!

LIVE UPDATE! 4

OSAKA IS AWSOME. IM IN THE HOTEL NOW. I GOT TO SEE THE JAPAN THAT YOU SEE ON TV. I HAVE A LOT OF PICTURES TO PUT UP LATER.

I ALSO SEE ON TV NORTH KOREA LET GO OF JAPANESE HOSTAGES TODAY AND BEGAN TALKS WITH JAPAN AS WELL. I THINK THEY SUSPECT THAT THEY WILL BE THE NEXT IRAQ. KIM IS GETTING A CLUE.

TOMAROW IS ROTARY

LIVE UPDATE! 3

WE ARE LEAVING KYOTO RIGHT NOW. IT WAS REALY GREAT TO ACCUALY SEE THE CITY THIS TIME. I HAVE LOTS OF PICTURES TO ADD LATER. I THINK THE TRAINS ARE FASTER UP HERE THAN KYUSHU.

FIRST WE TOOK A WALK ALONG A FAMOUS RIVER, ABOUT 20 METERS. THEN WE TOOK A TAXI TO A TEMPLE THAT WAS NIFTY. WE WALKED ABOUT 2 OR 3 KM AFTER LEAVING BEFORE GETTING A TAXI AFTER LEAVING.

NOW WE WILL GO BACK TO OSAKA AND MOPE AROUND.

LIVE UPDATE! 2

WE CHECKED IN AND NOW ARE HEADING TO KYOTO. TOMAROW WE WILL BE AT THE CONVENTION. I THINK I LIKE POSTING FROM MY PHONE, IT IS A LITTLE HARD BUT I WONT FORGET ANYTHING. I MET AND TRADF PINS WITH SOME ONE ALREADY.

LIVE UPDATE!

I AM IN OSAKA NOW. WE ARE GOING TO DROPOFF STUFF AT THE HOTEL RIGHT NOW. 岡村(OKAMURA) WAS ENTERTIANED BY THE TRAIN...

I CAN UPDATE THIS WEBSITE VIA MY CELLPHONE! I LOVE TECH.テスト

http://www.aikidofaq.com/ I can't give you any more information on Aikido that that. enjoy a nice long read if your interested and have a lot of time to spare.

This sounds like fun, what did I do today,

1. woke up
   
2. ate eggs pizza pan and orange juce
   
3. slept a little more
   
4. woke up, got dressed got on bike went to school,
   
5. Did school stuff{played Jpaanes dodge ball in PE today.}
   
6. found out tomarow is 2 hours of school only
   
7. Practiced kendo and won a fight.
   
8. Practiced Kendo and lost a 13 other fights
   
9. Came home
   
10. Talked to host mom about various things
    
11. Got on computer to check e-mail, responded to and wrote 4 mails
    
12. Posted 5 more daily pictures.
    
13. got on Blogger to type this
    
14. Going to sleep in a few minutes, It is tomarrow after all.
    

Nothing out of the ordanary except that I WON a kendo fight. That was nice for once. That is a normal day really. I'm goning to do the last hting on that list now.

mata ne.

I finally ordered my bogu name plate thing for kendo!!! Its a little late but I really, really wanted it. I finaly have my name on my armor, well not yet, but I will next week. I just hope I ordered the right kind. I REALLY hope so... I also got a catalog of the pieces at the kendo store that I use. a small bit of bad news, there cheap shinai'S are being discontinued... It will be about 300yen[3$] more for each one.

I'm also making a list of things I need to buy for gifts and getting really for that... AKA: getting money out of the bank and into my pocket.

I didn't plan far enough ahead and can't get my certification in Kendo now, the next test is in August and I leave in early July. Soooo mad I can't get my shou dan. They have 3 tests a year for kendo and one was this month last week.... LAST WEEK!!!!! I missed it by one week only and that makes me madder! I don't know if I could have passed the test anyways though. I don't know what I needed to know. Oh well, I'll call a few dojos and see if any teachers will give special consideration...

I want to make sure everyone can see all the new pictures that are up, there are 25 and I plan on adding 4 or 5 a day until I run out, that will still take 3 months at that pace. I wonder how much storage that website is giving my for Blogger.... Hello.com is giving Blogger users free picture hosting, I worry for how long and how much space do I have.... We'll find out, hopefully not soon.

--==Kendo==--

I think I'm getting better at kendo now, I hit a few good Men's during practice. That isn't English{Men} It is Japanese; Let me explain. In Kendo[Japanese lesson; Ken:Sword, do:Fighting style{ex:judo, karatedo, kendo, aikido}] you have 4 targets on your opponent; Do is the stomach, Kote is the Forearm, tsuki is the Throat, and men is the head. The way you strike men is to leap forward with your left foot and extend you right foot forward, at the same moment that your shinai hits the men, you yell, "men!" and your right foot hit the floor. These 3 things must happen at the exact same time to maximize your power. I read in a book that it is possible to generate over 850KG[about a ton] of force with good technique. There are stories of people having there foot go though the floor, and I can believe it...

