Track and Field Blogs - Diana Pickler

I arrived in Japan a couple days ago. We are about an hour outside the city right now, in Rinku town. I got on Japan time almost automatically, and I also have felt great in pratices even the day right after travel.
Well yesterday me and a couple teammates took the train into downtown Osaka, it is about a 45 min train ride. We walked around the streets for a while with no direction and decided to head back to the train station after a while. On our way back we saw an interesting little side street and decided to check it out. This guy approached us, pretty much shoving us into the restaraunt that he called the meat house, which was tucked away on a little alley like street. With no intention of eating, we accepted. It was the cutests little place where you had to take your shoes off at the door(Me and Jesse felt bad because we had sandals on, so we were bare foot!!) and sit on the floor in traditional Japanese style. The waiter spoke little english and was trying to explain what was good on the menu, he kept saying beef! beef! So the guys got beef, easy decision. Well I just wanted to play it safe and just get a vegetable plate for dinner and he recommended the tofu salad. Well we all ended up getting salads, and when I was taking my second bite I saw something interesting. I showed Mike and he played it off by saying it was just something with a little burnt spot. Well my next bite I saw that little "burnt spot" again and when I took a closer look I saw eyes! Just to make sure I looked at the plate and sure enough I saw at least 50 eyes staring back at me!!!!!!! They were tiny and looked like a cross between a little fish and worm. Lets just say that was all I ate the rest of the dinner. The boys were making fun of me for being so grossed out and continued to eat the little creatures. Thats my little funny story I thought you might enjoy.
On a different note as we were on the train we passed the stadium where we will be competiting. All of our eyes lite up, it was huge! I can't wait to step out there, I'm so excited.
Until next time.....
Diana