Yesterday we arrived in Iwanuma and visited the affected sites and temporary housing.

A big issue they face is resurrecting crops from land affected by sea water. To solve this issue, they've developed a type of tomato that thrives in the high salt content. Another issue their economy has is that before the event, Amazon was planning on building a distribution center in the city, which would have been a boon to their economy. Amazon backed out after the town went underwater. As they rebuild, Iwanuma is try to use more renewable energy in their grid. A problem, however, is that the Central Government requires electricity be sold back to a power company. A community can't produce their own electricity and divide it among them. They are hoping this regulation is changed to spur their recovery.

Today we will be visiting a strawberry farm and a mental institution.

There's a gas station across from our hotel in Sendai. After some calculations, I found the price is about $6.50/gallon. Ouch! This further explains the plethora of pedestrians. At yesterday's lecture, the Sensei from Meiji University said electricity prices have doubled since the disaster. This has been because the government has shut down all but one of 500+ nuclear reactors. Businesses have had a hard time absorbing the costs.

Vending machines are the mascots of Japan. Anything from soda to hot chocolate, or tobacco to beer, they have it. I have heard legends of many more interesting machines.

As you may know, taxes are included with listed prices in Japan. It is a simple thing that makes everything better. Convinces stores are present every few blocks around here, especially in Tokyo. Their economy seems to be centered around small, quick purchases.

Hello! D'Anthoni again! I had a few interesting things to talk about during the last couple of days if travel. We got up on the third day of the trip to go to our orientation meeting. It was great and informative!

Afterwards, everyone has eaten a great lunch. However as we exited the building I noticed many of the people were smoking their tobacco products everywhere around the area. In Japan smoking is a common sight on the streets.

Another thing that I noticed as we were driving to Tokyo station were the roads and streets. They were incredibly different than American streets. Driving is done on the left side of the road and the street lights are a bit more complicated than American ones. There are more options when it comes to turning and stopping and the street lights aren't always the same.

The Shinkansen ( japanese bullet trains ) is also a common sight in Japan for transportation. They are used to travel in many cities in Japan. In fact we took it to go to Sendai in continuation of our tour. We stopped eight times during the ride but it was really fast. That's all I've got for now! Thanks for reading!!

ありがとうございます^_^！
さようなら!!

Hey there, D'Anthoni here. Culture is an important aspect of human nature. Nobody could survive without it. While staying in Japan, I will be focusing on specific things that compare and contrast against the american aspect of living vs the Japanese style of living.

As we arrived in the Narita airport, it was a culture shock. There were many new and different things that I had never seen before.

One of the things I found interesting about Japan was the amount of English used for directions, companies, and transportation. Many of the buildings and stores had English on their main logos, buildings, products, goods, etc. You would think that Japanese would be more common than English, but it's shocking to read most of the signs without translating them. In America we use some Spanish, but not as much as the Japanese use their English!

Anyways... Thanks for reading!

さようなら‼

Hey all, Eric here. I suppose the format of these post will just be things we observed relating to our topics.

The first thing I noticed after leaving Narita International Airport were the cars. All cars on the road were within the past few model years and in great condition. In America, though quite a few people lease cars, a significant portion of us keep our cars until they're run into the ground. There may be many factors, but my theory about this phenomenon is due to the expansive public transportation. Cars are used by those wealthy enough to replace them regularly. Everyone else uses public transit or bikes (which are quite popular).

The hotel we are staying in tonight has a convenience store below it. Because of the denominations of Yen, I received all coins when I purchased with a 1000¥ bill. Usually coins are relatively worthless, but it's quite the opposite in Japan.

Most of the past day has been spent on a plane, but more adventures to come tomorrow!

おやすみなさい！