I was trying to exercise the best technique today and my foot is killing at the moment. Now I go to aikido again to learn to fight with nothingness.

Today's test went very well I think! I had physics, programming, and Math A. I thought I was gonna bomb physics but I think I got at least a 60% on it. I forgot the way he wanted me to put Acceleration down. So about 3/4 the test wasn't done. That was more than I thought I would finish though.

Programming was a piece of cake.. All except one question that I didn't understand the Japanese on, If it was what I thought it was then it was just a little ice cream to go with the cake. Nothing hard at all!!!!

lets not talk about math A..... I completely forgot anything that I had learned before... Its statistics math I think.. The beginning of statistics. It could have gotten a 50% at least if I had memorized a table I had in my notebook.... That was all in heighsight though.

As for the new picture blog... I have 20 pictures you never Seen before up on the web, I have put up a bunch everyday. If I can get on this computer once a day to check mail and post pictures that will give you a nice reason to come back and check on things every day!!!! I'm getting though my Osaka trip pictures at the moment that are well over a month old, but YOU never seen them before. Comments are still broke at the second, If anyone wants to struggle to post a comment they can very well do that, but it's far from perfect[or Done].

I'm contemplating learning true CSS and transforming the site to XHTML or something like that. I think it would be fun If I had the time to do it. Maybe I'll though in a few minutes every now and then to doing that.

OK, I'm going to Osaka again tomarow! It is for theRotary INternational Convention that will host around 20,000 people, if I'm not mistaken, from all around the world. I don't have a clue what is going to happen or what is there, but It should be interesting I think. I hope to see Kran there along wiht rotarians form my sponcer district. I'll be wearing my school uniform because I was told I had to do so, I wanted to wear my rotary blazer but they wouldn't hear of it. I'll just be harder to find and a lot more hot.

I leave with my last host father, Okamura san. My current hostfather has another wedding to go to, or so he says, He didn't want to go to begin with. My club president is also heading to osaka as well.

After that me and Okamura are going to Kyoto as well. If someone dosn't check her mail right now she isn't getting anything from kyoto.....

Apparently my geography teacher decided I shouldn't take his test... Sooooo Now I sit in the computer room for an hour. Should be productive though, I'll be able to get a few things fixed now while I wait for the next test. English!

Oh, And it's raining... Hard. While going over a small bridge I looked down at the river and seen the water flowing by the 1000's of gallons a second. This river never had any water in it unless it rains, so it was interesting. The windgusts right now are around 70 mph at the moment I would suspect. Its really coming down, and I don't think there was any typhoons in the area last I seen.Kumamoto weather forecast[Japanese]

[Edit Ignore the part about it working and the comments... Its not working... :( ]

Ok, well, I got the site "patched up" It looks ugly but It works. I will try to put in a few 50 or so pictures if my computer in my room doesn't die.

PLEASE, if you would, look down at the lower right of this box, and all boxes on this site created after this date, and see the comments link? Its in a light color and will say something like "0 comments" at this point in time. Click it and then add you comment to the post, its easy, fun, and you get to tell the world about what you think about my Adventures. It will also e-mail me to me new address that I wont give out to the internet, I happen to like not having ANY spam in my gmail account.

....Its my first name followed by @gmail.com that simple. I don't think that anyone that has read this much of the site would spam me. And no "spiders" can pick that off the page. I hope.

I'm off to tinker with the template for the picture page[you can get to the NEW picture page by clicking the respected link to the right of here... Inside the picture navigation box, if you still don't see it. For any one that still can't see it, New site Link Don't bookmark yet, I will more than likely change that link in a while. It does feel good to be able to no have to rely on the School servers..... They are really slow and old by now. After I graduate I will lose that space anyways, I'm so happy.

It looks like I have gained a new leap into the webpage with the new tools I have been given, I hope these tools will bring better experience for all 12 of you who visit my page every day! I lost my Google pagerank of 1 though, that made me sad...... Oh well, I have only myself to blame.

OK, I turned on a few cool things and enabled a bunch of new fetures for the site, but the old template that the makes the site look like it does dosn't have all the code to handle the new stuff, I want to put MY template back up ASAP and will work on it tonight. I am using just a general "BLAH" template that 1000's of other people are using right now too, so not original. But you should try posting a comment to this post and check it out but clicking comment below. there is a link on all the posts so you sa asl me questions or say somthing to me without e-mailing me! postin g a comment will let everyone else see you message too.

