Hello From Across the World

I am in Japan!!! This is so weird. We left Sunday morning at 5:30am and arrived here Monday night at 4:30pm. Everyone has the same color hair (except for a few weird kids) and they are all about the same height. I feel like a giant (more than usual). And I'm super tired. Mark took me around to all the spots he remembered today and most of them we couldn't find, so we just walked a lot. We did see all sorts of really neat things, though, like the osaka castle which was originally built in 1590 and has been rebuilt 4 times since. It is amazing! The walls surrounding the mote are mostly original and I can't believe the work it must have been to build them. As we are walking down the streets here we just all of a sudden come across a temple of some sort and there are usually people clapping and bowing near the offering/alter kind of thing. There are outdoor malls all over that look like they used to be roads, but the pedestrians took over so they built a roof over it and now call it a mall. The busses and some trains are so short that even I have to duck, so just try to imagine what Mark looks like. My favorite so far was at the castle this afternoon. We were at the top looking over the city when a group of school children came up. They were between 8 and 10 years old, and one little boy looked up at Mark and said "okii" which Mark says means "big". Mark started talking to a bunch of them and they wouldn't let him alone after that. They followed us around and asked whatever question they could think of, and kept saying "hi" to me, because they knew I wouldn't understand anything else. Mark says they like to practice english whenever they can, and no matter how bad they are you're supposed to tell them they speak really well. Tomorrow is my first day of sight seeing without Mark. Should be interesting. I thought I'd better put this one of Mark being mauled by the school children on, too.

--Jeny