Posted by Amanda Today was the first day of our homestays. I have to admit to being a bit nervous being on my own in a Japanese house. It is always nice to have someone else to ask what to do before you plow in and offend someone. I seem very lucky in my placement. I am with Tokiko, her five year old twin daughters named Maya and Sakura, and her Indian husband. The fact that she married an Indian man makes me feel like she's forgiving of foreigner faux pas. He...

Posted by Amanda First of all the Japanese drive on the left! How did I not know this or even notice it until midway through the day? I think somewhere at sometime I knew that, but I definitely had forgotten. The disembarkation process was very long, our longest yet. We had to get our temperature taken since we are arriving from China which has bird flu. This was actually fast as we all just walked by a thermal camera. Then the customs officials had to che...

Posted by Amanda Today was an interesting day. Since I'd planned Hong Kong, Carrie planned Shanghai. We started the day early because I hadn't gotten to go off the ship yet. We had a new person to our usual four of Carrie, Jenne, Noah, and me so it took a bit of getting used to the new dynamics. It also meant getting two cabs much of the time. Our first cab driver either didn't notice or care that we had four in the back seat. He took us to the Bund. Th...

Posted by Amanda Today was a bit of a bust for me. I think Noah will have more interesting things to report as he's waiting on the gangway returning from his Beijing trip. We were supposed to arrive in Shanghai at about 4am with a full face to face check with immigration shortly thereafter. Instead, we got caught in the fog and had to anchor about 66 miles from Shanghai. They had hoped we'd be able to get going again during the night and arrive by 7am. Inst...

Much smaller crowd for Taiji this morning, unsurprisingly, but everyone was on time for the bus to the Great Wall. Once we got there, one student seemed shocked that there would be a lot of stairs to climb.Sshe had been in a car accident and had very bad ankles. The day before, she had told me we were walking too fast for her, so somehow it was my fault that I hadn't reorganized the whole visit to accommodate her -- you know, by going to the small, flat part of...