I have a few new pictures from osaka last month posted for you to try out. I think I like the new set up, but... I need to fit a completely new template to that site and I will start on it tonight. also, I have to enter in all picture one at a time so I can type in Comments about them and Its just wow, look at the post below for the new link. Durring the switch to the new template all my links on the right are gone at the moment, They will be back tonight, I am walking ou tthe door to aikido right..... NOW!

New picture site

As I seid previosly, Blogger got a HUGE upgrade and it is all free!!! I found a new site that will host pictures on the internet for blogger members and they have a really nice program for uploading. I will be experimenting with all teh goodies that have been released.

aikido was delayed an hour due to bad info, not on my part.

I tryed to post a post from my cellphone but It hasn't show up yet... A weird post might yet magicly show up and shock me. .... 2 of them..... FYI

oooohhhh, shiny! Blogger, the site I use to make this blog and host it on, has go a new look. It is also owned by Google along with many other site on the net. I happen to think Google gets a lot of things right. Blogger one of them, Blogger was accually acquired by Google last year I believe and This new UI changes is easy on the eyes. Just a side note that none will understand except me, but that's ok.

I have been doing stuff despite not posting, I think I try to check my mail once a day an then neglect my website, but I really do try to get in one post a week, 3 a week is my real goal and 7 would be massive sweatshop production that if I could I would do. I'm not interesting enough to do that though. I do have a really good Idea, even if I am late. I was watching the news and there was a blip of news about camera phones in America and people think they are evil because perverts are u p-skirt-in g[I had to do this to make MSN stop giving search results for this topic] people with the cameras.

I sit here in Japan and laugh at the report. I reach in my pocket and pull out my phone that has 2 not just one but 2 cameras integrated in the thing. One faces me for using a video phone and the other is used for taking stills that is on the side of it. It was supposed to be stylish but it is just, well, not. All cell phones in Japan have a camera on them now. Its not an option is given that if you have a cell phones that you also have a camera on it. Nokia makes a phone with a decent camera in it and there is a big outrage.

that led me to my idea. I can take an Idea that was meant to be evil and use it for good. Most people seem to do the opposite. If I can get a PHP script running on my school server I can #1 get all the pictures from Japan Uploaded in about 2 minutes( I have another 150 or so that need to get on the net eventually) but # 2 the script I really want is so that If I take a picture on my cell phone I can E-mail it to the server and have it post auto-magic-ly to the web as I sit on the bus or train or where ever I am. I am gonna start working on this little thing now and see if I can't get the administer at my American high school to enable PHP...


-===~~~===-

Now on to Japan. There are the monthly test right today tomorrow and Friday, and they are hard. I thing I did fine on the hardware test but I definitely failed Japanese and Math I. We are doing 'basic' trig in that class. I was really dumb for the first 20 minutes and didn't understand what the test wanted from me until it hit me square in the face... So simple. The Japanese test gave a lot of Japanese trouble I think I guessed one right though. Hardware was great, Matsushima Sensei[Japanese Lesson: Sensei is like Mr. but for teachers. It means Teacher.] Had a test in English for me, but the first, and largest, part of the test I didn't understand... It was a good try at English though, I think I figured it out in the end though.

I'm going to go to try aikido in about 40 minutes. I have no clue were I'm going but I have been told it is near an intersection that I do know about. I might get there, I might not. Whatever. It's free to go the first time and then if I want to practice more I can pay to join the dojo.

from my Knowlauge aikido is combat system that uses your oppoent's energy against himself. It allows old people to fight and overcome young strong people in flights. There is very little energy or strength used in aikido. The way it seems is that aikido is more of a self defense system then use to attack because you need to enemy to put out energy and then unbalance him before you can use any moves. I'll tell you all more about it after my first class.

Ok, I go tto school for the first day after golden week[the week that the nation of japan takes it vacation] and we have 3 classes today and a baseball after school. the entire school had to go and support the first game of the season. It was about 11 KM from school on bike and it was very slow getting there, over 1200 studens biking their way to the ballpark.

It was a game agenst Tamana high school, The school Ben goes to but Ben didn't come. The game was 3 to 4.... Kumako won!!! It was won in the 12th inning, 2 outs, 2 strikes, 3 balls. THat must have been some pressure.

that was all that happend really. I came home hot and sunburned and turned on CNN. I wanted to see some story but it never came on. and now I forgot why I wanted to see CNN. It looks as if there is a lot going on in the world.

well, thats all folks, I(ll get to THe okinawa story later, With pictures. including the 200 I have saved to put on the web some rainy day.

matta ne.

I just got back from Okinawa!!!! It wqas grea, I have a lot to say, but I'll type it up tonight, I have unpackign to do.