So busy!

Konichiwa!! Greetings from Japan. It is about 6:30 here. We have had a very full two days! Yesterday, we checked out of the hotel and gave our first presentation to the Utsonomiya Rotary Club, which was men only. I'm not sure if that would fly in the US! Here is a picture of Kelly at the podium.

We then visited the second largest hospital in Tochigi, and got to chat with the head of nurses, head of accounting and several head doctors. Next up: super cars! The head of the hospital owned about 25 super cars, set up in a museum. My favorite was either the pink Porsche, or the Ducati (one of about 150 in the world).

I am surprised I was allowed to touch it.

We then split up and went off with our host families. My host mother is Masako, an amazing woman who was GSE chair for Tochigi for the last 9 years! She has a super cute 8 year old grandson, Haruki, who kicked my butt in checkers (using a few suspicious moves...).

Today, we visited a toy museum, where Givon got giddy over Transformers, and gave our second presentation to the Mibu Rotary Club. This was a longer presentation, about 40 minutes. I tried to give as much of mine in Japanese as possible. We are slowly, but surely learning. I must say, Japanese comes much easier to me than French, and if it was offered as a language in college I may have had a higher GPA! Below I am exchanging the Doylestown banner with the president of the Mibu Rotary.

We then visited Dokkyo University Hospital, where we had a great tour of the university and pharmacy. Kelly was able to find some of the drugs she makes at Particle Sciences!

Tonight, I am going out for a Japanese dinner with my host mother and her entire family. I have no idea how the Japanese are so thin; we've been eating so much every meal! All of the food is oishi (delicious) except for chicken livers. Yuck. I've already experienced my first Japanese bath, which was amazing, and will probably have another later on tonight. Tomorrow we have a Welcome Party with four Rotaries, and a welcome concert. Can't wait.

Mata ashita (see ya tomorrow),

Katie