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!

The rest of last week

WED-Carly, Krysta (Carly's friend), and Katie (the new English teacher) went to Tokyo Tower. Carly didn't go because she was really tired. Originally we were all going to go to the hotel/bar that the movie Lost in Translation was filmed in, but we found out there was a $20.00 cover charge after 8:00pm to get in and we decided we didn't want to spend that much money, so that's why we opted for Tokyo Tower instead. These are some things I've learned about it: The tower stands 333 m meters tall, it's taller than the Eiffel Tower which is only 320 m high, and is used to transmit radio and tv signals. We went to the second observatory at 250 m high. It was really amazing to see the city lit up at night. I read that if you go in the day time you can see Mt.Fuji if it's clear out!

Krysta and I in front of the mini Toyko Tower in the lobby.

THUR-Carly, Krysta, and I headed off to Fussa station, which ended up being over two hours away on the train! Our destination: U.S. air force, Yokota air base. Carly and Krysta went to high school with this guy Chris who was stationed in Japan, so we went to visit him. After making it to the base, Chris met us and we had to get checked in. We had to give them our passports and they did full background checks on each of us. Then they took our picture and gave us a sheet of paper that was basically our permission slip to be there. The base itself was basically just like a small city, complete with four lane highways and street lights. There were small houses, apartment buildings, and the dorms for the soldiers. Chris showed us his room, which he gets all to himself. He said all of the soldiers get their own rooms, but two people have to share a bathroom, which is between the two rooms. The best thing about the base is that they have American things there, including fast food places like Taco Bell, Baskin Robbins, and Subway. They also had a grocery store with American foods, but it was closed when we got to the base, so that was a little disappointing. I did, however, manage to snag a bag of peanut butter M&Ms from there!

The air base.

SAT-Everyone went out to dinner for John's birthday at Sakura to eat okonomiyaki. I got to try two new things: sake (don't worry, I'm 20, which is the legal drinking age in Japan) and takoyaki (which is fried octopus.)


This is a picture of me helping to make the takoyaki. On the griddle was something that resembled a muffin pan. First the lady next to me in the picture put this kind of batter down in each little section. Then I put a piece of octopus in each one, as well as some other ingredients like lettuce and some spices. Then you turn them around as they heat up and little balls form. When they are brown you eat them. The octopus was better than I expected and it wasn't too chewy or anything. The inside batter stayed very moist. I liked it a lot.

Golden Week happenings!

I am so sorry I haven’t posted. I have been busy the last seven days except Saturday. I’ll probably post this in two separate posts since I’ve been doing so much. Today I’ll cover Friday-Tuesday.

Friday: The whole English department went out to dinner. We ate “shabu shabu” style (I will explain in a minute). Of course I forgot my camera, but I think Carly took a picture, so I will try to get that from her and post it later. We had our own separate room with four tables I think and there were probably 15-20 people or so that came. Before we went into the room with our tables we all had to take off our shoes. Inside we sat on these cushion benches around the tables. We all had to draw numbers and sit with random people, so we could all get to know each other. I ended up sitting by three of the people I knew and had worked with before, so that was nice, but also go to meet a few new people as well. Now, let me explain this “shabu shabu”. At each table there were one or two burners in the tables. The waitress came and put a big pot of broth on top of the burners and turned it on so it started to boil. Then she added some vegetables and mushrooms and lots of other things like that. After that she brought out these big trays of thinly sliced meats like beef and pork. What you do is pick up the meat with your chopsticks and dip it into the boiling hot water. Then you say “shabu shabu” as you move the meat around. It only takes about 20 seconds for it to get cooked since it’s so thin and the water is so hot. It was really fun and really good! After our meal they brought us out three tiny scoops of ice cream: strawberry, chocolate, and green tea. It was the perfect ending to a great meal.

This past weekend was "Golden week." This refers to the four holidays in a row that are celebrated in Japan. They are as follow:

April 29-Emperor's Birthday
May 3- Constitution Memorial Day
May 4-Nature Day
May 5-Children's Day

We had Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off of work. Saturday I took the day to just relax. I think the most I did was run to the grocery store. The rest of Golden Week was quite busy!

