Here are my first four reflections, more to come! 

日ー

It is already quite apparent that here in Japan English is more than prevalent. It may not always be used correctly but one never has to look far to find it. There is no equivalent to this in the US. Spanish comes the closest but it is still nowhere near as popular. In Japan all the highway signs have English on them somewhere, and many shop names are in English. Also the act of lining up and how you go about lining up is very important. There are lines painted on the pavement in front of bus stops and in the train stations that show where to line up and how many people wide the line should be, also at what angle the people should line up at.

今日は日本に行きますた。インディアナポリスの空の玄関からデトロイトまで。デトロイトの空の玄関からなりたの空の玄関まで。便はつまらない、でも、旅先は驚くべきです。　

日二

Our hotel in Tokyo is small but that does not surprise me in the least. The only way to have a hotel room that is not small in this city is to pay an extraordinary amount of money. To my great surprise and delight we made a stop over to the Tokyo Sky Tree I wish it was open to the public but even when it does open on the 22^nd the tower is already booked solid for the rest of the summer. I was surprised but glad that a rather permanent-looking platform had been built near the Skytree for the express purpose of giving people with cameras (about everyone here) a place to stand and take all the photos they want without getting in the way.  At the gardens surrounding the Asakusa temple there were many trees that showed the true age of the place, especially the Ginkgo Trees. I would not be surprised to learn that some of those trees were near 500 years old.

あさくさに行きました。かのちに箸を買うました。そしたら、昼ご飯を食べました。美味しかったです。すぎ、秋葉原電気街にいきました。秋葉原電気街はけたばすれ！ 　

日三

Today was interesting is more than one-way. The nice part was getting to go to my first Japanese garden, which I have been looking forward to for quite some time. The garden had almost all the classical aspects of Japanese garden design, which I have come to familiarize myself with. There was the lily pond, the dragon’s gate waterfall, the dry and wet streambeds, and even classical Asian bridge. One thing I did not expect to see was a “spring” in the garden from which a small stream issued fourth. I doubt it was originally a natural spring but probably a stream that was purposefully buried for the sake of the garden. The not so fun part was apparently my body did not appreciate being exposed to a thousand new variations of germs and viruses that I wound up with fatigue, a fever, and the most fun, the hives.  I don’t remember a whole lot after the garden as I was quite out of it. I went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day in bed. If there is one nice thing about the hives it is that they don't last long and within 8 hours of them starting they were gone. Also I got to experience Japanese herbal medicine thanks to that bit of fun.

日本の庭はきれいです。日本の庭の紅葉は大きいです。アメリカの庭と日本の庭の方がは日本の庭好きです。　

日四

Went to two very famous places today. The first was the Tokyo fish market and the other was the Imperial palace grounds. Of the three palaces we will visit this is the only one actually being used for its intended purpose. The fish market has to be one of the most unusual environments I have ever found myself in. and I am rather proud of the fact that after leaving I found myself to be quite hungry. The corridors of that place seemed to go on for kilometers and I am quite convinced that if it 1: lives in water and 2: is edible in any way it is being sold in that place. I saw types of shellfish that were so strange looking that they were hard to identify as such. The imperial palace made a lot more sense to me but was still quite fascinating to say the least. Being in a large city it is note something that one tends to notice much but being in Tokyo you are completely surrounded by buildings which are almost never older than 50-60 years. Even though Japan has a history as a nation ten times longer than the United States Being in the big cities, you would have a hard time proving it (Kyoto is a big exception to this.) In Muncie the downtown area has newer buildings but they are all mixed in with 100-130 year old buildings. This does not commonly happen in cities like Tokyo and Osaka. Therefore it always fascinating for me to see Japanese buildings built in the 1920’s and 1930’s because they were built by a Japan that in many ways was the polar opposite of what is now.

築地市場は行きました。築地市場は各種魚をたくさん在庫している。小さい神社は築地市場の最寄りにある。東京は古い、でも東京の建物は新しい。