so its 10:41, i am getting a bit of an earlier start on this entry since i am super tired today. not so much jetlag as just getting 5 hrs of sleep last night and spending the whole day doing things around obama! tesni and i woke up super early to go to her jr. high school. grade 1-2-3, ages 12-15 i think? i went in and got to meet the principal and vice principal... i made poor attempts at saying little things in japanese all day, but i suppose it is nice to try anyway. we sat through a short staff meeting and then we went to the first class.

tesni had prepared a DVD with pictures of me and my life to show the kids. mostly "this is my cat, her name is savannah" and "these are my friends" (liana and cassie, they thought you were "sooo cute") afterwards, tesni asked if they had any questions for me. it took a minute to drag some out, but yes, i like the boston red sox and yes, my glasses are chanel. SO COOL! SO CUTE! and my hair is natural blond and yes, i have blue eyes. after the 50 min. lesson was up, they get 10 mins. to talk between classes and a couple of the more talkative girls would ask me more questions, it was really sweet. when we left that class and walked back to the teachers room, more kids would pop their heads out of classrooms or be walking in the hallway and would say "tesni! tesni!" and she would explain i was her friend visiting from america and then they would yell "KELSEY!" i guess word traveled fast around school.

we went into the second class and i presented the same DVD, same questions, same funny kids. one kid is super talkative and wanted me to know he is "cool boy". awesome! we were only there for 20 mins, but it was still really fun. then we went back to the teachers room again and had to kill 2 hrs so we made a list of all the fun things we get to do for the rest of the week and then we decided to play MASH! always a good way to kill time, still fun after all these years. tesni's life was awesome and mine sucked. i'm a professional mom with zero kids -- boring!

at 12:30 we got to eat lunch with one of tesni's favorite classes. they had drawn names to decide who would get to sit with each of us at lunch. half way through we had to switch between the boys and the girls so no one would get jelly! the girls wanted to know if i had a boyfriend and if i liked japanese food. and if i have any more chanel things... uhh not real ones. and then we switched and they asked me what i was eating (pasta, tesni cooked it) and if i play any sports. then i asked them about pets and siblings, and they told me about video games, super cool. after lunch we peaced out and went home to change.

once we had gotten out of stuffy teacher clothes, and stopped by a sweets shop to get some matchi. tesni's favorite thing in all of japan is this fresh strawberry motchi, so i had to try some. it is the pounded rice stuff w/ sweet red bean paste inside. its pretty good, not as good as hazelnut kit kats, but you know... then we headed to wakasa myotsuji-temple. a really beautiful, well preserved, buddhist temple. no nails, only fashioned woodwork. we looked around and took some pictures, said a little prayer and headed on our way to mackerel street. it is a very traditional old style japan street. apparently when people used to walk from obama to kyoto or osaka, they would walk on this road with a little stream running alongside the road. its very nice. we found a small path to another hidden temple. i like thinking that you can come across a really beautiful temple pretty much anywhere you go in japan.

after temple time, we drove a short way to... JAPANESE WALMART. its called PLANT 2 super center, and they have pretty much everything a regular person in obama could ever need. i looked around, but started to feel sleepy, and knew we had a big dinner ahead so we came home for a quick nap. woke up about 6:35 and ran next door to hang out with tesni's neighbors. she always talks about how they are some of her best friends in japan, no joke, and now i can see why. sweet older ladies (like 50s?) who like to practice their english, but also tell tesni stories about japanese history and explain a lot of things. it seems like a really nice relationship and they cooked a wonderful dinner. noodles with cabbage and red pepper on a hot plate w/ soy sauce. i need to remember some of the things over here that are so simple because they are so delicious! rice balls with shallots, egg and pepper too -- yum.

so dinner was wonderful. good food, fun company and of course, really funny stories. i brought some traditional american "easter candy" as a gift... peeps and cadbury creme eggs, what else! and they loved them. i think! i mean, japanese people are so polite anyway its not like they would say "these things suck and so do you" but, yeah. we are home now and i'm gonna sleep so i can get ready for a super big day tomorrow. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! (this is where the kids are gonna get buck wild, i can't wait!) and meeting up with NICOLE IN KYOTO!!! ahhhhh!!