Grandmother Willow has a Japanese cousin.

So here’s an update about my summer. I’ll write a blog next week to update you on my Fall semester. We’ve had some technical difficulties, hence the delay in posting. But we’re back and ready to write for our fans! I know we have fans. Even if they’re only my professors and my mom…HEY MOM!

My summer was beyond words. Even though I worked at my home town’s local grocery store for the first half of the summer…the latter section of my holiday was…stupefying. I spent 2 weeks in Japan and then another 2 weeks with my family on an East Coast roadtrip.

My sophomore year of high school, my family hosted a foreign exchange student named Miki Takao for a year. She’s from a town called Matsudo in the prefecture of Chiba just outside of Tokyo. So this summer, I spent 2 weeks living with her and her family. For those of you who are Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift fans…no…I didn’t see any drifting. But, believe me…I was definitely on the lookout. If you watch that movie, most of the places he sees…I’ve seen. Such as this:

This is an area called Shibuya. It’s known as one of the fashion centers of Japan. It’s kind of like New York City.

This was also taken in Shibuya at a T.G.I. Friday’s! Check out the UTA shirt! Reppin’ the Mavs!

For the first few days that I was there…I was SIICCKK. Jet lag and culture shock are surely on the Axis of Evil. After that, though…I was ready to go. We stayed at her house for the first week, then Miki and I set off across Japan by ourselves. We rode a bus to Kyoto and stayed there for a couple of days. We went to temples and shrines and did some shopping. It was really beautiful there. Then we rode another overnight bus to Hiroshima. MAN. Talk about sadness. It was heartbreaking. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 70 years…allow me to catch you up: On August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. So imagine being an American and walking around the site of the explosion 65 years later. The site where 74,000 were killed and a similar number were injured. It kind of makes you hang your head a little bit. Okay…a lot.

We also went to Miyajima Island off the coast of Hiroshima. It was unbelievable. This picture should explain it.

FYI-Deer like ice cream. And they’ll follow you around to get it.

One of the highlights for me was seeing Himeji Castle.

It was literally on my list of things to see before I die. The keyword in that sentence being “was”. It reminded me of how much I want to study abroad and how UTA wants to help me do that. There is so much money for Mavericks to study abroad! So if you’re interested…be sure to check out http://studyabroad.uta.edu/.

Next week, I’ll talk about getting back into classes. So, get excited.