Sunday: I rode the train across Tokyo to Harajuku. The reason was because I wanted to get some pictures of the Harajuku girls. For those of you that don't know, in Japan there are these girls (and some boys, but I think mostly girls) that dress up in wild fashion or as comic book characters and stand around by the Meiji Shrine on Sunday afternoons. They look pretty crazy, but it's pretty cool. It was fun to walk around and see all their costumes. I got some pretty good pictures. On my way back home I stopped by SUBWAY! It was so delicious!

Subway where I ate in Harajuku. I've missed it!

Harajuku girls

Harajuku girls

Harajuku girls

Monday: We decided we wanted to go to Disneyland in Tokyo on Tuesday, so we needed to get our tickets for the park a day earlier. I was supposed to meet Carly and Krysta (Carly's friend that came to visit her here) in Shinjuku at 3:00. I made it to Shinjuku, but couldn't find them at the station! After standing around for a long time I just decided to leave. I headed to Asakusa and did some shopping for presents for people to bring back home. I found some pretty good things! I left there around 6:00 as it started to get dark and it was sprinkling. Thankfully when I got back to the apartments

Tuesday: Carly, Krysta, and I left our apartments at 6:15 in the morning! I think I got about 5 1/2 hours of sleep the night before, but I was pumped and ready to get to Disneyland. It was about an hour and a half long train ride to get there, but it was well worth it. We met Carly's friend Yoku (who is Japanese) at the park and went in. People were already lined up at 7:50 when we got there. Thankfully since we had our tickets we got through the lined pretty quickly. The day was filled with roller coasters, lots of window shopping, and some really good food. My favorite roller coaster by far was Space Mountain. It was so cool because you’re riding around in the dark with only the “stars” up above you for light. We also went on this one ride through a haunted mansion. The funniest part was that I realized when we got in there that the ghost story was going to be told in Japanese. I didn’t understand a word of it, but it sure was amusing.

One thing I noticed at Disneyland was that first of all, girls wore high heels! I would never in a million years wear those uncomfortable shoes to go walk around a theme park. I’m pretty sure when I was in Disneyland in California a few years ago everyone was wearing either flip-flops or tennis shoes. I guess this just proves how much more fashion conscious the Japanese are vs. Americans. Another thing I noticed was that a lot of the teenage Japanese girls (and boys) thought it was cute to wear little mickey mouse ears or cat ears on their heads. It really just made me laugh!

Around 4:00 we ate lunch/early dinner at the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall. I had a delicious meal of some seafood. After that Carly and Yoko wanted to stay longer, but Krysta and I had both already been to Disneyland before, so we left a little early. All in all it was a fun time!

Disney land: This ride was "It's a small world after all." It was really obnoxious. We rode around in a boat and looked at these creepy little statues singing.

Bottom of the roller coast

Back: Carly (left) and Krysta (right)
Front: Yoko (left) and me (right)

Carly, Me and Krysta in front of the castle.

A day in Ueno

Tuesday was a national holiday here in Japan (although I admit I don't know what it was for). Anyways, I got the day off of work, so I did a little exploring! My original plan was to go to Ueno in Tokyo and see the Giant Panda at the zoo, however, I got a little sidetracked by this really cool shopping district in Ueno. It was just streets and streets of little shops with people everywhere. It was really cool. I picked up a few little gifts for some people back home and had a good time. Unfortunately, I stayed later than planned and didn't have time to make it to the zoo because it closed at 4:00. I found out the next day my trip to the zoo would have been wasted though because that day the giant panda got sick and was taken off display. THEN I found out Thursday that the panda DIED! So now I have missed my chance to see a panda bear :( I'm pretty bummed about it.

Ok, back to Ueno. After some shopping I found my way to the lake. It was so beautiful. I think it's honestly one of my favorite places in Tokyo. I heard some music at the other end of the lake, so I made my way following the sound of it as I went. I came across this concert going on inside this outdoor concert hall place. I didn't want to pay the 1000 yen (10 bucks) to go inside, so I just sat and listened to the music for a while. It was some hip hop group. Below you'll see a few pictures I took standing on the other side of the gates. I thought they turned out pretty cool.

This is a shoe store I found in Ueno. There were so many. It was like I was in heaven!

I think they were trying to spell Adidas?

A couple at the lake in Ueno.

Lake in Ueno.

Looking through the gates into the concert area.

My weekend!

