TOKYO, Monday—Tuesday morning I began to pack. How difficult it is when people have been so kind and presented you with so many souvenirs to decide how to send them home and get them all listed for the customs and do the hundred and one little things that must be done before you begin to organize your own packing of the things you must absolutely take with you. I am sending home from here by boat a few things I brought to Japan, thinking I would need them perhaps for some particular occasion. I only hope I won't need them on the rest of the trip for they will be slowly travelling home to the U.S.!

I think we are very fortunate to be leaving Japan just as it seems to be settling into real rainy weather. We have had much sunshine and a considerable amount of rain but on the whole it has not been a steady downpour very often.

The weather at home seems far from reliable also, cyclones and now great heat and most people write me that every weekend has been rainy in our New York area.

I got letters from home today and I doubt if I will get any more until I reach Athens or Belgrade. How hungry one gets for news when one is away from home. I pounce on every letter and if it tells me something about my home, my garden, or my dogs, I am simply enchanted. And yet I would not want to give up travelling because one goes home with so much stored up pleasure in her own surroundings.

I had two newspaper interviews on Tuesday, both lengthy and very enlightening to me since I did some of the questioning as well as being questioned.

At noon I lunched with the members of International House and in the afternoon from four to six International House and the Committee for Intellectual Interchange gave a farewell reception. Minnewa and I said goodbye to many people who have been kind to us while we were here. I also met a few people at the reception whom we had not before had a chance to meet.

After an early dinner we took Minnewa out to the airport and waved goodbye, wishing her good luck on her trip to Honolulu. She will get there before Elliott does and I shall be thinking of both of them flying to meet and spend a few days on some beautiful island beach.

I met many of the correspondents and their wives on Monday, who represent different newspapers and magazines here, Colliers, the Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, and Mrs. Sherrod whose husband is in Korea just now for the Saturday Evening Post. They have settled down here and one of them told me he had been here seven years which means he has really acquired a good deal of knowledge of the country.

There is so much of interest to write about that it is hard to know where to begin. There are significant aspects of many things which I hope to have an opportunity to write about even though I am travelling fairly steadily for the next few weeks.