Random fun things today

These 3rd grade girls wait outside their school every morning for me to bike up and say, "Good morning!" They respond, "Good morning!" and I ask, "How are you today?" They smile, give me two-thumbs up, and say, "I'm GREAT!" Sometimes we surprise each other with small treats or gifts. Today one of them gave me sea shells she'd collected at near-by Saruga Bay. I won't see them again until the new school year starts on April 5th, when they'll be 4th graders! After school I bought a new carry-on piece of luggage at a store that's 1/2 way between school and my apartment. That means that after I purchased it, I biked 20 minutes with it strapped to my basket! I received stranger-than-normal looks and just hung onto the suitcase and laughed because I knew how ridiculous it must have been!
I wish I could focus this picture better....it's two key chains I found tonight while shopping! The one on the left is rolled sushi and on the right is egg sushi. They were too cute and too Japanese to pass up!
My new carry-on is packed for tomorrow's trip to Thailand! I'm incredibly excited!! I'm visiting a friend who lives there & we plan on spending a day in Bangkok, one at The River Kwai, Saturday morning coffee with my teacher's daughter who lives there, and Saturday afternoon in the slums where my friend has worked for the past couple years. I'll take the red-eye flight back to Japan Saturday night to Sunday, go to my school's spring band concert Sunday afternoon, and then it's back to work Monday morning! I'll post pictures & stories when I recover :)