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Dear Reader,
LET me begin from OHare airport where I had mango green tea 2% boba. First, that happened, then we left. I had a window seat and sat beside a woman who just graduated from an Illinois graduate school with a complicated math degree, her name was Soojin. She did not warm up to my fidgeting nervous conversation until she had slept for about 10 hours. She was on her way to Korea where her parents live. I did not sleep but 20 minutes on the 12 hour flight. My eyes were very frightening when I laid my head down last evening. I think I got in the area of 5 or 6 hours of sleep. On the plane I read for class and the pilot at one point when requesting donations for a charity, mispoke and said "Malaria kills 1 African-American, I mean African child every [increment of time]." This is not a mistake. Also, I was reading by natural light in my window seat and one of the male attendents reached into my seat and turned the reading light on and exclaimed, "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh,"which was creepy. Also, I only learned how to recline my seat once we landed. When we landed everyone was scanned with a camera on the plane by Japanese health officials for the flu. In Tokyo we went under a giant tunnel and ate at a restaurant and I spent something like 273 yen on pickled eggplant and natto+raw fish+tempure bits+raw egg. It was pretty yummy. I didn't really enjoy walking on the street in the dark, though. I took pictures of Sapporo and Siberian wastes from the airplane. Allinall I enjoyed the plane. We fly again today to Shimane in Matsue Prefecture, which is rather rural. I am going to like this. I also read a nice passage in our book, which is pretty orientalist at times and it described a painting of the Buddha that had nice shadows and the shadows were actually sutras written very minisculely. Also, the word "punch" comes from Sanskrit and refers to a combination of five oranges, originally. Fukushima-taught us this. He shares little informational bits like that that I feel I ought to remember.

Bye.