Calm before the Storm

Today I woke up at 7 (stupid JET lag) to pouring rain, got ready, and made my way to the train station. Bought my ticket, and boarded the train at 10:30 to meet a fellow JET who would take me to the BBQ today.

I met Neal, a thirty-something JET from South Africa, and went to his place for a few minutes to pass time until others were ready. We then went and met some others at Okaya station, which, Neal is a great guy, but cramming four into his teeny car was rough :-P Well, eventually everyone made it there, and there was about 15 of us.

Luckily, I was able to hop into Jesse's Rav4 with Nobo and Matt, two other JET's. These three guys are the three that live the closest to me, and were absolutely hysterical. I had a blast hanging out with them.

We also plucked a peach off a tree (from inside the car no less), which had some AWESOME freaking flavor. Japanese fruit, accept no substitutes.

Well, the huge group of us made our way to a steak-house since the original restaurant was scared of 17 (we snagged two more) gaijin just rolling into their place.

The food was decent, steak was mediocre, but had this amazing garlic miso sauce.

We then headed home, and I bid adeiu to Matt (from the UK) and Nobo(USA) and Jesse dropped me off at my place. I spent a couple of hours doing laundry, cleaning up outside, looking around my apt, etc.

Matt then stopped by, and we went to Jesse's, picked him up, and went to a NYC pizza place. It's really a cool change of pace to get around japan by car instead of train, something i never did at Kansai. Also, the area we were going through was kinda surreal, because the sprawl along this one major highway smushed all the towns together, and basically was like one big long Coralville strip. Kinda weird.

The pizza was fantastic (and I have leftovers, but I left them in Matt's car! D'oh!)

Tomorrow is my first day of school! I'm nervous and just want the day to start so I can stop worrying. I have to give a self-introduction in Japanese, on stage, to the entire student body and teachers. Shoot. Lol. Thanks to Gaby and Alberto for helping me make sure my grammar was right!

Another interesting point: I've figured out where History majors go after college: JET. I've met no less than 4 history majors so far, not including myself! :-P