Aug. 9, 2001

This report was filed by Kimmy Scott, a senior defensive specialist from Laguna Beach, Calif. For other diaries various players as the trip progresses, click here.

I have no idea how or where to start. We left on Monday morning at 7 a.m. and arrived at Sendai, Japan Tuesday night at 9 p.m. Thirteen hrs on the plane, nine hours in buses, and no one knows the time. The plan was to stay awake on the bus so we would fall asleep as soon as we got in, but after two hours, eyes were closed, mouths were open and heads were bobbing with the bumbs in the road. No one had any problems falling asleep, but everyone woke up a few times during the night.

The next morning, we got up at 5:45 a.m. (3:45 p.m. Texas time) for practice at 6 a.m. Breakfast was afterwards. We were a little nervous about eating sushi at 9 a.m., but to our surprise, we were treated to a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, fruit, juice and even Coke.

We had a bit of a break until our welcoming lunch party at 11. We mixed at the tables with players from Tohoku Fukushi University. They all had Japanese/English dictionaries and tried really hard to understand and speak English. Everyone is so friendly and always happy just to hang out and talk with us.

At our second practice, we played seven games to 25 points against three different teams. When we played one team, the other teams would cheer for us and yell "Sic 'em, Bears!" in thick Japanese accents.

After practice, we went out to dinner and almost fell asleep in our egg drop soup. However, the girls from the university wanted to hang out with us some more. They came to the dorm with us and brought candy and snacks. We exchanged t-shirts, and they gave us rings and necklaces. We all took lots of pictures, laughed really hard, and had a great time. My only wish is that we had more time to spend with the girls outside the gym.

Hi mom and dad, and go Bears!