Today I realized something interesting about culture shock — when you are in the honeymoon stage, you tend to focus on everything similar between the new culture and your own, but when you are in the down-stages, you tend to focus on the differences. Just an observation 🙂

Anyway today was a very nice and pleasant evening. We went with Otousan, my host sister, and my host nieces to a Rotary Club banquet, which was really very nice. I met a few high schoolers who were in their school’s Interact club and were visiting, and some really cool people. I also found out there is a such thing as a “raw vegetarian”, who doesn’t even eat cooked vegetables. Apparently you can do a lot with raw foods!

Anyway, initially the only vegetarian things were salad leaves and sushi with cucumbers, but Otousan/Host Sister talked to the chef and he/she made a very delicious special vegetarian meal for me. It had a very nice orange sauce with it which’s initial taste was orange but then became very very spicy — I loved it!

Today at school was pretty normal I think — I am looking forward to the Undoukai tomorrow!

BTW it is very interesting that in my English class they are learning to convert active voice to passive voice, which is completely backwards of what is done in the US! I mean, I understand why they would, because passive voice plays a large role in Japanese polite language, but still.., Oh and Nelly will be happy to know I failed my first test today! It was a Vocab test and I got a 55 — considering I have only taken two tests do far I probably have a C average in English 🙂