So it's been a pretty eventful few days here in Hikone. This is Lake Biwa, on a nice cloudy day. It's rained or been cloudy every day so far, but it's still hot enough to work up a sweat on your bike. But enough about the weather.

It's been really busy with placement tests, required meetings, and things just getting oriented. After that was over with it was off to class. Honestly, the first day of class I understood barely any of what the teach was saying. It was 100% Japanese, spoken really fast, and to make it worst, I've never had a male teach and rarely heard a male even speak Japanese. It's slowed down some now so it's much better during class. But I wish I would have listened to more movies/television before I got here, just to get used to hearing different accents and tones of voice. If everyone hear sounded like Cook-sensei I would have been fine, but I guess you can't hope for that.

So other than just going to class, I've been shopping, talking, and generally loitering around Hikone.

That pic on the left is my roommate, Adam, on one of the first days we were here, getting rained on while exploring. Now we have bikes though, so it's much more convenient to get around. It is pretty easy to spot each other because we're required to wear matching helmets. Supposedly it's for the sake of safety, but I personally things it's so people can quickly identify us and get to the other side of the road.