Beth + Sushi = SUCCESS!!!!

Some excerpts from the WWOOFing handbook...

Are WWOOFers expected to understand Japanese?:
- No need to speak much
- Only if they are Japanese =)
- No, the hosts do not speak English
- We do accept WWOOFers who cannot speak Japanese sometimes.

(Go... grammar!!! I'm hoping they mean they sometimes accept WWOOFers who can't speak Japanese and not they accept WWOOFer who usually can speak Japanese and but sometimes can't speak Japanese.)

Any special conditions at this host:
Bright and healthy WWOOFers (who says, "eh, that's not really me"?)
WWOOFers have to be enthusiastic about everything (everything? really?)

Info on pets or livestock kept:
3 dogs, 1 cat, 500 chickens, 40 aigamo ducks, 6 sheep, 1 goat, 3 emu, 2 pigs, etc.

Jobs WWOOFers will be expected to do:
making Japanese cookies. (I'll be emailing them, no worries)

"...located where water and air is pure and delicious."
"Our farm is in the middle of the mountains, so we park our car at the foot of the mountains and then we walk about 1 and a half hours to get to our house." (Eeek!)

I got bored, but there are a lot more.

AND THE EXCITING NEWS ABOUT ME AND SUSHI!!!!

Today I went to the Ossining Public Library and borrowed 2 travel guides about Japan, 2 guides about Thailand, and a Learn Japanese cassette tape set. I put the tape in and was speaking Japan, and felt inspired to stop at the good ol' Food Emporium and try that whole sushi thing again.

And it worked!!!! I bought two variety packs. One had raw fish in it and one didn't. I went for what looked like the California roll and I totally ate it. No puking feeling! It's not like I would choose it over, let's say, ice cream or cookies, but I ate it easily. I ended up eating 2 more pieces of the California Roll, and then I even tried one with some brown stuff in it. I don't even know what it was. Hey, baby steps, right? FOUR PIECES, that's like a 66%, which is a D! Quite an improvement from an F!

I realized that going to a sushi place in Briarcliff was probably too fancy. It had some nasty little orange fish eggs on the outside. That's what was making me grossed out. But I'm totally cool with eating the cheap stuff from the supermarket!

Still no word from Earth Embassy. I just emailed two more places. One hotel way up north and then an alternative healing place kind of near Tokyo. One place looked neat, but I ended up skipping it. It was a place that did sea kayaking tours, but it's on an island that you have to take a boat 25 hours to get to. Woah, no thank you.

I also found out that Chase and Citibank charge 3% for international transactions and Capital One doesn't charge anything. But, as the woman on the phone told me, Capital One is going to be changing that soon. She doesn't know when, and she doesn't know what they're changing it to. So applied for a Capital One credit card. And then they told me it would take about 4 weeks to process. Cool. I leave in 4 weeks. Hmm...

That will go in the file of... "Things I should have thought about earlier." Oops.

TODAY IS SEPTEMBER 27TH.

I LEAVE OCTOBER 27TH.

WOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

I'm really going to miss Reno 911.