Hello!

Hello everybody.  I've been in Japan for a week now and I'm settling in now.  So far I've done many interesting things and made lots of friends already.  So far I've been to many landmark places in Fukuoka such as Fukuoka Tower, Canal City, Hakata Station, Ohori Park, Fukuoka Dome, and Tenjin.  Fukuoka Tower is a seaside tower that is 123 meters to the highest floor and has views of the whole city.  Canal City is a gigantic mall (7 stories and about twice the base size as Ala Moana) that has a canal running through the middle of it and has fountain shows every hour.  Hakata Station is the Grand Central Station of Fukuoka.  It has many shops and restaurants underground and has lots of trains, subways, and busses.  Ohori Park is the Central Park of Fukuoka.  It is mostly a pond with a long island in the middle and a bike and running path around and through the middle of it.  There is also a museum and Fukuoka Castle in Ohori.  Fukuoka Dome is where the professional baseball team of Fukuoka (Softbank Hawks) play.  I live right next to it and have been to one game so far (it was a tie against the #1 ranked team in the country).  Tenjin is the shopping district of Fukuoka.  There are 3 malls there that are all bigger than Canal City and lots of expensive stores.  Thats where I bought my school uniform.  My house is in the middle of the city and my family is comprised of my host mother, my host father, and my host sister.  I think my host father is a lawyer and if I told you what my mother is I would have to kill you (just kidding).  My host sister is a college student and she just went to Korea today (I have no idea how long she's gone for).  They all speak English decently, so I'm not starving to death.  I have a pretty decent sized room and it has a piano, electronic drum set, and a very uncomfortable futon.  My school is quite large with 4 stories and 1,200 students.  There are 4 other exchange students this year; 2 from Germany, 1 from Sweden, and 1 from Finland.  They all speak English fluently as well.  The 5 of us have our own lounge room in the school where we take Japanese class and have a computer with internet and can pretty much do anything in there.  The school is pretty loose with rules, especially for being a Christian private school.  We have chapel and bible study twice a week and go to school for 5 days a week from 8:50 until 3:30 (that's extremely short for Japanese school).  I am in 2nd grade of High School, which is the equivalent to 11th grade.  The school year here started in April, so I skipped half a grade (yay me) and will be here for the whole of their long break.  Today after school me and the other exchange students went to a karaoke place.  The karaoke places here are different than in America.  You go to the desk and you get your own private room with your group for an hour or two.  I also have a new favorite food, udon noodles.  I have taken pictures of most of those places and things and I will upload them as soon as I can get to an electronics store and buy a cable for my camera.  I will try to update this blog every day with pictures and what I did.