Kanazawa, inaka kana?

It's almost unbelievable that I've been here just a week, so much has happened! Wilma and I met her uncle in Narita so as to have someone to take us to the train station and make sure we didn't end up in Hokkaido. It was a great help having someone who's "in the know" (and not some random person) tell us how to ride the train (not to mention that he bought the tickets for us!!~ yatta!). It took 4-5 hours to get to Kanazawa during which time Wilma played her Nintendo DS and I scrambled to finish the review homework PII had sent us in May. We both were just a little bit--- uhm--- concerned when it got time to being 5 minutes before we would arrive in Kanazawa and still all we could see was rice fields and mountains (田舎かな？), but thankfully Kanazawa turned out to be the big, modern city hidden amidst all the rice fields and mountains.

Like Narita, the first night in Kanazawa went swimmingly. Seems like there are some pretty cool people in the program so this summer should be a lot of fun--- read: karaoke to the max. There are 6 of us from Yale (3 三年生　and 3 二年生) with the rest of the program being mostly from Ivies or East Coast schools. The first walk about Kanazawa was exciting to say the least! One of the nicest things about being back in Japan is being able to walk around late at night without much worry. Though crime has become more of a problem of late, Japan is still super safe compared to the US (including and especially Chicago) and so walking around for some late night eats was a nice way to get our first look at Kanazawa. Wilma and I ended up hitting up this ramen shop tucked into one of the side roads off the main street from the train station. The ramen wasn't so great, but for the equivalent of $3.90, I can't really complain, right? We also went to book*off, a used book/music store. Given how expensive Japanese CDs can be ($40 or so), I couldn't help myself when I saw the "best of" cd for 「JUDY AND MARY」- a group that I am familiar with from a previous homestay- selling for about $18! ( >_<)*V*

The next day we would all meet our host families .... dun dun dun... I'll let you know how it went in another post (ps happy ending), for now- bed time. おやすみ！