私は日本にいます！

So. I had typed half a post before this, tried to insert a picture, and had the whole thing deleted. (It's all the random kanji--confuse me.) In any case, I arrived okay. Enjoyed the plane rides, too--it was like some kind of theme park ride. The first plane was really small--it could only fit like 50 people--and very loud, but the flight (from Greenville to Detroit) was only about two or so hours. After arriving in Detroit, we hung about for three hours--Williams-sensei had outlawed the English-speaking at the Greenville airport, but we managed to get around that by either conversing in the girl's bathroom in English (he couldn't follow us there!) or, well, just avoiding him. Sara, Adam, Ross, and I ate lunch at McDonald's and pretty much complained the entire time. After lunch, we met back up with the group and Williams-sensei informed us we had homework that was to be completed by the time we reached Japan. So we worked on that a bit until we were allowed to board. This second plane was huge, and less noisy than the first. Williams-sensei had advised not sleeping at all, as it would help reduce jet lag, but I had only had one hour of sleep the night before, and was pretty much dead. At first I tried working on homework and playing the DS, but that just made me more sleepy. Eventually I passed out for a bit--only 30 minutes or so--and woke up for supper and the end of the first in-flight movie (Ms. Potter?). After that, kept myself awake long enough for the second in-flight movie, Charolette's web, which luckily kept me interested and awake long enough that I was able to shake off most of the drowsy and complete my homework afterwards. But after that, I pretty much gave up on staying awake and passed out for two hours, waking up just in time for breakfast and the landing. Of course, right as I was getting ready to disembark, I realized I had lost Jimmy's DS stylus. I got Idan to try and help me find it (she was sitting right behind me) but neither of us could. At that point, I was so tired and upset that I almost started crying. (I'll buy you a new one, James, I promise!) But I finally gave up looking and got off the plane. We hung about the airport for a while, waiting to exchange money. After that, we caught a train to Kyoto--about a hour to hour and a half ride. Spent most of the ride playing multiplayer DS with Cory-san.

Finally, we arrived in Kyoto (around 10PM--9AM EST) and walked to the ryokan (traditional Japanese inn). After checking in, we pretty much had time for showers before going to bed. (The showers here are public--meaning shared bathing--but if you find one empty, you can lock the door and have it to yourself, which is what I've been doing, because bathing with other people is scary. Oh! And I'm sharing a room here with two other girls--Idan-san and Tessa-san. The ryokan is very old and small, and the rooms kind of smell like fish. Also, there's like random barbed wire running along the wall around the garden outside. (Wonky. Also, will be posting pictures later.) The ryokan also doesn't supply meals, so we've been having to walk down to the local Seven Eleven (there's one on every corner!) to buy breakfast and lunch.

At any rate, woke up the following morning at 6:30 and walked with the rest of the girls (there are six of us total: me, Sara, Tessa, Idan, Liz, and Renee) to the Seven Eleven to buy our meals for the day. Met back with the rest of the group (ten boys and Williams-sensei) at the ryokan at eight and headed out to do tourist-y stuff from there. After temple and shrine and temple and shrine, I was pretty much worn out--my feet were killing me, and it was freakishly humid out, and so there was all kinds of sweating going on. Eventually, we got to this tori-ridden (tori are traditional Japanese gates, see picture below) shrine. We spent like 30 minutes all taking group pictures in front of the tori, and then Williams-sensei jokingly--or so I thought--said we'd be hiking a mountain. Unfortuantely, it was no joke. We climbed a freakin' mountaint. Of course, we were only climbing with the group for 30 minutes or so, and then fell behind (by we I mean, me, Sara, Adam, and Drew) and didn't catch back up to them until they were coming back down the mountain. We continued on up (us, minus Drew, who had given up some stairs back) because we had come so far already and wanted to see the top. My feet felt as if the bones were coming out through the skin, but I kept on going until at one point, after sitting down for a short rest, I tried to get up and found I couldn't breathe--like, kept on inhaling, but wasn't getting any air. I managed to choke out a "Sara!" and stumble towards her and Adam before completely freaking out and bursting into tears. Sara advised me to walk around in little circles (?) but eventually I could breathe again. The whole thing majorly freaked me out, though--nothing like that had ever happened to me before. In any case, kept on climbing, got to the top--it was totally lame--and headed back. My feet had then reached a state beyond pain and all I wanted was to return to the ryokan and check to see if they were still attached to mah legs or not. We rode the train back to Kyoto Station, though--my feet thanked Williams-sensei for that one. Unfortunately, the group wanted to go out crazy far distances for supper, so I had to walk again. Supper was really good though, so I forgive the group. Came home, counted mah blisters, emailed poppy, took a shower, and went to bed.

Today--Thursday--we woke up at the same time, went to the Seven Eleven, and headed out by 7:30. We took the bus this time--that was a miserable experience. There were like 5 billion people on that one bus, and it was crazy-humid. My feet were still killing me, and so the standing in one place for 45 minutes sucked. A whole bunch. But eventually we got out and walked down to Ryoanji (this zen shrine/temple thingy). It was really beautiful--I got bunches of pictures. But Shirley would have loved it--I kept trying to take nice tree pictures for her. It started to rain as we were leaving, though, and we had to walk all the way to our next stop, which was also was full of the pretty. It was raining the entire time, though, and eventually got really, really cold--you could see your breath! (Oh, and all my postcards, which were in my backpack, got soaked and completely ruined--I was so pissed off!) We went from there to another shrine to have lunch. It was also pretty cool, and had a neat story behind it that I might recount later. For now, I think I'm gonna get off the internets and maybe go get something to eat. Dunno. In any case, tomorrow I meet my host family and move in with them! I'm really excited. ^^ Don't know when the next time I'll be able to update this will be, but I'll try to keep you all posted. Miss you guys!