Flew into Narita, bused to Haneda, flew to Komatsu, bused to Wakura.

Wakura is an Onsen(hot spring) resort area. Lots of natural hot springs in the town, so many small hotels everywhere. The tour bus dropped the various couples at the different hotels that night. We got in at about 1030 at the Daikanso hotel.

Next day the whole group of 200+ American exchange people got together for a welcome ceremony and information exchange. I had no clue that there were so many participants in the summit. Since we got in so late at night, we didn't really realize how many people were in the hotel or at the other hotels until we got together as the large group.

The Noto peninsula is the small little piece of land jutting out from the west coast of Japan (into the China sea.) This was the first time for the Ishikawa prefecture to host the summit. They went all out to show off the area. Since there were 200+ people, they split us up into smaller groups of 10-15 for each town on the peninsula, and then into the 1 or 2 per host family.

Anyways, thats the description of the summit as a whole. This page here has pics of just Wakura and the the information exchange and the opening ceremony.

At the information exchange, they explained that they had a huge earthquake in March of '07 on the Peninsula. This trip was in June. One of the small towns that was to host people got totally wiped out. Buildings fell down, etc. They were worried that they couldn't do the summit, but other towns stepped up and took on these other families. Also, the whole peninsula rallied together to support that town. There's a Japan-wide effort to fundraise, as you'll see pictures below. Famous Japan celebrities from the area are asking for support. One of the guys you might know is Hideki Matsui, the Godzilla of Japanese baseball players, who is currently playing for the Yankees.

At the opening ceremony at the Kagaya hotel... Now that is what you call a hotel. Come to find out later that the Kagaya hotel that we stayed at for one night was either the top or 2nd rated hotel in Japan. It was HUGE. First class all the way. Each onsen was three floors. We had our own room attendant (different from a maid), named Hibiki, who showed us the traditional way of putting our robes on. Our hotel room had 2 bedrooms. The traditional tatami mat room, and a bedroom. A sitting area. 2 flat panel TVs... what else. There was even a picture showcase in the lobby with pictures of the Emperor and the Royal family when they stayed there. Wow.