Someone asked me for directions today! And more importantly I could give them!!!! Granted they wanted to know how to get to the castle and its on top of a hill in the center of the city and the road we were on led right up to the castle but STILL!!!! I understood what was going on and helped them out.

about 30 seconds later I was stopped by an elderly woman on the street and asked what country I was from.

Yesterday some friends and I went to Kobe to the aquarium and the beach. It was awesome!!! Its still in the 70's here  but no one in Japan goes swimming at the beach after August. Once the temperature is below 95 its WWWWAAAAAYYY too cold to go swimming. I, being from New York, went in the water anyway and it was wonderful. I'm currently driving my host mother crazy by wearing t-shirts around the house and outside. "It's winter" she says. "You must wear long shirts and wool sweaters". "Its 68 degrees and sunny" I say, "T-shirt weather". I was asked today if I wear t-shirts in winter in New York. Truthful answer is yes. She said that New Yorkers are crazy. Fair enough. Tomorrow I'm going to buy "winter clothes" so she wont worry so much, I don't want to drive her crazy I just only brought t-shirts thinking it would be warm here. I forgot that people have different ideas of warm. While I was rolling up my jeans and splashing around in the ocean most people were wearing turtle neck sweaters and wool socks. I feel bad for the kids from my area who are in NY and Washington. They must be dying.