Hey everyone,

We have incredible news!!! Remember last week when we said that maybe we would meet the Prime Minister and eat sea cucumber sushi on the Moon? Well guess what– it really happened !!! We never would have dreamed that it was possible, but in an unprecedented and truly historic gesture, Prime Minister Koizumi chose us out of all the American English teachers in Japan to come and meet him on the Moon! And as it turns out, he loves sea cucumber sushi, so we bought him a plate of the best sea cucumber sushi we could find. It was truly incredible. The moon was beautiful, and was just the right temperature. And Prime Minister Koizumi was really nice.

What’s that? You don’t believe me? Well, doubting reader, let it be known to you that every word of this is true, and we have the picture to prove it!!! Check it out:

There’s us with Prime Minister Koizumi, on the moon, and there’s our plate of sea cucumber sushi. Jen loves this stuff, if you couldn’t already tell. Prime Minister Koizumi was really excited to meet us. We call him Junichiro, though, cuz’ we’re on a first name basis by this point.

And on top of all that, Mike started his new job teaching at a junior high school (and one day at an elementary school), Jen continued to meet all of her remaining students at Wakakusa, we celebrated Mike’s birthday with the team (by consuming raw fish), refurbished and repaired two old bicycles to use around town, were welcomed officially by the Wakakusa staff, and set up our internet connection–in Japanese!!! Whew, what a week! Tonight we’ll probably just veg with a movie, and if ol’ Junichiro calls us, we’ll tell him we’re meeting with the Iatolla or something. Oh yeah, we met the Iatollah, too. Here’s proof:

There’s the Iatollah, gettin’ funky right here in our apartment. This guy is a party animal! He kept shouting,  “Thro ya handz in da aeyah, and wave ’em like ya jus’ don’ kaeya!!!” That was one seriously fun evening.

Well, that’s it for this week. We’re looking forward to a more *normal* week next week.

-Mike & Jen