...And we're famous!

Monday, August 6, I went to Miya JH in the morning and then headed up to Takayama to meet the mayor. It was also my first opportunity to see Dan again since our first day as he lives in a town that is quite far from the city center and hasn't been back. After some lunch, Dan, Theresa, Kyle, and I were introduced to the mayor. While we were waiting we saw the first picture of ourselves in the paper - from our first day when we met the superintendant

lol, we look thrilled! And I'm slouching >.<

Anyway, the meeting with the mayor went well - he welcomed us to Takayama, and we all said what we hoped to acomplish while we are here (cultural exchange, learn about Japan, etc), and I gave him one of the bone letter openers I brought from home. I was the only one to give a gift - so I either looked super-stellar, or a total kiss-ass, heh heh. And of course there were more peeps from the paper there, and we showed up a couple of days later in another paper. This time another ALT, Katie, went the extra mile and gave us each laminated copies of our article ^_^


No idea what it says, but I'm sure it's flattering...

After our meeting, we all went to the local electronics store to get cell phones. I opted to go with a simple design, though it still does way more than the one I had at home. It's purdy too.


Had a little drama with switching it from Japanese to English - but after Kyle pointed out the "abridged" English verision of instructions in the back of the book, all was well. Now all I need to get is a bunch of crap to hang off it and I'll have a real Japanese cell phone!