UPDATE 9/12/08

So it's been a few months since I left for Japan. I'm sure no one reads this anymore, but I wanted to post kind of an ending blog on here.

I was all scheduled to leave Japan on May 29th at like 6pm I think. I got to the airport and on the plane, however the plane did not leave the runway. Apparently a generator went out and they couldn't fix it that night, so they ended up delaying our departure until the following afternoon. They put everyone from our flight in a really nice hotel for the night and provided dinner and breakfast in the morning. It was excellent service. FINALLY the next afternoon I boarded the plane and made it to Chicago. It was extremely boring because I was traveling by myself and I just really wanted to get home! I got to Chicago and had to wait there for 5 hours because of all these dumb delays because of the weather. After that got cleared up I finally made it to Omaha where Josh, Amber, and Seth surprised me at the gate :) I have the best friends ever. I was so exhausted that I stayed in Omaha for the night and went home to Palmyra the next morning.

It's been really great being back home, however I miss Japan very much. I enjoyed all of the people I met and the places I went. I am hoping to return (maybe sooner than later) to Japan someday.

NINJA BAR

Last Friday night Katie, me, and her boyfriend Katsu went to a Ninja bar in Tokyo. What is a ninja bar you ask? Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. You walk in and all the staff are dressed as ninjas. One met us at the entrance and took us through a maze to our table. It was really nice because we had our own little separate room. The walls were all covered with rocks and there was a fountain in the back of the room, as you can see in the pictures below. After ordering some drinks a ninja came to our table and did magic tricks for us. After that wee ordered a few desserts. We got some cheesecake that came in the shape of a frog, and a dessert that looked like a bonsai tree. It had ice cream in the bottom that was covered with crumbled cake to look like dirt. Then there was some pretzal looking things sticking out to make the tree. It was super cute and a lot of fun.

Katie and I outside the Ninja bar/restaurant.

Our own room where we ate and had drinks.

Yummy drinks. See the fountain behind them?

Katie and I with our cheesecake frog.

Bonsai tree

Me and a Ninja :)

I don't think I've announced it on this blog, but I'm coming back home to America tomorrow, Thursday May 29th. My trip had to be cut a few weeks short because a friend of mine is getting married!

Kyoto Highlights

Well my week in Kyoto was definitely an adventure! Here are a few highlights of the things I did while there.

Shinkansen: Carly and I rode this train to Kyoto. It is really really nice inside. They even have bathrooms and vending machines on this train. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to Kyoto from Tokyo.

Bakpak hostel: This hostel was super cool. The website said it was the "hippie hostel" and that pretty much summed it up. The upstairs lounge was cool because it had a nice rooftop lounge. I met a lot of people from a lot of different countries including: America, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and England.

Karaoke-The first night Carly and I were at our hostel we met these three guys that were pretty cool. Two of them were from Florida and one from Chicago. None of them had tried Japanese karaoke yet, so we walked around and found a place. (Karaoke is very popular and they are everywhere!)

Nintendo-The three guys-Liam, Jason, Brent-and I decided to go see the Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto. Someone had told us that you could go inside and take a tour there, so we thought that would be really fun. We made it to the building, but unfortunately we got wrong information and they actually didn't allow visitors in the building. So that was really sad, but at least I can say I saw the building in Japan. After that we all went out to lunch at a really good curry place.
Sanjusangen-do: This temple has a display of 1001 wooden statues of the Goddess of Mercy. They wouldn't let you take pictures inside the temple though, so I only have some pictures from the outside.

Monkey Mountain: This was one of my most favorite places in Kyoto. You literally hike up this mountain and then at the very top are all these monkeys running around. You can go inside and buy some apples and feed them to the monkeys for only 100 yen (about a dollar). Outside the monkeys run around freely, so you get to be really close to them. There was this really cute mama and baby monkey that I got a lot of pictures of. They were just so adorable!



Kinkakujui Temple (Golden Pavillion): Everyone told me to visit this temple because it was so beautiful, and they were right. You can't go inside this temple, like others, but I got some good pictures of it.

Nijo Castle: This castle was one of the most beautiful places I visited in Kyoto. I got to walk through the castle and then walk outside where there were some really really nice gardens and a little pond.


Budget Inn Kyoto Hostel: For my last night I stayed a more traditional Japanese hostel so I could get that experience as well. I got to try on a kimono and took a few pictures of that. The staff was super friendly and when I checked out on the last day they gave me some chopsticks as a little gift.


You can view all of my Kyoto pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2159791&l=695c6&id=17219988

Kyoto Day 1-Arrival

Ok, so we made it to Kyoto! We got to take the really fast train, called the Shinkansen, here. It took about 2 hours from Tokyo to get here. The train was really nice. There was plenty of room between the rows of seats, so you could comfortably lean your seat back and not bother the person behind you. They also had bathrooms and vending machines on the train which I thought was pretty crazy. After we go to Kyoto we had to take the train for a few stops to get to our hostel. We arrived around 1:30, but we couldn't check in until 3:00. Carly wanted to walk around by herself, so I dropped off my baggage at the hostel and sat in the coffee shop next door. I had some really overpriced iced tea at about $4.50, but it provided a good place for me to sit down and look over my travel guide book. I made a list of all of the places I want to see here. At 3:00 Carly and I met at the hostel and went up to our room. We're staying at the Kyoto Hostel. If any future interns are reading this, here is the link. It's pretty nice!

http://www.kyotohostel.net/

There are 8 beds total in our room I think. When we first arrived we met this guy Liam who is staying in the room. He's 22 and been traveling around Europe and Asia for the past few months. We started talking and he recommended me go to this shopping district near by. So him, me, and Carly set off. We just walked around a bit and looked at a few shops. Then we stopped at a grocery store to get some food. I just got some yogurt and strawberries to eat. On the way home we got a little turned around, but eventually found our way back to the hostel. It's about 7 pm right now and Carly is sleeping because she said she didn't feel very good. It's raining out and dark now, so I think I'll probably stay in tonight. I have a full day planned for tomorrow of places to visit.

