Log's Blog

Hello! I have not been posting because I did not think people were reading this blog, but word on the street is...they are! SO here is an update of everything I've done since my last post. I have officially been living in Japan for 1 month & 17 days. Let me tell you, it feels like so much longer! I have been through training, observing, teaching, and exploring my new surroundings. It has been a lot of fun so far. The picture below is of my friend Mallory & I at training. For the first week of training we were in a room from 9:00am to 3:15pm. Everyday they provided coffee, lunch & snacks. This was the first "Japanese snack" I had. It was sooo good! It was like a coffee flavored cream puff with maple icing.

Starbucks! We convinced our driver to take us to Starbucks. I have never been so happy to have coffee in my life. They had an English menu with pictures so we can point to what we want. They have limited options, but the taste is still the same! We have yet to brave special ordering a drink. I will let you know how that goes :] The closest one is about a 20 min walk.

Mt. Raineir in Japan. The first time I went to the grocery store I found this! Mt. Rainier coffee! I did not buy it, but it was so funny to see.

MeySen Grounds. This is just one of the many playgrounds that my school, MeySen has to offer. I mean...this is insane. Everything is built on this massive hill. They have HUGE slides, bridges, swings, and a steep "log climb" with no railings! I will take a picture of it. I am even scared to go on it!

The top of the slides and the barn.

One of the animals in the barn. I call him Sheepy. I think the kids get to watch them get shaved and do something with their wool.

KARAOKE!!! Melissa took the group of new teachers out for the Japanese Karaoke experience. You pay by the hour for a karaoke room that fits about 10 people. There is seating, a table, and a television screen. You select the songs you want and can do as many as you can in one hour! It was a blast. It is fun to sing with just your friends in the room. We had a blast. I of course brought down the house with "MMMbop".

Grape City. The new teachers got to tour Grape City/Wine Studios. They are sister companies or Meysen. They do all of the artwork, publishing, and video production for MeySen's curriculum. They have grown so much that they now bring in more money than Meysen and have offices in Korea, the us, and a couple other places I do not remember. Pretty cool to see!

This is a picture of some of the artwork used for MeySen's curriculum.

This is the studio where they shoot local commercials, small movies, etc.

Korean Pizza. The last day of training they ordered pizza hut for us! I was excited until I saw what was inside the boxes. There were some normally looking pizzas, but I decided to be brave and try this Korean Pizza. OMG. Seriously the best pizza I have ever eaten! It was spicy and kinds of hard to describe the flavors. I looked in ordering one for myself & pizza is about $40.00 here! Yikes.

Driving. Learning to drive. Our boss, Esther, took a few of us out driving. I was SO scared to drive on the other side of the road. Minus turning on the windshield wipers instead or the turn signal, I think it went pretty well! I have driven a few times since then and it it becoming more natural to drive on the left side of the road! Now if I only knew where I was going...

The Best Burgers in Town. About a 10 minute walk from my apartment is this gem. Kame House has great burgers, even better fries, and a fun atmosphere! They have "American" paraphernalia everywhere (of course an Ichiro bobble head) and are usually playing The Beatles over the speakers. This is our new favorite place!

Notice the spelling: abacado, sandwiche, becon

Yummy!

We even had some entertainment. This worker (we like to call him Mohawk Boy) played the ukulele for us!

Valentines Day. On Valentines day we had a girls party with many of the MeySen women. I decided to be brave and try top make chocolate covered strawberries! They turned out great!

Playing a game at the valentines party. We are fun losers :]

S.P. This is what we Americans like to call the Squatty Potty. Ally was trying to be funny and demonstrate how to use it. Apparently she is faced the wrong way. They usually have both squatty pottys and western toilets so I have not been forced to use one as of yet.

The Cabin. Meysen owns an amazing cabin on the "other side" of the Pacific Ocean. All the new teacher, and some other MeySen staff got to stay for the weekend. We hiked down to the water, played tons of games, and just relaxed. The day before we left, we received a call that there could be a tsunami. There had been an earthquake in Chile and we were going to receive a 3 meter tsunami at 1:00pm. 3 meters was not something we needed to evacuate for, but we were excited/scared to see the tsunami!

