Konbanwa from Kyotoー京都からの今晩は！

I safely arrived at KCJS in Kyoto last Tuesday and finally moved into my apartment today. You'll find the pictures of the neighborhood and the apartment here: http://picasaweb.google.com/brett.m.newman/NijoHeightsTour(hit the slideshow button for best results). The location is near the intersection of Karasuma Dori and Nijo Dori in Kyoto.

It is wonderful to be back in Kyoto, and my host family from 2004/2005 is incredibly glad to see me. As always they have been incredibly kind to me: we have shared meals, they have taken me around Kyoto for tourism and shopping, and I stayed at their house a number of times already. Furthermore, they were invaluable in helping me get set up here at Nijo Heights and even picked me up at Itami airport when my adjusted flight schedule put me there instead of Kansai.

Classes start tomorrow morning and we have a week to shop around for our favorite courses. All looks very good on that front thus far. A cell phone will be in the works in the next week or two because I need to get the proper paperwork.

Finally, during orientation we had a great introduction to the students from Kyoto University auditing KCJS classes and those in the international friendship clubs. They gave us tours of the Kyoto University campus, answered questions, and took us to the friendship tea time . Finally they arranged for all 50 of us KCJS students to go out for dinner and drinks the night our orientation concluded. The program has really done an excellent job thus far of making sure we get those introductions to the Kyodai students.

Following something I've seen friends do in the past I have set up a blog for my trip. I'll try to send emails once in a while and update the blog more frequently. The address is http://brettinkyoto.blogspot.com/ . I will post this this email as the first entry.Best wishes to all of you stateside. I hope to see those of you in Japan soon!