I love my life.

A few things that have contributed to my quality of life since coming to Japan:

Visiting Yokohama, the bakeries, the lake and park, the fact that side pony-tails are acceptable and even fashionable, and going to a baby shower and doing other fabulous things with the amazing people here!

Also having a positive effect on my life (not shown) are:

Samurai movies with happy endings, meeting students that like me because I smile, the taco seasoning I brought from home, Skype (my name on Skype is christina.eads), emails from loved ones, and the joy Jesus gives me everyday.

one month down

It's incredibly hard for me to believe, but I've been in Japan for one month. I love it here, but the reality of missing home hit me this week. Things are good, but I had an emotional past few days and relied on talking to my family more than I had so far. I've been a true girl, laughing and crying and experiencing extreme emotions of joy, sorrow, grief, thankfulness, excitement, worry, and hope. I have awesome support back at home and here in Tokyo, and above all God has been there for me! Life is good!

Tonight I walked over to the next city, Kichijoji, and strolled around through the night life. There are still plenty of streets for me to explore, but I'm starting to know my way around a little better. People are all over, shopping, eating, and just chilling. I checked out some running stores and found some shoes in my size. Luckily, I'm only a size 7-7 1/2, so I'm still in the Japanese range. I also went to the Nike store and got a new water bottle, which if you know me well, is an essential part of my life. I'll go back to Kichijoji for church tomorrow.

Two of the crazy cool people I'm with here go to Toyo University with me. We've had mixed experiences there, but a ton of girls came to our English lunch on Wednesday. I ended up with 10 email contacts by the end of the afternoon. Some speak English better than others, but we all had a good time. I was confronted by a girl named Erika too, who might help me learn Japanese. She introduced me to two of her friends, and they're all English majors. I'm really excited to spend time with them next week!

Peace.

meeting people

By my third week in Japan, I've been to six university campuses. I've met people on five of them and will be returning to three or four regularly. Also exciting has been my reunion with my freshman year roommate from USC, Yumi. We made brownies at my apartment, which didn't work so well in the fish broiler (next time we're making them at her house.) She lives less than 30 minutes away, which is crazy to me! We plan to hang out again tomorrow too, which makes me so happy...she's going to help me with Japanese too!

As for students, I've met the most at Sophia University, which is a Catholic school, but without many religious pupils. I don't know if you can see the cross in the picture, but it's on the top at the right. I'm planning to join a swimming circle at Sophia, and two students offered to take me to the pool! I met some other students as well at our first English lunch on Friday. I'll be bringing a copy of The Case for Christ to Keiko next week, because she has been unable to find a copy in Japanese (we're still looking too though.)

Our team also visited Nihon and Todai Universities on Wednesday. I will be going back to Todai with Kermit and one of the Japanese staff members, Yusuke. He was able to introduce us to a Christian student, Nobu, who is a freshman this year. Oh, and in that picture from Nihon, it was really funny...later on during our ride home on the train, Yusuke asked if Kermit liked Shyla since he put his arm around her. The answer was actually no, and Americans sometimes just do that with friends.

Naomi, who is also on the Japanese staff, also introduced me to a freshman, Aya, at Rikkyo University. This is another Catholic school, also known as St. Paul's. Again, there aren't many Catholic students. It was fun to talk to Aya for a while, and she's going to introduce me to her boyfriend from Osaka during Rikkyo's festival week at the beginning of November.

I've also been to Waseda and met a girl who used to live in San Diego at Toyo University. I hope to hang out with her again next week! I continue to love the Japanese people, my teammates, and everyone!

Getting settled

Well, I've been in Tokyo for two weeks now. Life is very good! I have been blessed with an amazing team and incredible Japanese people that are so welcoming I can't even believe it! Both of these pictures are of my team in Kichijoji, which is the number one prefecture in Japan to live in, voted on by the citizens. My roommate from freshman year, Yumi, told me that. She lives between Kichijoji and the prefecture I live in, Mitaka. There's plenty of shopping for all of my needs and this big, beautiful park to run in.

I've been to Waseda University once and Sophia University twice, but mostly I've just been adjusting. Very slowly my Japanese is improving. My roommate taught me how to write a little bit, and I've been practicing. I've also been reading and just finished a fantastic book called Waking the Dead, by John Eldredge. It used to be hard for me to read, but here I enjoyed it. My ability to journal has also been better. The food and bugs have been the greatest challenges, but I'm totally hanging in there. I guess I just love it here, even though I miss everyone back home too!