Tourist blog today.
Yesterday my host family took us on a day trip to Yugawara. It's located on the coast, south of Tokyo Bay in Kanagawa prefecture. We left around 9:30 Sunday morning and got on a train leaving from Tokyo station. It took a few hours to get there, and the kids were getting antsy during such a long trip, but the view was nice. Halfway there, I could see Mt. Fuji for the first time.
After we got off the train, Tomomi-san took us to a sushi restaurant near the station to eat kaiten sushi, (conveyor belt sushi). Sushi is served up on the rotating belt and placed on different colored plates according to price. So after the meal, you're billed by the number and colors of the plates you've accumulated. Plates I saw ranged from standard tuna and salmon to octopus, ikura, roast beef sushi, and different desserts.

After lunch, Akimasa and Anh, another CIEE student, spent the afternoon at a pottery making place that lets you make and glaze Japanese pottery. I decided against it (it was expensive), but it looked awesome.
While they were doing that, Tomomi-san, Momo, and I went orange picking. A shuttle took us up a mountain where orange groves grew everywhere. For ¥300, we could eat as many oranges off the trees as we wanted. Tomomi-san expected winter oranges, the small clementines popular during the holiday season, but for some reason the trees we saw only grew summer oranges, which are slightly more sour.
When we came back to the pottery place, Akimasa and Anh were about done. Anh made a Totoro, and Akimasa made a Slime from Dragon Quest, but gave it a scary face.
That evening, before we went back, we saw the Christmas lights at Doppo-no-yu, an open air foot bath park near a few popular onsen nearby. It was cold out, so the hot baths were much appreciated. That and the lights were great.
Nice day trip, exhausting. Doesn't make for good studying when there's a 9 A.M. test the next morning.