Crazy week, ending with a rain day!

Ok, so I promise I will be more diligent in writing in this for the rest of the trip! It's been a pretty crazy week. School started up again on Monday for the new school year. It was so cute to see the new 7th graders in their brand new uniforms and shoes. The week has gone by pretty smoothly. One of the English teachers I worked with left, so they hired on a new one, Ms. Marich. She is really nice. Tuesday Carly's eye hurt and was burning and watering, so she stayed home and I went to work alone. It was really busy trying to do two people's work, but it turned out to be a pretty fun day. I helped out in classes all day and then had to teach the ESS (English speaking society club) after school alone. There are only three kids. They are all 8th graders I think. We had a few papers with some short skits on them, so the kids and I acted them out. It was really fun.

On Thursday John, two of his Japanese friends, Carly, and I went to Shinjuku in West Tokyo to a Mexican restaurant!! It was so good. I got a chicken quesadilla that was pretty much amazing. After dinner we walked off all the food we just ate and went to Harajuku and then to the train station. It took us about 45 minutes on the train to get back to Matsudo, then about 25 minutes walk back to our apartments. All in all I probably walked around 3 or 4 miles in one evening. It was great though and it made me miss home and going to Mamasitas in Bennet!

Friday is our long day because I have to help out with 3 classes in the morning, have lunch, and then help out with 3 more classes in the afternoon. It's really hard to do that many classes back to back. Every other day I normally help out with 2-4 classes, but they are spread out through the day so it doesn't seem to be that much. However, on this particular Friday we got out of school early. Forget snow days, in Japan we get RAIN DAYS! It rained for almost 3 days straight and the courtyards at school had puddles everywhere because there was so much water. Apparently they shut the trains down if there is too much rain. Almost all of the kids (and teachers) from the school take the train, so they let everyone leave early so they could all make it home. I guess last year they didn't let the kids go early enough and one girl couldn't go home because the trains were down. I will admit it was nice to have the afternoon off!

The Mexican restaurant we ate at in Shinjuku. YUM!

My chicken quesadilla.

Ayako, Mami, Me, and Carly outside the restaurant.

This is an example of how the Japanese use every inch of space. This is a house that was squished in beside the street here. Crazy, huh?

This is how much it has to rain before they let school out early.

Even though the rain is a bit annoying when you have to walk 1/2 mile back home in it, it does brighten the scenary. This is at the sports park near my apartment.