I woke up feeling pretty good on the 27th, or at least as good as you can feel after a twelve hour flight without sleeping the night before. After a call to my parents to let them know I made it safely, I had a pleasant breakfast with Anita Shaw and Tina Wong. Randy Soderquist stopped by our table and said "hello" and also informed us of a nice temple a short walk away. Since we had some time before our bus left for Tsukuba Anita, Tina, and I decided to check it out. Unfortunately I didn't have any film in my camera so I couldn't take any pictures, but I figured I'd have plenty of opportunities in the next two months.
The bus ride to Tsukuba was uneventful. I'd done it in reverse six months before so it wasn't new to me but I enjoyed seeing things I remembered. I sat next to Joe Wang on the bus and we talked about our research and about being in Japan. Before long I realized we were very close to the Tsukuba Kenshu Center where we would all spend the next week and half of us would spend the entire summer.
The Tsukuba Kenshu Center looked much better to me than it did six months ago. Then I was leaving Japan with a nasty sore throat--now I was back for two months and I was feeling pretty good. It was great to have stayed there before. For me, the Kenshu Center was a known place--for most of our group it was their first introduction to Japanese bathing facilities, Japanese bathrooms, and real Japanese food. I felt good about being back in Japan.
Saturday June 28th saw our group in the classroom for orientation. Again, I had heard most of the advice before and besides, I had already spent two weeks in Japan so I knew the story. Jet-lag hit me about 9:00 that night but I could only sleep until 3:00am. I think I dozed off for another hour or two, but getting up at 5:00am is something that is very unfamiliar to me. ;-)