The pool

Today was such a beautiful day! It was a day just like in Blacksburg. Sunny, upper 30s, and snow still on the ground. My favorite type of day! :)

It was harder to ride my bike today, though, because the snow was all hard and icy, but I'm getting the hang of snow biking!

I saw this cute snowman on my way to church this morning! All that's left of my snowman is two lumps of snow lol.

(I'm pretty sure this snowman one-ups mine lol)

After church this dude came over and asked in Japanese if I was from America. I told him I was from Texas and he was like "ahh, Texas. Cowboys"

Lawl. That's the first thing everyone always says when I say I'm from Texas haha.

When I got home, we had pan for breakfast and jelly and fruit. Mmmmm. Then I did my laundry and we watched some of the skiing on the Olympics.

I hung all my clothes outside and then we were off to the mall! It was so nice not bringing any homework along for the car ride. :) Yuko played this CD she'd bought for Miya that had dialogues in both English and Japanese. Miya repeated the English and I repeated the Japanese haha. Yuko and Ken thought it was funny.

When we got to Aeon, the mall, I got to roam around for an hour while Yuko, Ken and Miyabi went to go look for learning tablet things (like a LeapFrog thing) to help Miyabi learn English. I went to the Ghibli store. It was adorable! I almost bought a Spirited Away folder, but then I didn't.

(Ghibli store)

(I want this Totoro in my room...)

(Ahhh cute Totoro food charms!!)

(Finger puppets from all the Ghibli movies)

Then I went to Sanrio and some clothing stores. Everything was pretty expensive, like in American malls. I wish they had a place like Kohl's here!

("Enjoy sweat", guys)

Then I went in this awesome hot pink store, called "Pink Latte".

There was a huge interior part built to look like a tour bus driving through New York.

(Pink Empire State Building!)

(Front of the bus thing)

(Weird store name...)

Then I met back up with Yuko, Ken, and Miyabi and we left. They ended up not buying the tablet thing, but said they were going to come back next week. The  parking garage had an amazing view of the city!

So we went home and had lunch. Omg guys, we had Tex Mex!! We had taco fillings in tortillas, basically burritos. And we had avocados!!!! Ahh I missed avocado SO much!

Apparently they're called "taco"s in Japanese, which is weird, because "tako" is octopus lol.

Ahh lunch was so good and it made me miss home a little.

After I brought in my clothes from outside, we headed out to the pool. The pool was all the way past that castle with the red bridge I always see from the train (btw the amazing Ayuko gave me the name and website of that castle so I'm going to go sometime!). Ken dropped us off and Yuko said he was probably going to take a nap in the car or something lol. I guess he doesn't like pools...

It was really cool! We got changed and then Yuko gave me this mesh bathing cap that everyone was wearing because we were required to.

The pool was awesome! Way cooler than the pools I swam in as a kid. It had a lazy river we went around a bunch, a wave pool, hot tubs, a giant slide, and a lap pool. We tried everything. Well, Miya wouldn't go down the slide with me. There was one a little lower down than the other, so I wanted her to race me and she really wanted to, but was just too scared!

There was this 10 minute break at one point and I thought it was like adult swim or something, but it was where literally everyone in there had to get out of the pool, so everyone flocked to the hot tubs to stay warm.

Once I told Yuko I used to be on swim team, we went to the lap pool so I could do laps and Yuko lent me her goggles.

Holy crap I was out of shape. I remember the good old days when I could swim 100 laps straight, and now I can barely swim a 200... T_T

It was probably due to the fact that I was wearing a bikini, you know drag and all ;)

Which btw I was the only one wearing a bikini. Like in the onsens everyone's naked and stuff, but in the pool no one was showing skin! Maybe because the opposite sex was around and all... Idk

I swam so many laps and went down the slide a bunch of times. We were all really tired two hours later, at 5, when we left. Miya was really unhappy about leaving haha. 

But after we got changed (Yuko told me I change really fast. I guess Duchesne ingrained it in me haha), we sat in the lobby and ate ice cream while we waited for Ken to come get us. Yuko told me the grape sherbet was the only one without cream, so she got me that one. It was good!

I didn't realize I had to take the wrapper off to eat it haha, but they showed me.

(Miya with her cookies and cream)

When Ken showed up, we got in the car for the long ride home! At home, I went to my room and meant to pack for Osaka and Kyoto, seeing as it was already 6 and I'm leaving tomorrow and everything. But I ended up sitting and eating the rest of my box of Oreos (there were only like 3 left, okay?). Then I sent my mom a picture of the empty package in the hopes she'd send me another one haha. Yeah, right.

So yeaaaahhh. I hate packing so much. 

But I did it eventually. And it only took like 2 seconds. But still...

We had nabe (hot pot) for dinner. It was a pot full of meat, spinach, tofu, and mushrooms. So good and warm!

Btw I completely forgot about my bonsai haha. Thanks for the reminder, mom!

So I checked on it today and it had SO many flowers!!

(Awww look at it!)

Whoo Osaka tomorrow!!