Happy Friday?

It looks like Fridays are going to be easy days. At least for the first session (we will have three sessions total), I only have class until 10:50am on Fridays.

I only had a 25-minute meeting with a teacher and a 30-minute library tour today. Yet it felt like the most stressful day, at least in the morning. Apparently, I did worse on the placement test than I thought. The teacher assigned a basic grammar homework for me over the weekend.

The Institute divides participants into seven levels. I am at level 2 for grammar, and level 3 for conversation and kanji (Chinese characters). I really hope to improve to level 4 or 5 (or higher)for everything by the end of the program.

With Yu, Chan, Anya, and Duya, we borrowed bikes from the Institute to bike to get money from the ATM machine and to Aeon mall today. Yes, the Institute even provides free bicycle rental until the evening. I liked the peaceful feeling as we biked in a line on the street. Sometimes we forgot to stay on the left side of the road. We biked through residential areas and saw men, women, old and young, cars, bikes, and motorcycles. We also saw agricultural land, train tracks and train, the ocean, and night lights. We biked up and down the road and road bridges. I did my exercise for the week.

Chan and I karaoked for about 30 minutes today because we thought someone else was using it aftewards. Anyhow, Chan, Anya, Duya and I are likely going to karaoke every night if possible. Chan has a beautiful voice and always supports me however I sound. :P

I had the same ramen bowl for lunch and dinner. I was too full to have the special combo (rice and tempura) for lunch, and came back too late to have the combo for dinner. I liked it but I probably should not have it in the same day.

I will likely gain weight in Japan, contrary to common beliefs. Breakfast is all-you-can-eat. Although we have to pay different prices depending on the food for lunch and dinner, two types of soup and at least two drinks are always free. Not only am I eating all of my food, I also tend to get both soups and two drinks for each meal. For today's breakfast, I had one bowl of miso soup, one bowl of vegetable soup, two glasses of milk, one glass of apple juice. In summary, I am consuming more liquid during my meals than ever before.