I arrived in France two days ago after a 29 hour journey just to find that the train station at which I arrived had no elevators and hence, although jet lagged and otherwise completely worn out, I had to lug all 200 pounds of my luggage downstairs, across an underground tunnel and then upstairs to the opposite platform where thank goodness, someone was waiting to take some of it off my hands.

The first words she said (after “Are you Terayza?”) were “We were worried about you.  The train came and went twenty minutes ago and there was no sign of you.” To which I replied, “Unh.”  I didn’t have the energy for anything witty (or coherant, actually).

Once we were packed into the car and on the road, she laid out her second sentence: “We thought you were going to stay in the high school dormitory but in fact, there is a problem.”  To which I made no reply.  (I was just about catatonic at this point.)  But from the rest of the conversation I did understand that the dormitory was in fact, a problem.  For starters, it’s a boys dormitory.  Secondly, curfew is 9pm.  Thirdly, the dormitory is not open on the weekends, I’d have to pack a weekend bag and crash somewhere else.  Needless to say, I didn’t argue when they told me they had made other arrangements for me.

So, while I’m technically homeless it hasn’t been too rough.  The teachers are all very nice and willing to help and there have been a number of rooms offered to me.  So for now, I’m staying with the art teacher (who bears an uncanny resemblance to my aunt Ginger, so it’s literally like staying with family :p) while I consider my other prospects.  Once I decide on a place, no doubt I’ll post some pics.

More to come on the actual city and my schools.  I’ve got some rooms to go look at now. a bientot!

I forgot this was in my drafts…today isn’t really my last day in Japan it’s just when I remembered it…

Today is my last day in Japan.

Two days ago Scott and I returned to Fukuoka from our holiday in Singapore and Malaysia.  It was really nice to be back at our pseudo-home.  Tomorrow I will fly back to Texas, my REAL home.

Singapore was great, very clean and very landscaped.  It’s a very pretty city and we ate some pretty yummy food there too.  Lots of noodles.  And I’ve just discovered that I really like Indian food.  Whoddathunk.

Malaysia was a mixed bag.  The first place we went was Kuala Lumpur and the first thing we noticed was all the emo/punk kids milling about.  The city is full of angst ridden youths and very angry looking men.   Scowling, the badge of KL.  They wear it proudly.

After a couple of days we took a bus to the Taman Negara Rain Forest, the world’s oldest rainforest.  Whilst there we did the jungle canopy walk and trekking and then I got food poisoning.  Oh boy!  That delayed our trip by a day since I was not fit to travel but I recovered soon and we were on our way to the Perhentians the next day.

The Perhentians were awesome.  Beautiful, breezy, blue water; unfortunately the fruit smoothies left something to be desired (flavor, methinks).