My Homestay, Hot springs, and Disney

My home stay was really cool. I was on a farm and there was a peacock, many chickens, mini-horses, goats, cats, rabbits, and much more. It was in the mountains, actually, on a wildlife preserve. The dad had kiwi trees and rice paddies all over the place. There were 3 kids. The boy was shy, but the 2 girls were really cool and friendly. They spoke some English and they taught me some Japanese. It was really cool! The food they cooked for me, and grandma never stopped cooking, was right from the garden. The dad went outside right before i left, and made my bamboo chopsticks in 10 minutes. AWESOME!

The best part of my city visit was the hot springs. We stayed in a beautiful place. There were public hot baths 24/7. So I soaked once when we got there, after dinner, got a massage, and then soaked again after massage. Then I soaked again in the morning before breakfast. It was amazing. We had a 14 course meal for dinner, and the breakfast wasn't too far behind! I can't believe this!

Last night I went to Disney. It was a lot of fun. It was Rebecca's b-day(the bike picture friend) and we celebrated there. Thunder mountain was fun, and so was Pirates of the Carribean. Space mountain was closed,BUMMER!!!!! None the less, we had a great time.There were no live characters walking around, but in all the rides, allthe characters spoke Japanese. Even Johnny Depp was speaking Japanese. I have to say, R2D2 and CP30 were definately the funniest in Japanese!!

Tajiri Junior High School

Today was our last school visit. It was quite a grand entrance for us when we arrived. We literally had a red carpet to walk into the auditorium on, while the brass band was playing American fanfare music. That was fun! The day was a lot of fun. I got to try the koto, which is a Japanese string instrument. It was AWESOME! Then I got to try calligraphy once again. We watched the school lunch center prepare lunch for 800 kids (elementary, middle, and high school lunches.) It was so interesting to see them make such huge amounts of food, AND, they taste test their food before serving it!! Different than the USA, huh? The students also have to eat lunch in their classrooms here. That means students from each class have to carry their food in large amounts back to their classmates and serve it. You will see all these pictures above.

It was really cool to see the fencing club practice. There are girls on this team that qualified for nationals. IT WAS NO JOKE WATCHING THESE KIDS FENCE!!!! The day finished out with a nice bike ride, yummy sushi, and many things that I can't read the name of that looked good in the store!:)

Tomorrow is my home stay, and I don't know the internet situation. I will be in Tokyo on Monday night, so maybe until then.....

Mata aimasho (until we meet again!)

Furukawa Daiichi Elementary School

Today was a really cool day! We visited the elementary schools, and it was SOOOO much fun!!! Unlike the high school. the elementary kids couldn't get enough of us! They were so friendly! Kids couldn't get enough of our autographs and pictures. They were so excited to meet foreigners, and treat us like we were royalty. It was great!

I got to participate in so many cool activities today. Taiko drumming was probably my favorite.... next was Japanese calligraphy. It was really cool observing a math and science lesson as well. I ate lunch with the kids in their classroom. Then we went outside to play on the playground. It was a lot of fun! It would be great to go back again, but we have no time!

This evening, Rebecca and I went out into the city to shop and run some errands. The highlight of our evening was when we went to a Japanese restaurant, and no one spoke English. We wanted noodles, but I dont' think the restaurant had traditional Japanese food. We managed to get pasta with a white wine sauce. The waiter did understand our order for sake and edamame though! YUM! After a few English lessons for the friendly waiter, and a few Japanese lessons in return, we paid our bill and finished our stroll. We went to the grocery store and bought things we thought looked good but didn't know what we were really getting. It is such an adventure here! I can't believe we only have a week left!!! Well, I am lucky to have had this wonderful opportunity at all!

Fun Biking yesterday!

A FUN DAY!!!!

Today was actually 6-18-08 here, but 6-17-08 in NY!!!

Today we had a meeting in the morning with parents of some of the high school students we met yeaterday. It was interesting to discuss the similarities and differences with the views of parents in both countries. The meeting was held in the Iwadeyama Government Building. The building is loaded with replicas of Samurai's uniforms. Iwadeyama was the home of a famous samurai, and they have a festival every year to honor him in all the replica costumes. Then, one of the most amazing experiences so far on this trip for me was when we visited the kokeshikan museum and got to paint our own doll. A kokeshikan doll was created about 200+ years ago by farmers to occupy the children while they worked in the field. It was made of wood and had no limbs because it was easy to make. To "dress up" the plain wood doll, it was ELABORATELY painted and decorated by artists. You can see a picture of an artist making one, and another picture of the one i painted. IT WAS THE COOLEST THING I HAVE DONE YET! Well, one of the coolest....

Then, we visited the Jigokudani Hot springs. We couldn't go too far on our walk, and had to cancel going to one particular place b/c of earthquake danger. Things are hoping over here on Mother Earth!

The last thing we did today was visit the Ichinokura Sake Brewery. Sake is rice wine, and is very popular in Japan. It was really cool to see the process where rice is fermented, and made into a wine. Yes, I will be bring samples home to NY!!!!:)

This evening, my friend Rebecca and I used hotel bikes and we rode around the city. It was SOOOOOOOOO much fun. It was extra fine avoiding getting run over by the cars that drive on the opposite side of the road and the zillion other people on bikes. It was great to cruise around and watch the sunset.

