Japan is much as a remember it from our last stay and I am pleased to report that my limited Japanese skills don’t seem to have suffered that much from a ten year absence.  However, my ability to read Katakana (Japanese symbols for foreign words) is pretty much gone.  I can still recognize it when I see it though and am surprised at how often it is used.  Knowing Katakana makes a lot of things easier and I think that with a little bit of study if should come back fairly quickly.   I will be dedicating some time to that over the next week or so to get back up to speed.

Today we went to the city to hall to register as an Alien in Japan.  How cool, I am now an Alien in two countries!  We also found our neighborhood DVD rental place and brought home a couple of movies to watch tonight as we don’t have cable yet - I’d break out the popcorn but I haven’t found it in the store yet!

I’m looking forward to getting a bike sometime next week and my first trip via the train into Tokyo.  Stay tuned.