So this weekend I went to the onsen(natural hot spring) with my host family. It was really fun. We went on a Hato Bush tour, the first day we mostly just drove, stopping for lunch and a train ride. We got to the onsen in Shimoda at about 3:30. The hotel was an older Japanese-style hotel, I had my own room and it was huge. I had a big room to sleep in and have my tea in, I had a deck, another small room, a toilet room and a seperate sink and bathroom with a back. It was crazy big. I slept on tatami, sat on the floor and wore a kimono, it was all very traditional Japanese. The onsens were great. They were so relaxing, I didn't even really think about the fact that I was naked with a bunch of naked old Japanese women. I wonder what they thought of my tattoo. We ate a ton of food too and I drank way too much beer, because it's the Japanese way to refill your glass if it ever becomes empty, you're not supposed to refill your own glass. Well I kept finishing my beer because I don't like the taste of beer very much and I wanted to end with the taste of the delicious food in my mouth, but every time I looked back, they had refilled my glass. We even had beer for breakfast! I asked for only a tiny bit, because I can't really drink beer at breakfast without feeling like a bit of an alcoholic. I also had Wasabi ice cream, which was surprisingly tasty. Sweet, yet spicy. After dinner, we hung out and Aki, their son's fiance is trying to learn English, so she brought this game called Tokoman. It's a PS2 game that helps you practice English and rates your pronunciation. Everyone tried out their English pronunciation skills, which was pretty amusing. I got a few B grades from the game when I tried...apparently I can't speak English very well. :-) Then the next day we went to a beautiful orchid garden, I'll post some pictures after this. An old man who worked there gave me some flowers and told me they were a "special present". Normally they cost about $20, so I guess it pays to be a foreign woman every once in a while. Then we went to a Suzenji, a pretty town with a famous temple and a fish market. All in all, it was a very fun weekend. My family is super nice for taking me and I had a really good time with them. I even managed to study for my vocab quiz and get my history paper mostly finished. Yea!