Earthquake....

At 10:20 last night, I had just gone to bed. I was awakened by a TREMOR! Whahoooooooooo! It lasted only for a few seconds. What a feeling.... I am on the 4th floor of the hotel. It felt like we were on a boat! I am glad I got to feel one, and no one was injured or hurt. Apparently there were 2 tremors, and I slept through the second one. OH well!

Today we visited Fukuwara High School. We were able to sit in on many classes and watched how things were being taught. I saw a cooking class, music class, math, english, and science class. The style of teaching is extremely different in Japan then it is in the USA. Teachers lecture in Japan, at least in the high school, and the students participate when asked. Students work really hard, all day long. It is amazing how obedient the students are. They are extremely polite and well mannered. Students are really friendly and love to talk. We ate lunch with the students and chatted for a while. It was really cool! It was a pleasure to be in their school.

It is interesting- American's have the perspective that Japanese schools are perfect and their systems are the best. Well, they really are amazing systems, but have problems of their own. While they have no problem of good grades, obedience, and high success rates academically, many of the Japanese students don't have the creativity or independence that USA students have. USA school systems tend to lack in obedience, overall success, and success rates, but there is creativity, iniative, and exploration from our students. As technologically advanced as we think Japan is, the technology isn't always in the schools. At least in the school we visited here in Osaki so far, I have more technology in my classroom (smartboard, several computers, etc...) We both share budget problems however!!!!!! Learning about the education system here is interesting.

Tea Ceremony and Osaki

Be sure to scroll down into the previous postings because I have added pictures.

Today was a long day. We travelled from Sendai yet another hour north to Osaki city. We met with the mayor and I presented him a plaque from Poughkeepsie's mayor, thanking him for hosting me in his city. We then attended a traditional tea ceremony, which was done by geisha many years ago. There's a huge ceremony to present green tea to the consumer. The woman pors the tea, mixes the powder together in a special way, and then does a series of movements with the bowl to present the tea, and the nicest side of the bowl to you. Once you bow and receive the bowl, you must turn it 2 times so that you can see the decoration on the bowl, and that your lips aren't on the painting. This is a way for you to truly enjoy all aspects of the tea and the pleasure of drinking it. It was really cool. The tea house had amazing gardens around it. It was a relaxing day. A bunch of us went to the grocery store for snacks and dinner afterward. Of course I picked up the greatest sushi and sashimi there, and enjoyed every bite! It is so much fun to try new things here. Sometimes it is a guessing game on what you get to eat. It is fun to pick something out based on the fun pictures on the package. I have been lucky not to eat anything too strange yet!

6-15-08

Today we took the bullet train north to the prefecture (state) of Miyagi. We went to Sendai city, where we will spend the night. We got here around 2 PM, took the loop bus around, walked a bunch, and headed to the hotel for a night of rest! We have been on the go constantly! There is no time for sleeping in JAPAN!
Yesterday morning there was a 7.2 earthquake in Miyagi. The tremors were felt in Tokyo, but I was on a bus to Fuji at that time. DARN!!!!!!!!! Anyway, there were many landslides and aftershocks. So far I haven’t seen or felt any damage or aftershocks. I hoe I feel a mild aftershock though….. we’ll see! We’re hoping the Japanese governemt provides this opportunity for us as well!

Fuji Pictures

6-14-08

FUJI DAY!!!!!!!
Today finally got here! I couldn’t wait! I booked a tour to Mt. Fuji knowing that b/c it wasn’t climbing season, we would have a hard time getting to the mountain by overselves. I was truly hoping to climb Fuji, but it was nearly immpossible with the short time we had there, and the mountain huts along the way being closed. So the tour picked us up from the hotel and brought us to Mt. Fuji. The ride there was great. About 10 of us went, and we all had the same interests and humor! I was so excited about seeing a different aspect of the courntyside. We went into the mountains and the scenery was breath –taking! I saw 3 monkeys walking on the side of a mountain. EXCITING!!!! The summit of Fuji was hidden by clouds. It was such a bummer! But it was still beautiful! After doing a kabuki dance, and having much fun reinacting some traditional dance moves with the group, we managed to see the summit for 5 minutes before leaving the area. We were so lucky! Mama fuji-san answered our calling!!! After the Fuji, we traveled to a nearby city called Hakone, which is also the name of an ancient volcano. Hakone was a huge volcano like Fuji, that erupted a LONG time ago. There is legend that the gods in Japan always argued about which volcano was taller. The gods built a pipe coming out of each of the mountains. They dropped water in each of the pipes. The mountain that had the water reach the ground first was the shorter one. Hakone was the shorter one, so they say! We took a boat ride on Mount Ashi, which is one of the 5 lakes at the bottom of Fuji and Harakone. It was a great ride! Then we took a gondola ride high up tp see more scenery. That was a neat journey. Richard, Brian, Josh, and I ran up a huge hill on the mountain and visited a shrine. AWESOME! It was a great tour, despite the fact we didn’t get many views of the summit! We took the bullet train back to Tokyo. It want hundreds- of- miles per hour. It was so smooth, I don’t know whether we were going 30 miles an hour, or 300 mph……
Later that night, Richard, Aaron, and I went to Shiboya and Harajuku. These 2 areas are the “Times Squares” of Japan, except I must say, they top NYC for the # of people in the street at the same time. There is a 5 pointed intersection where walls of people just cross all at the same time. It was unreal how polite the people are, and everyone justs gets out of everyone’s way. We ate dinner at this little noodle house where you put your money in a machine, picked what you what, received a ticket, and at the counter – traded your ticket for your meal. It was so cool! And YUMMY!

