Aug. 2, 2007

PHOTO GALLERY

TOKYO, Japan Follow the Utah Valley women's basketball team throughout the team's trip to Japan. The following is the first of several player diaries from the trip.

The first diary is from sophomore point guard Asumi Nakayama, who is a native of Saitama, Japan.

I'm so happy to be in Japan with my teammates. As we got here, we have spent really good times together.

We are staying at the University of Takushoku dorms. On August 1st, we had welcome party with the Takushoku basketball team. It was fun way to combine the cultures by talking, eating, and dancing.

The time change threw us all off but slowly we are adjusting. To help this adjusting process coaches had us practice the next morning and also scrimmaged with Takushoku in the afternoon, which was tiring but helped us out a lot.

Japan is humid and the gym is circulated by fans only, causing us to sweat tremendously.

August 2nd, we had practice in the morning and once again scrimmaged Takushoku and then retired back to the bathing house/spa for a little rest and relaxation. There we wore Yukata which is Japanese traditional clothing. We posed and took pictures and looked legit.

After we went to the ice-cream shop, where we discovered some flavors were the same but there were a few flavors that had a slightly different taste to it.

We are excited to enjoy the rest of our trip!