Trip!

Hi! I had been to Taiwan for three days, and I came back to Japan today. I went to Taiwan with my grandmother. She is 68 years now, but is very tough. She likes traveling. She has been many countries all over the world. Although she can speak only Japanese, she doesn’t be afraid to travel to other countries. I respect her.
Compared to traveling to America, traveling to Taiwan was very easy, it took only 3 hours! On first day, we went to beauty salon, and gave Taiwanese style massage on my body and face. It was wonderful. My face is sleek now (maybe…). On second day, we went to a famous Taiwanese food restaurant, and ate shoronpo and shaomai. It tasted really good. I want to eat them again. Maybe, I will go to Yokohama soon, because I would like to eat them in Chinatown.
Anyway, I enjoyed my trip! I want to travel to somewhere again. Of course, Maryland is the best!!

I met a man on the train.

Hi, everyone! Today, I got on the train from Omotesando to go home. Then, someone called my name. Can you guess who was him? In fact, he was... Senpai!! He and I were very surprised. He lives next station from mine, so we got on the same train. We talked about AGU members and Maryland. He said that now he studied English very hard to work in a foreign country. On September 22, AGUers will meet at Shibuya. I'm very looking forward to seeing you! I miss you all!

Two sports remind me of Maryland!

Finally, the Beijing Olympics had ended. There were a lot of impressing memories such as swimming race, soft ball, sprint, and so on. Each of the players was fantastic. Their efforts were respectable. I like every sport. Especially, I enjoyed watching basketball games. I watched semi-final, America vs. Argentina. The Argentine team was strong on defense. And the captain (maybe, his name was Scola) was a nice player. However, the American team played well and finally, they won the game! Then, they won the Spanish team and got gold medals. Congratulations! Yesterday, I went to Odaiba and went a batting center. It was very fun. These two things, watching basketball game and going a batting center, remind me of the good memory in Maryland. I want to see you, Nikki, Mike, Joe, Heather, and Nina!!

P.S. Nikki,
Your story was very interesting!

I'm in Japan!

Yesterday, after long flight, we arrived at Narita Airport. It was very hot and wet day. I ate sushi for dinner. It was delicious! I drank Japanese green tea (not sweet!) Everything in Japan is wonderful! But…I miss America. Last two weeks were special. I had a very good time in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Nikki, Joe, Mike, Nina, and Heather, Thanks a lot! Thanks to you, we could have nice experiences. I’m proud of you and I love you!

And I want to say thank you to agu students for having fun with me. I could have a good time because you were very funny and kind. I want to see you soon!

Last post at UM.

Today, we have our last classes! So this is the last time to post in UM.

Yesterday, Heather gave us nice presents; some chocolate, a pencil case, and a letter! Today, we will have presentation in Heather’s class. We will talk about the best thing of our experiences. I can’t decide what I will talk about because everything was wonderful and exciting!

After lunch, we went to a library and listened to a story about newspapers or books which were published after World War Two in Japan. It was an impressive story. Then we went bowling, which I had wanted to do since many days ago. I’m not good at bowling but I like it! Nikki was very good at bowling, but at last, Hippo (Masatoshi) won Nikki! We enjoyed bowling a lot.

Then we went to some supermarkets with Mike, Joe, and Nikki. Many of us bought a lot of snacks for gift. I like American supermarkets because they sold almost everything. We had dinner at a fast food. I found some foods I had never eaten before.

After that, we went to a sports center. I tried batting with Tomoko and Risa. It was very difficult so Senpai coached us. It was very fun.

I can’t believe that we leave Maryland and come back to Japan tomorrow! I don’t want to leave here…I will continue to post after I come back to Japan, so please comment and tell me about you! I want to say thank you to Nina to tell us about blogging. And I also want to say thank you to everyone to see my post, leave comments, and have nice experiences with me!!

Last opportunity to go to Washington,D.C!

Yesterday was our last chance to go to Washington, D.C. After blogging class, we went to Heather’s class and wrote letters to Nikki’s parents. Saaya and I ate pizza for lunch at the Stamp Union.

In the afternoon, we went to the Capitol building. We stood at the center of Washington, D.C. It was a wonderful experience for me! But I realized that I knew few things about American politics and also Japanese politics. I was shocked by that. Although my major is International Economics, I have to know about what is going on in my country. Then, we went to the White House to take some pictures. It was a very hot day, so everyone was tired.

When we came back to College Park, we went to a Middle-Eastern restaurant with Joe’s friends. I ate a chicken kebab and it tasted very good! After dinner, we came back to our hotel and enjoyed talking with Joe’s friends. I was very impressed by their story.

Yesterday, we couldn’t go bowling because Terp Zone was closed. So I’m looking forward to going bowling today!!

American cookout!

Yesterday, we went to Voice of America in Washington D.C. I had never heard about it, but it was an interesting place. A worker there explained how it is important to tell and know the truth to us. After visiting VOA, some other girls and I had a lunch with Nikki. We talked about a lot of things: school life in America and in Japan; marriage; culture; and who is the cutest boy of AGU member! But I don’t tell the result now. And I guess that boys might be talking about who is the cutest girl.

After lunch, we came back to our hotel and some boys, Mike, and I went to basketball court to practice basketball. I was tired but I wanted to practice basketball for games in Nikki’s house.

Then, we went to Nikki’s house. Nikki’s house was wonderful! I wanted to live in such a nice house. We had a traditional American home party there. We ate hamburgers, hot dogs, water melon, corns, and so on. After having dinner, we played basketball. Nobuya was very very good at playing basketball, so we couldn’t stop him. It was too dark to play basketball, so we missed catch a ball again and again. Nikki was also good at playing basketball. Her dad was very funny. It was very fun! Thank Nikki for inviting us!