Finishing 6-13-08

6-13-08
Today I got up to go to the Tsujuki Fish market at 4:15AM. It was SOOOOoooo awesome! It was so busy, you had to watch out and avoid getting hit by cars and little carts. Some carts were carring fish, others were just zooming by at 10000000000 miles an hour. I went with Troi Orois and Laura Good. We looked at the tuna auction, where the tuna were huge- some over 5’ tall (taller than me!). It was so unreal! We found a little restarant to eat in. I ate a full bowl of tuna sashimi, miso soup, and tea. The restaurant owner learned to speak English in Scotland so he had a interesting accent, and tried to teach us more Japanese. He gave us all these photocopied printouts of his writing. EVERYONE here is so hospitable!! It is amazingly different then NY! We had to go back to the hotel for a lecture, and then after lunch, we saw a traditional Kabuki theater performance.
Kabuki theater is performed with musical accompaniment. A woman in a kimono “acted” out a traditional story by doing a dance. It was great! This evening, I went with a few people to a place to learn a traditional Japanese dance. We were put in kimonos and the sensai taught us a kabuki dance. We got to use fans and other props. IT WAS HARD! The moves were so calculated and the movement was so fluid. The teacher had been training since she was 2 years old!!! We got home really late from dance, and it was quick to bed for me!

5AM... Fish Market

Yesterday finished out great! I went to a yoga class on the sw side of the city. It was great! I have become a train navigator b/c i understand the subways.... it has been really fun finding the correct trin when everything is written in mostly Japanese! Surprisingly enough, it is REALLY easy to get around here.... no matter what language you speak, people understand you somehow...

This morning I woke up at about 4:15 Am and 3 of went to the Tsujuki Fish Market. That is where there are fish auctions of all kinds... I ate a full sushi breakfast (posted above.) It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good ! Later I will be going to a traditional Japanese dance class! I can't wait!

JAPAN IS AWESOME!!!

Flying to Japan by way of San Francisco 6-8-08
Today was a long day. My flight was long, but uneventful which was good! I arrived at the sheraton Hotel at about 1:45. I had to eat a really quick lunch, and then had to change for the reception at the Japanese consulates house. THAT WAS FANCY! I listened to a few welcome speeches, and ate SUSHI, SASHIMI, and many other Japanese delacacies! YUM! After such a long dayof flying, I was really tired. It was early to bed for me.


FLYING TO JAPAN!!! IT”S HERE!!!! 6-09-08
Today is the day!!! The flight was delayed an hour or so, and then we were on the plane for an hour and half before we took off. It was a long flight, but I was fortunate enough to sleep for a good part of it! The flight was 10 hours long. I have to say, with all the flying I do, this flight DIDN”T EVEN FEEL THAT LONG! We arrived in Japan at the Narita Tokyo airport.Time is 13 hours ahead from NY. We arrived at 4PM on 6-10-08, which was 5:30 AM in NY. Things still felt surreal until we stepped outside the airport where we were greeted by Konichiwa, an many other Japanese phrases. It was amazingly exciting!!! We were brought to our hotel which was extremely fancy and fabulous! It is called the Grand Prince Hotel on Akasaka. There is a detched palace outside, and the hotel is surrounded by a moat. We met up with Fullbright Alumni who took us out to dinner. Wewent to a traditional Japanese restaurant in which you sit on the tatami mats on the floor. You needed to take your shoes off too. We had sushi, sashimi, noodles, sake, and tea. It was SO delicious. We walked around for a short time, and then went to bed.

Sightseeing tour of Tokyo 6-11-08
Our day started off with a great breakfast comprised of some american things, as well as smoked salmon pieces, miso soup, special fried eggs, and different fruits. We then boarded a bus, and went ito central Tokyo. We were extremely lucky, being hosted by the Japanese governemnt allowed us to tour The National Diet of Japan, which houses the Japnaese House of Representatives. It was VERY cool! Then we saw the Imperial Palace and many other buildings of Japanese importance. We then ewnt to Asakusa to eat a traditional tempura lunch and to visit the old traditional part of town. We went shopping there and visitied a Buddist shrine. Talk about beauty! I bought myself a kimono and some green tea ice cream. YUM! After a fancy recption dinner, a bunch of us went out to Roppongi for a night on the town! We went dancing! It was SOOOOOOOOOOO fun!!!

I don’t have much time now, but I will post pictures later!!!