McDonald is never a good idea...

So, Dufus and I wanted to arrive home at a decent hour tonight so we decided to get McDonalds by the train station. I have eaten a mcdonald's burger about twice in the last decade. I got a cheese burger... after a week of fish and noodles.... it did not agree with me. I feel sick, and bloated. I will not make that mistake twice.

I have this thing about strangers. I don't like them. In America whenever someone is lost or has something to say they ALWAYS talk to me. I am not comfortable with it. In Japan, whenever I am not with Brian someone always talks to me. It is VERY strange for me. Today some woman asked to meet me again for lunch, I didn't know what to do so I gave her my card. I try to look as unapproachable as possible... ear phones and books... it doesn't stop them.

We went around the facility today. Just the engine testing buildings. They had so many test sights. It was all pretty much stuff that's at EPA so I was familiar with most things. Brian of course has only see an engine 4 other times in his life. He asked so many questions (that he could have asked about the same equipment we have back in Toyota AA) that it took forever to go around. They had "echo free" rooms for engin testing and a cold room that was nice and cold. I think that all of Toyota air conditioning power is in that room. There was also some prototyping buildup, testing, and modification sites that were interesting. I would have like to be able to ask more detailed questions, but again we suffer from a language barrier.

Our translator this week is name Miho. She has been very nice. She told me that she doesn't even know the engineers are saying. I mean she knows the words, just not familiar with the way things are grouped together. She just translates the words and is surprised that we understand what she is trying to tell us and that we can get our work done. I was surprised she didn't know what we were talking about because her english comes off very clear. We had a study day today, and so things were pretty slow. Towards the end of the day I pulled out "survival japanese" a book with phrases in japanese that I got from Polly and Lock. this book has the english phrase, the way it is written in our type of letters, the way it is phonetically spoken and the japanese characters. This provided many minutes of entertainment. It was kind of funny. If i read the words it was very bad Japanese, if I read the phonetic she would understand what i was saying. It was very funny. I am going to practice a sentence so I can say it to Kobayashi-san tomorrow. I will let you know if he understands.

Tomorrow I am going to take my camera to work and check it in to security so I can take some photo's after work. I would like to take some of the building main building... my building is so far in the back that there is no way to see it.

I am almost half way done. I think it will be a faster 2 weeks... I can't imagine there is that much more that I have to figure out about this place.....