Warm and Rush hour.

There is nothing better than being in a warm bed when it’s cold. It’s so warm and comfortable in my bed while it’s cold in my room. I sleep with three or two blankets and the blankets are really fluffy and warm. I rarely have the experience in America because many houses have good heating. The Japanese don’t have central heating for their houses and only have heaters for each room. The dining room / living room has a floor that heats up. It’s a smooth wooden floor. I love being warm when it’s cold. I think most people reading this knows the feeling I’m talking about.

Today I was feeling really down. I haven’t talked to any of my family in about a week and I’m really feeling that missing hole. I haven’t been able to call back home so much since the time change because it’s too early for me to call and by the time its late enough in the US it’s too late for me to talk here (house rule is no talking past 10:30), and the mornings during the weekdays I can’t because I have to start getting ready for school at 6am. I’ve never really been homesick but today I really was missing home. Everything is so busy all the time here yet it’s also peaceful. It’s a mix you’d think would be impossible.

Commuting every day for two and a half hours total is tiring especially because I have to fight my way through rush hour. Rush hour is really quite extraordinary. There are few places in the world if any like the rush hour in Tokyo. Sometimes I’m so crammed in the trains I can’t move my arms up. The trains shake and shift while they travel so everyone is being thrown in different directions. It’s not so bad if you have a hold on something but if you don’t you can sometimes almost fall over if it weren’t for the masses of people crammed in there. One time I saw a girl fall down as people were pushing to get on. She pulled herself up quickly but it could’ve been dangerous. It’s not bad for me because I’m tall and have no problems staying steady. I can just put my hand on the ceiling if I have too.

My Japanese seems like its finely getting to a point where I can do okay in communicating. If I have enough time, I can communicate most normal stuff. It seems like my Japanese has improved a lot in the past three weeks or so. I’m not too sure why. I haven’t been doing much anything different, it’s just all starting to come together faster than it has ever before. You know what's interesting is English doesn't have very many emotion words compared to Japanese. You can't really express emotion very well in English. Although everything is sharply defined when it comes to time. You can be very precise with time in English.