4 Aug 94 =Now= I'll finally write (7:50 pm) because I find myself in a familiar situation - I'm sitting in the Terai's entrance waiting for Mrs. Terai to come home. I really wish they would give me a key so I could return whenever. Trip to Aomori - Aomori is on Honshuu, a different island from Hokkaido so the train went through an underwater tunnel which was about 55 km long and went to about 260 m under sea level. In the train there was a board w/ a picture of the tunnel and lights along it indicated where we were in it. There was an LED board underneath that every so often told us how far we went and how deep we were. There train ride was really smooth and we went through alot of mountains. Japan truly is a mountainous country, for no matter how far you go or where you travel, you can almost always see mountains. We visited an old castle and a couple shrines - drank the lucky water, made a wish by throwing a 5 yen piece in a box at the shrine. We went by groups to host families - me & Claudia Bob were with one family - we feasted at dinner - grilled beef, oysters, conch just for starters and pandazushi and shiitake mushrooms and mame. We played w/ a big load of hanabi til neighborhood boys spotted the smoke, came running, and took the hanabi to play w/ themselves. Then we played Uno w/ the family. The next day they gave us presents - tshirts and little purse thing. Then we went to the Sports Festival - where we got chopsticks and a door hanging just for showing up. We did a little warm up thing w/ everybody which is the same as the little exercises that Suzuki-sensei makes us do - I think it's a standardized, national thing. Which reminds me, Japan has no official flag - thought the rising sun flag is almost always used - it's because it's associated w/ the military regime of the 30s & 40s that it's not official.