Mr. & Mrs. Williams 15 Pritchard Street Lake Maudlin MN 55060 USA

Dear mom, dad, Stu and Sally,

Hi all! Thought I'd write a letter rather than email since I know mom doesn't care too much for the computer, and I'm not sure if Stu has taught her how to open incoming mail yet.

I have started my first week at Shiketsu High School for heroes. My first day could've gone a little better, but I picked myself up, dusted myself off and kept right on keeping on!

Japan is amazing! Everywhere is so clean! Mom would love it! I spent a couple of days before school started seeing the local sights, but there's so much to see and do in Kyoto that I only had time for the highlights. There are a whole bunch of historical buildings, including ancient castles and even the Imperial palace! The Emperor doesn't live there anymore, but it's still pretty rad! I visited a market and tried an egg stuffed with an octopus! It was pretty good. There are manga stores everywhere! If Stu likes I can see if I can find an English dub of the latest season of One Piece and send it back to him.

My Japanese is improving, at school there's a Japanese language club for foreign students (the school has lots of exchange students) and I'm getting closer to the 2000 kanji I need to be considered literate. I still make mistakes sometimes, but that's how you learn!

I'm in class 1-F, and my classmates are kind of an odd bunch. A lot of them are mutants just like me, but that's not what I mean about them being odd. I made friends with this one boy called (no fooling) 'Runt' who keeps eating dirt, and there's this other girl who's a snake. Me and her got off to a shaky start on account of a mistake on my part, but the other day she said I was "part of the gang" or something like that (my Japanese is improving, but it's still not as good as it could be), so I think she's coming around to the ol' Williams charm! There's also an ewok girl who is very shy, a guy with a fly-related quirk, a six-legged salamander girl who makes slippery goo, a guy who wears armor all the time including a helmet, so I haven't seen his face yet, a girl who makes sharks, this Jason-Voorhees-cenobite-looking guy, and a quiet kid in blue robes I haven't had much time to talk to yet. Our class rep is a cactus guy, and our teacher is Skycarver himself (if mom & dad don't know who that is, ask Stu)!

Japanese schools assign soooooo much homework, you don't even know! I'm keeping up okay, but it really cuts into my spare time for sightseeing and such. Also, our classroom is in a bathroom. It's currently in the process of being remodeled, but right now each student sits in a stall and the teacher has to use a temporary whiteboard set up over the sinks. They still haven't turned off the plumbing yet, so at least if anyone wants a glass of water they can just walk right up to the front of the 'classroom' and get one. Unfortunately Runt took it too far and dropped a deuce in class. He's kind of stinky most of the time (actually a couple of 1-F are), so no-one really noticed until he flushed. He's a weird little guy, but I like him!

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up early and bake a big batch of cookies to take into class, to help me get to know my fellow students. I haven't made up my mind yet what kind to bake, but I'm thinking you can't go far wrong with good, ol' fashioned, chocolate-chip!

Please send my love to Susan and John next time you see them.

Love,
Rob.