Japan is amazing! I have arrived in Okawachi-cho and the place is very beautiful. It is in a valley surrounded by lush green hills and lovely rivers. Nice and rural - im glad. The people are so friendly and helpful, they really are. My apartment is quite flash. Its new and clean and good. All the appliances have japanese writing on them so its hard to understand how to use them, even the washing machine! however, my colleagues are helping me to understand. The baths here are amazing, theyre all automatic, you just select the temperature and level and press a button and thats it - automatic. The first night I stayed with my supervisor and his family, that was a nice introduction. He has a beautifuul japanese style house. We went for a walk to a local shrine to offer some rice to the river god. A little frog jumped onto my shoe.

There are so many funny things here, everything is smaller and there is so much detail. Its very japanese. everyone speaks japanese and all the food is japanese. very japanese. I like it all though. The place I live is beautiful, there are rice paddys everywhere and the hills are so lush, covered in cedar and cypress trees with maples too. all the plants are different from NZ, the animals too. Okawachi has many frogs! I love frogs and they are everywhere. Because the rice paddys are filled with a few inches of water, there are little green frogs everywhere! There are also beautful big butterflies everywhere. I keep noticing new animals. Ive seen some neat lizard s too. The weather is really hot, its summer - about 30 degrees and quite humid. a change from the chilly wellington winter! Today, I have the afternoon off to explore further - hiking i think. Ive been quite busy with introductions and stuff over the last two days.