Japanese food (日本料理) or nihon ryouri is absolutely delicious. Most people are familiar with things such as sushi or ramen, but that barely scratches the surface of the myriad of tasty treats that Japanese eat every day. Being that I am not a picky eater I have really enjoyed all the food my host family has prepared me so far.

My first night here we went out to eat and I had a nice bowl of ramen, accompanied by some gyoza. Ramen is basically noodles in a bowl of broth (mine was shoyu or soy sauce). Along with the noodles you usually get some seaweed, slices of meat, and veggies. When you eat your noodles, try and forget all the rules your mom told you about not slurping your soup, and be as noisy as possible. Gyoza are just dumplings, and can have a variety of fillings. Incidentally, a nice bowl of ramen is what got me really sick last time I was in Japan. Hopefully I don't lose any more battles to this tasty dish.

All of the breakfasts I've had are surprisingly "American." An egg, hash browns, toast with jam, maybe a piece of ham. Nothing really out of the ordinary other than the fact that I've actually been eating the most important meal of the day.

I forget what I ate the second night here.

My third night we had what looked like spaghetti noodles, that had a paste made from fish eggs and miso soup. Surprisingly it was really good.

Last night we had gyoza, and a huge selection of other Japanese dishes. It is really difficult to remember everything since there are generally 8 or 9 different things on the table for dinner. Accompanying the gyoza was miso soup, and these black beans which were incredibly sweet. I would venture to say that you could almost eat them as dessert. The crowning piece of this meal had to be the cow tongue though. They described to me what it was in Japanese before I ate it. I told them I'd give it a try, and true to my word, I did. And it was quite delicious. It had the consistency of very dense ham, and had a peppery taste. I really suggest trying it at least once. We also had mashed Japanese sweet potatoes, but they weren't quite as awesome as American sweet potatoes.

Tonight we had another very Japanese dish, and I have already forgotten the name of it. Everything was covered in a sponge-y bread type batter, and in a brown broth. There were different veggies, and and seafood inside of the batter, which you dipped into Japanese mustard (Note to Kevin: Even I thought this mustard was spicy). Yet another outrageously delicious dish.

I also got to meet my host family's son a couple days ago, and his wife tonight. They are both extremely nice people, and I had a ton of fun chatting with them. It seems like everyone really likes the gift I bought them, as every day the grandchildren get it out and have me explain the different places to everybody. Tonight I spent at least an hour looking through it with my host family's daughter-in-law, and figuring out how to describe each picture in Japanese. She was really amazed at how huge and diverse the U.S. is, and after really taking time to look through the book with her I'm a bit amazed too. I think it might be something you take for granted living their your entire life. I think her favorite picture was one of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fran when there is a huge amount of fog covering it. My favorite has to be a picture of one of they hot springs in Yellowstone.

School starts tomorrow... this is going to be a very busy week. Hope everyone is doing well back in the U.S..