Hey there,

Life is good. I guess its coming down to the end. I made it to the Osaka convention. That was kind interesting. I mostly hung out with the rotex at all times. I didn’t have a pass to get into the actual conference and of the exchange students that did get in they all thought it was kind of boring. But I got to see Osaka again. It is defiantly my favorite city. I am hopefully going to make it down there again at the end of this month, before I come home. I met some friends from Hokkaido, the northern most island. They invited me up there but I don’t think I am going to make it this trip. I met some past exchange students to 6990, and a girl that is coming to live in Florida next year and work at Disney.

I cannot stand coming to school anymore. Everyday is torture. I love Japan. It is one of the most fun places you can possibly be. Everyone is so nice and it’s a good place to be a gaijin but, high school is not where I am supposed to be. I am really glad I chose to be on this program because there is no other way I could have learned the Japanese language like I have, nor learn to integrate into the culture. I plan on coming back here. Maybe for college maybe as a teacher I don’t know yet. The people are amazing, the food is amazing, and the weather is… different from Miami.

We had a rotary camp the other day. It was a place called British Hills. It is a little island of English speaking and tea drinking people that take in Japanese tourists for the weekend. It was almost fun. We got to meet some cool people but it was all so expensive. I am glad rotary was taking the tab on most things but Guinness was $10 a can so we had to skip on that part. I got to give some English and speech lessons which was fun, makes me think about what I want to do in the future.

Well I am back home now. Skateboarding again now that the weathers cleared up. Im still studying my Japanese and kanji. I am going rock climbing this weekend with my host brother. There is this beach over here with amazing cliffs, and there is a small shrine out on an island just off the beach you have to climb straight up to get to. Ill try and send some pictures home.

Good luck to everyone and hope your doing well. Look forward to seeing you soon.

Thanks Rotary,

Mark