We all hiked out to a spot where we were safe and could still see the water. There were announcement in Japanese telling people to evacuate. There were helicopters and many people were out to see the tsumami. So we waited....and waited...and waited some more, but did not see anything. We ended up coming back to the cabin about an hour and a half later, only to find out that the tsunami was over and it had been 10 centimeters. Wow, all that for nothing!

Birthdays. Mallory's birthday is the day before mine, March 9th. We worked all day, but I managed to pull together a makeshift cake of "acorn doughnuts" for her. This is in my apartment.

Good morning, you're 24! I woke up to over a foot of snow on my birthday! School was cancelled, but the teachers had a work day. I got to go in an hour late :] Kind of crazy!

That weekend everyone ate at Kame House for our birthdays. We filled the entire place and had it all to ourselves. We had a lot of fun & great food!

Earthquake. Mallory and I were at Starbucks one Saturday night. We were talking and laughing then all of a sudden things started shaking. Starbucks was silent for about 5 seconds. Then the earthquake was over and everyone just went about their business as usual. Mallory was cheering because it was her first earthquake and I was scared! Then we still had a 20 minute walk home and it was freezing cold and so windy it was hard to walk! We took this picture when we got home.

Japanese Photo Booths. I never knew a photo booth could be so much fun! They have them in any arcade (pretty easy to find) You go into this space. Looks kind of like a small studio. It is all white and there are lights everywhere. You can pick from every background you can imagine. Then, you can edit the pictures! You can write words, the date, add decorations, Kind of hard to describe how cool it is!

Well, that is all for now! Sorry this post is so long, I had a lot to update. On March 25th I move into my new apartment, then for spring break on the 26th I leave for Tokyo. It should be an adventure and I will have lots of pictures to show!

FEB 2nd/3rd, 2010

I left for the airport on February 2nd. My mom dropped my off and I met up with a fellow teacher, Laura, who was going to be flying with me.

The 10 hour flight was not bad. I watched some movies, played some games, and listened to music. I slept for about 20 mins, but that was okay because we landed in Tokyo around 3:00pm local time.

We grabbed our luggage and were greeted by Rumi who took us to the bus. I did not really experience much culture shock until I went to the bathroom. There were so many buttons and gadgets I could not even figure out how to flush the toilet! They have toilet seats that heat up, play music, splash water and “dry” you. Sooo crazy! I will take a picture to show you.

We met up with the rest of the gang and somehow managed to fit all 12 of us and our luggage on the bus (no mom & dad I did not win the prize for most luggage!).

One side of the bus for luggage…

The other side for people…

The it was off on our 5 hours bus ride to Sendai. It turned out to be more like 6 hours with stops.

FEB 4th, 2010

I was helped into my apartment, which was already heated and stocked with food. For breakfast I had some instant coffee/creamer (the box labeled MAXIM) & the cereal bag pictured. It was pretty much frosted flakes and tasted really good.

Later I was picked up and met up with the rest of the group at an Italian restaurant for lunch. [Pictured above: Teresa, Me, & Laura]. It was my first car ride in Japan.

I had melon soda [the green stuff], pasta & cheese bread. It was very good! Almost all the menus have pictures so we just point to order. We had Melissa & Rumi to help us if we had questions on what food was what.

Then we took a tour of the campus we will be working at. Meagan, Danielle, Mallory and I are the new teachers stationed at the Maruyama campus. The other new teachers are stationed at the Takamori campus [about a 15 minute car ride]. The picture above is the Maruyama Immersion building that I will be working in.

Children & teachers have indoor and outdoor shoes.

Boys Bathroom.

Girl’s Bathroom.

Another bathroom :] Left to right: Danielle, Meagan, Mallory, Me

Weird…I guess I only took pictures of bathrooms in that building. I will have to take more later.

This is in the front office of MeySen. Seattle…holler.

MeySen Sign.

After all our adventures we ate at the cafeteria. That is where I had to eat a whole bowl of rice (mixed with other things) with chopsticks and act like i knew what I was doing, which I clearly didn’t. It was hard, but I some how managed to eat it.

Later Laura, Mallory and I got a ride to play volleyball at a local junior high with some of the other MeySen staff. I got to see Becky, my friend from college, and some of the other girls I had been friends with on facebook. We had a good time. I plan on going again this week. They play every Tuesday and Thursday.