Oh, and I just realized that I brought my camera with me, but not my cord to hook it up to my computer, so I won't be able to post any pictures until I get back to Matsudo.

Weekend fun with more to come

So after a bad week of being sick, this weekend I was feeling much better and had a lot of fun! Friday I made it back to school. It was actually really nice to be back there and work again. 7th period the whole school had a fire drill. All 2000 students, plus staff, ran outside to the field behind the school. Apparently they time the kids while doing this and I guess we beat last year's record. The whole fire drill itself took about an hour. First everyone had to get organized by class and stand in rows. Then they chose some kids and demonstrated how to use a fire extinguisher. After that there were a bunch of speeches and then finally we were released to go home! I came back to my apartment and changed clothes and then Carly and I met John and Katie at the train station to go out to dinner. We went to this hamburger place in Tokyo that was absolutely delicious! I had a cheeseburger and a chocolate milk shake that was to die for, and we all also shared some nachos. It reminded me so much of home, grease and all! I got home about 9:30 and collapsed into bed.

The cool hamburger place. It was all in English on the sign!

I was supposed to go rice planting with the 8 grade students on Saturday morning, but I decided to stay home and take it easy because I didn't want to over-do it and get sick again. I spent most of the day just relaxing, reading, and cleaning my apartment. Saturday night I definitely got a cultural experience of a lifetime. Beth took Carly and I to the onsen. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's the Japanese public bath houses. (And yes they separate men and women, in case you wondered!) I was really nervous about going, but decided that I couldn't pass up the opportunity and just needed to suck it up and go for it. We took the train to one that is fairly close to Matsudo. When we got there we first took off our shoes and put it in a locker. Then we walked upstairs to the dressing rooms. Everyone strips down and all you take with you is this little hand towel. The showers are kind of hard to describe. On each side of this walk way are little "shower stations." You sit down on this stool and you have you own set of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. There's a small bowl for a sink and a shower head. Everyone spends about 10 or more minutes throughly washing every inch of their body. After you are clean, then you are ready to go into the baths. You walk outside and you're on top of the roof (don't worry, there are walls so no one from outside could see the people up there). You carry your towel around with you, although it's really useless to try to cover yourself with it because it's so small. One thing we were told is to not let our towels into the bath water because the water and people are clean, but the towel is dirty (since it's what you use to wash yourself with beforehand). At first I just imagined we'd all just go in and sit in one bath the whole time, like a giant hot tub, but actually there were about five or so baths outside, with I think 2 indoors. Each bath has heated natural mineral water that is piped in and certain baths have certain minerals. For example, one of them is an "iron bath" with lots of iron minerals in it. Some of the baths are hotter than others too and they vary in sizes. The whole place was actually very beautiful in design. It looked natural, with rocks and trees, and you could look up at the night sky. Besides the big baths, there were 3 small tubs for only one person to go in at a time. You could also lay on your back with your towel covering your front, on this flat area with a little bit of water running down it. It was very relaxing. After trying out several of the baths we went into the jacuzzi, that had jets and chlorinated water. We also went inside for a bit and tried one of the baths there as well. I thought it would be really weird walking around naked, but everyone is just there to relax and I never felt like anyone was looking at me or anything. Beth made a really good point about the Japanese bath houses that I wanted to share. In America our bodies are so personal and private that young girls never get to see what real female bodies look like. Instead they are influenced by what the see in the media and think they need to look like that. In Japan however, because of things like the bath houses, girls are more easily able to see that women come in many shapes and sizes and they don't have to be ashamed of whatever size or shape they are. I just thought it was an interesting point.

Sunday (today) I went to church. A team of 7 women from America were visiting our church, so it was really nice to get to talk to them. After the service we had a big potluck lunch that was really good. I helped to lead worship during the second service and afterwards I left to go to Harajuku. I picked up my remaining gifts for people back home and then came back to my apartments. Tomorrow Carly and I leave for our trip to Kyoto. The school sends the interns there for a fun trip. They gave us about $700.00 to pay for the train tickets, lodging, and food. We are leaving Monday morning, taking the shinkansen (the really fast train) to Kyoto, staying in hostels all week, and then coming back Friday afternoon. It should be a good trip. I plan on bringing my computer with me, so I'll try to update during the week.

Sickness :(

Well Monday I started not feeling very good. My stomach was hurting and I had a bad headache. I spent the whole day watching the show "The Office" between naps. Tuesday I thought I was better so I went to work. Apparently I wasn't over my sickness and I started to feel even worse by Tuesday evening. I stayed home from work on Wednesday. The school nurse and John came over to my apartment in the afternoon to bring me some food and to take my temperature. I had a fever, so I had to stay in bed all day. Today (Thursday) I still had a low-grade fever and am super tired, so I stayed home again. I'm really hoping I'll be better and be able to go to work tomorrow. I'm getting bored staying in this apartment and I miss working with the kids!!!

Happy 8 months!

Last Friday was me and Josh's 8 month anniversary and he sent me flowers!! He is too sweet. They are beautiful. Thank you Josh, I love you!