So this weekend was definitely pretty fun. Friday night I went to an Indian restaurant close to my apartment and had some curry and nan. Below is a picture of it. And that was only about 3/4 of the nan (the bread) because I had already eaten some before I took the picture! I drank some mango juice with it and it was so delicious!

Saturday I got to hang out with some people from church. I met Aki at the train station in Matsudo and we rode the train to Takahama station where Hosana and her family lives. It was about an hour away from Matsudo. It was kind of crazy getting there and this is why. The fastest way to get to Takahama station is taking an express train. In Japan there is a "local train" and an "express/rapid train". The local train stops at every station and an express or rapid train only stops at the major ones. In order to get all the way out to Takahama we had to take a particular express train. Aki hopped onto it in Tokyo where he lives and rode it to Matsudo. The plan was for me to go to the last train car, find Aki, and hop in, all in about 30 seconds, which is how long the train stops at the station. I was so nervous I wouldn't find him, but thankfully I did and we got on the train and we were off! It was about an hour ride to Hosana's. I don't know if I have ever written about Aki before, so I should probably tell you about him. He is 26 and one of the guys that I first met at church. He plays the drums during the worship at church and wants to be a pastor, so sometimes he preaches on Sunday mornings. Anyways, he's super nice and we had a good chat on the train. Takahama is way out in the country and Hosana lives about 10 minutes away from the station, so when we got there we had to wait for Hosana to come pick us up. While we were waiting Aki bought me a drink from the vending machine. It was so good. It was like grape Jello in a can. You had to shake it up really good and it turns into partial liquid and you drink it. It was one of my favorite drinks I've had here. Below are two pictures I took at the station and the yummy jello drink.

An old Barber shop!

Aki at the station.

This was SOOO good!

Finally Hosana came and she drove us to her house. All the houses I've seen so far in Matsudo and in Tokyo have been tiny, but because Hosana lives in a small town out in the country most of the houses there were larger. Also at the party was Yuki, who is 19, and two 13 year old girls from the church that came to hang out for a while. Hosana's dad was at work, but her mom came home and we had a BBQ outside! We had a variety of different meats and grilled some vegetables. BBQ in America means we have hamburgers or hot dogs. Here it just means we are cooking outside on a grill. It was some really good food! After we got stuffed her mom brought out some yakisoba (noodles) and some sausages to cook. They had some really good sauce to put over it that just made it delicious. Also, at some point that night I tried tongue, although nobody could tell me from what animal the tongue was from. It had a very interesting feel in my mouth when I ate it!...

This is the group photo minus Leo. The two 13 year olds are on the outside, Aki is in the middle with his mouth wide open, and in the back from left to right is Hosana, Yuki, and Me.

After dinner another guy, Leo, came over. Then the boys-Aki, Leo, and Hosana's dad-went to the onsen (public bath). Us girls took the two 13 year olds home and then Hosana, Yuki, and I went to sing some karaoke! Here are some pictures of us at the karaoke place.

Apparently the sign above these creatures said to take a picture with them...So we did! This is me and Hosana.

Me and Yuki before we sang some karaoke.

We got back to the house around 11:30 I think. Shortly after that the boys returned from the onsen. Then we pretty much just sat around and talked for the next few hours. I was so tired though. I kept thinking we were going to go to bed because we had church in the morning, but everyone was still talking, so I went along with it. I got a good Japanese lesson from Leo at about 2am (I don't really remember much of it though! haha). Finally about 3:00 everyone decided to go to bed. Hosana's mom laid out some bedding for the boys in the dining room and us girls headed to Hosana's room. However, as the Japanese tradition goes, Yuki and Hosana wanted to shower before they went to bed. I said I was fine with showering in the morning, so I went to sleep. Yuki and Hosana finally came in around 4:30am!! It wasn't very fun to get up at 7:30 the next morning. I showered and got ready and went downstairs for breakfast. On the table was a salad (which I didn't eat because that just doesn't sound appealing to me in the morning), some different kinds of bread from a bakery, oranges, bananas, fruits, and yogurt. It was really good! Around 8:30 we headed to church. It was an hour long drive. Hosana's mom shared her testimony with us on the way, so that was definitely interesting to hear.

After church I was so tired, so I went home and slept from 4:30 in the afternoon til 8:30 at night. I got up for a few hours and then went back to sleep at midnight.