Back to the beginning:

Now that i have my new mac (yay) and ready net access at home (double yay) I can start to regularly blog... thought i would play catch up a bit...

Pre Orientation:
Went to Nashville with Bennett (thank you for driving), Greg and Kay bear.... Kay and i attended a day of classes which were slightly worthless. Got put up in a swank Nash hotel. Lori came down and we had an epic last night at a honky tonk dueling piano bar.

Next day was the plane ride. Kay put up with my incessant nagging about the plane crashing. Slept deliriously. The blanket my mom told me to bring was A+. Arrive groggy.

We are herded like cattle- seriously, if we tried we couldnt have gotten lost.. they had volunteers every few feet....!
Went out for sushi with kay.... played Japanese arcade games:



and walked around in a daze:


went to bed.
next day 8 hours of conferences. Kay and I ditched a bit and went to Harojuko (famous shopping district where they have those wildly dressed japanese teens)

but we took a wrong turn and found a temple:


then we found shopping:







end of that day was the prefecture orientation enkai:

(fukushima is my prefecture)
the younguns passed out in the enkai room next to us:


our enkai room and karaoke afterwards: