Wrap-up in Japan

I'm planning to write a final post after I get back to the States and have a chance to process everything that's happened this summer, but today is my last chance to update from Japan, since my roommate, Stephanie, is leaving tonight (sad day!) and taking her computer (which I've been using all summer) with her.

Our trip to Shizuoka was a lot of fun, and mostly gave us a chance to relax and hang out with the team there. We went to three different public baths, watched a movie, and played card games and video games. We also climbed Mt. Fuji, but I found that part much less fun. Fuji-san is a dormant volcano, so the path is made up of volcanic rock and is very slippery (also, steep). The rest of the group that went made it to the summit, but I stopped at station 8, a little more than halfway between our starting point at station 5 (halfway up the mountain) and the summit. Thanks to advice from the team leader in Shizuoka, we were all safe and mostly prepared for the climb, but we were very sore for the next few days, and therefore very grateful for the relaxation time we had afterward.

The time since we got back from Shizuoka seems to be wrapping up faster and faster. On the 31st of July, I went to see Harry Potter with a couple of the Japanese girls I've gotten to know this summer. I liked the movie, possibly because my expectations were lowered due to other people's reviews. We had our last staff meeting on Saturday, and our last fellowship meeting last night. Today and tomorrow we have farewell parties with students, we're planning to go to fireworks on Wednesday, and then we leave very early Thursday morning to head back to Tokyo before flying home on Friday.

It's been a full, fun summer. I've really enjoyed starting some friendships here, and I hope that those will continue even when I'm back in Arizona. I am starting to think more and more about home, though, and I know I'll be busy from the moment my plane lands with preparations for school this fall. I'm very thankful for the opportunity I've had to spend this summer in Japan, however, and I want to say thank you once again to everyone who helped to give me this opportunity and to everyone who's read this blog.

The beginning of the end... of this trip

I think this might actually be the longest gap between posts that I've had all summer. I'm still averaging more than a post a week, though, so at least it's doing better than my other journal.

I've forgotten most of the specifics of what we've been doing for the past two weeks; the emotions associated with the upcoming end of the trip are much more vivid to me. It's strange how fast the summer has seemed to pass. We've said more than once that it feels like we got to Sendai just a little while ago, and in two weeks we will be leaving. It has been a full summer, though; a summer full of new friendships and new experiences. It's been a lot of fun, and it's also given me a lot to think about.

Stephanie, Samuel, Dustin, and I will spend one of our remaining two weeks on a trip to Shizuoka, a city in the south of Honshu, on the other side of Tokyo. We're leaving early Friday morning, and coming back on the 29th. While we're in Shizuoka, we're going to a fireworks display and planning to climb Mt. Fuji, in addition to hanging out with some of the American students we haven't seen since we arrived in Tokyo. It should be a lot of fun (I'm still not sure that I'm really looking forward to the hike, but I hope to take many more pictures).

By the way, this picture I've attached is of the sunset at a baseball game we went to last week. I thought it fit with this post, since I've been thinking about endings. I've also been thinking about beginnings, since I've been getting e-mails from ASU about my upcoming school semester. Thinking about school has actually been a little bit of a distraction from Japan -- it's hard to keep the two things (this trip and my plans for the fall) balanced in my mind. The bus ride to Shizuoka should be a good time for thinking through some of the things I've been putting off. I'll see about posting the results after I get back to Sendai.

Thanks for reading.

I was trying to think of a good title for this post, but since I'm planning to catch up on writing about major events in the last week or so, there really isn't a good way to put a title on that.

The only event I didn't get to last time is our Fourth of July party. We really wanted to do something to celebrate, even though it's a purely American holiday, because we'd been seeing fireworks for sale all over the place. (Also, it was a good opportunity to invite some students to share food and the fun of getting to light things on fire). We were able to go to a friend's house by the beach to grill some chicken and vegetables (also pineapple!) and enjoy some time eating and talking before heading down to the beach to light some fireworks. We ended up with a ton of really tasty food, and even though I didn't talk much with the students who came, I think everyone really enjoyed it.

This past week has been a good one, mostly normal, but with a few exciting events. First, on Monday night, Samuel missed coming to the Bible discussion at the Ogawas' because he had a minor accident in the car we were borrowing for the summer. He was totally fine, but the car's axle broke, so it's totally out of commission. We were told when we got the car that it would be junked when we were finished with it, so it's not too bad that it's wrecked, and we were able to get a replacement car that will help us out with getting around for these last three weeks or so.

On Wednesday night, the girls of the team and one of the students had a girls' night at Joe and Julie's house, which was fun. We ate dinner together, played a little bit of Wii, and talked about things like which job we would have if money didn't matter and where in the world we would most like to go. (Two weeks ago, Stephanie, Samuel, Dustin, and I went to Joe and Julie's for dinner for the first time, where we played Wii with the kids, which was also fun).

Yesterday evening, a small group of students went downtown with us for a little bit of shopping, dinner (we went to a Thai restaurant), and ice cream (at Coldstone, which is a lot like it is in the States, but with the addition of flavors like green tea and white peach ice cream). Later this afternoon, we're headed to karaoke (it will be the second time we've gone -- the first was for GUYS club, with a much larger group). I'm looking forward to it.

I don't know when I'll get a chance to post next, but I'll try to include some more thoughts about my experiences here instead of just relating the experiences themselves.

I feel bad that it's been so long since I updated last. I have so much to cover now that I'm sure I'll leave out a lot of things. Maybe some pictures will help make up for it; I'm certainly using them as a guideline for recording highlights of the trip.

Last Saturday (June 27th), Stephanie, Samuel, Dustin, and I went to a nearby park with one of the students we've met, Ogawa-san, Joe (one of our team leaders) and Joe's two young children, Anna and Paul. It was one of the hottest days we've had in Sendai while we've been here, but we wanted to take the opportunity to get outside and play some sports. We played soccer for a while and then took a walk around the park when we got tired.
The picture above is of some Japanese maples and a pond at the park. I love taking pictures of the landscaping, so I only have a few pictures of people on my camera. Also, I don't like asking for group shots when we already have five or six cameras in use. I'm hoping that I can get some of those pictures from other people later.

This is a picture of Stephanie, Samuel, and Anna wading in an artificial stream at the park. They had a lot of fun in the water, which seemed to circle almost half of the park. I had a nice walk on the shore, carrying their shoes.

I had heard that we would be wearing yukata and doing calligraphy at the GUYS club meeting last Thursday, but I had no idea exactly what it would be like. To begin with, the club leaders gave me, Stephanie, Samuel, and Dustin our own yukatas. (We got to keep the yukatas afterward, which was a wonderful surprise for me, especially because the girls had done a perfect job of picking patterns and colors to suit both me and Stephanie). We then got dressed and spent a long time taking pictures, both individually and in groups, after which we did some calligraphy, mostly of our names (the students picked kanji for us that come close to the sounds of our names, but they're not like Japanese names because we weren't paying attention to the kanji's meanings).

For brevity (and because Stephanie has most of the good group shots), I'm only including a couple of pictures of me in my yukata. My hair's a little funny because I put it up without looking in a mirror, but I love the dress. I don't know how the girls who picked this yukata for me decided on the colors and the pattern, but I love them both. Stephanie's yukata is mostly white with a pink flower pattern and a yellow obi, which I think is perfect for her, too.

This is the back of my yukata. I was trying for a good picture of the obi tie (it's kind of like a bow), but I'm not sure that this does it justice.

I'm still amazed that I get to keep this yukata -- it's a wonderful souvenir of this trip, and better than anything I could have bought for myself on my budget. I'm incredibly thankful to the students for their generosity and their willingness to welcome us and to share their culture with us.

After the club meeting, Dustin and I went with a small group of students to see the site of Sendai castle and to view the city at night from one of the tall buildings downtown. I took the picture above from the castle site, looking toward downtown Sendai. One of the things I think is unique about Sendai (but may be common to the rest of Japan) is the blending of greenery with the cityscape. There are so many trees all over the city, and many of them are very big and very old.

I took this picture from the top floor of the skyscraper we visited in downtown Sendai, looking out over part of the city. The views of the city from both the castle site and the skyscraper were really amazing, and it was neat to have some time to talk more with some of the students I still feel like I am just starting to know.

I feel like I've said this a lot about Japan, but I'm both excited and nervous about the second half of this trip: excited because of all the opportunities I know are yet to come, and nervous because I know my tendency moving forward will be to mechanically count off days until our return, and I don't want to neglect a moment of the time I've been given here.

Weekly Schedule

I thought I would have this up a few days ago, but I didn't have the time/motivation to get to it until now. So sorry this is a little late.

We have a general schedule that stays mostly the same from week to week, but part of what keeps things exciting around here is that we frequently have additional or alternative activities. The point of this post, though, is just to give whoever cares a general idea of what life is like around here.

Sunday -- Often a very relaxing day; the only consistent plan is our fellowship night at the Ogawas' house.

Monday -- Stephanie, Samuel, Dustin, and I are studying 1 Corinthians this summer, and we meet in the morning to discuss our studies. We also switch off going to a Bible study with students in the evening (two of us go each week).

Tuesday -- We meet with students for lunch at UpTen, and we have dinner and English conversation practice in the evening, also at UpTen (this means Stephanie and I usually spend the whole afternoon at UpTen, talking to students if they have time or playing cards with Samuel and Dustin).

Wednesday -- We do prayer walks on campus early in the morning, and then I have a meeting with Megan. Stephanie, Samuel, Dustin, and I have been meeting students for lunch on campus, but we have the afternoon and evening free.

Thursday -- This is GUYS club night, which usually means we meet on campus in the afternoon for a couple of activites (origami and karaoke so far). Afterward, we go to Starbucks and then an Italian restaurant for dinner. Altogether, we spend a lot of time talking to students.

Friday -- Our day off, so we are free to do whatever we want.

Saturday -- We have a staff meeting in the morning to discuss our schedules for the upcoming week, and then we have the rest of the day off. This is often our day for special plans: last week we had a movie night at UpTen, and this week we are going to have a sports day, if the weather stays sunny.

Yesterday I heard something about wearing yukata (the summer kimono) at GUYS club this week, so I'm excited about that. There should be some fun pictures, anyway.

More pictures!

Okay, I think I figured out how to make the pictures do what I want them to, although this new method takes a lot longer. Hopefully in the future I can add pictures as I go along, instead of having to do a mass update like this one.

First up in this batch is one of the pictures I took on our Sendai tour, of a path at the site of the Sendai lords' mausoleums. I like the combination of the trees and the stone path.

This is a picture of the lunch I made myself the other day. (I was really proud of my cooking, which is why I took the picture). The base is leftover spaghetti noodles from something that Kaori made, with a mixture of chicken, spinach, green bell pepper, and onion on top. It was very yummy, like almost all of the food we've had here.

Yesterday, we went to a soccer game. It was a division 2 professional game between Sendai (also known as Vegalta, which is apparently a combination of the names of two stars, Vega and Altaris) and one of the Tokyo teams (I think Tokyo also has a division 1 team). We cheered for Sendai, of course. The game lasted about two hours, and ended in a tie, 2-2. All of the goals were scored in the second half of the game, and it really picked up right at the end. Afterward, we had to walk back to a mall where we'd parked the car, and even though the rain was more like mist, we were all pretty soaked by the time we got to the mall. I was really glad to have the raincoat I'd bought at the 100 yen store the day before.

This is a picture of the loudest of the Sendai fans. They were sitting behind the Sendai team's goal box for the first half of the game, and they spent almost the entire game clapping, banging drums, singing, chanting, waving their hands in the air and/or jumping up and down. I've never seen Japanese people make so much noise. It's hard to say which was more entertaining: watching the game, or watching the fans watch the game.

This is another picture of the loudest Sendai fans, one that I took before the game started. One of the things that I found really interesting about the fans was that a lot of their banners and flags had slogans written in English. The banner on the lower right side of this picture, for example, says "Come on SENDAI light my Fire!"

This is a picture of the Tokyo fans. I could fit them all into one shot because there weren't very many of them at the game. They made a lot of noise in proportion to their numbers, though.

This is a shot of the soccer field during the game. The Sendai team goalie is on the right, dressed in pink. The other members of the Sendai team are wearing yellow jerseys, and the Tokyo team members are in green. The guy in the black shirt at the bottom of the picture is what Stephanie called a "ball boy." His job, as far as I could tell, was to catch the ball when it went beyond that barrier at the side of the field, and to throw either the game ball or a replacement back to the players, to help keep the game moving.

The other thing that really impressed me about the soccer game was how little time they spent doing anything other than playing. Altogether, there were only about 6 minutes of stoppage time. Part of that is due to the fact that each team is allowed only 3 substitutions per game, but most of it just looked to me like efficiency on the part of the players, the referees, and the "ball boys."

I think I'll try to post again in another couple of days with a description of our schedule here.

Picture Time!

Okay, so I figured out how to add some of the pictures I've been taking to this blog, but so far they're showing up in reverse order, so I'll have to break up this post until I figure out a better way to do this.

These first six pictures are from a Shinto shrine we visited in Tokyo before coming to Sendai.

First is a picture of a lovely bonzai tree that I think was in a competition at the shrine, then a picture of the entrance to the main part of the shrine, and then a closeup and a wide shot of some casks of sake given as offerings at the shrine. I liked the designs on the casks; they made a very artistic addition to the grounds and the architecture.

These two are shots of the grounds and a sign by the entrance of the shrine.

Lots of rain, and also some other things

I don't remember now if I read about the rainy season in Sendai before coming to Japan, but I've been experiencing it since we got here (the students tell me that it will end in July, if I understood them properly). I've been through monsoon season in Arizona, but the rainy season here is completely different. In the almost two weeks that we have been in Sendai, maybe two days have had blue sky and sun. Most of the others have been rainy, with a few dry, overcast days. This makes it a little tricky to do laundry (we might have to take a couple of loads to the laundromat to dry them).

In other news, I'm still getting to know students and trying to remember all of their names (a task that's been tricky for me no matter where I am, and here I get to learn all kinds of new names). Life in general seems pretty quiet, although my schedule is pretty full of events (meetings, meals with students, and English conversation practice, for example). In the future, I intend to write down at least one observation each day, so that I'll have more to write about here. Otherwise, everything tends to blur together.

Thanks to everyone who has written me notes and left comments here. It's really nice to hear from you, even if it's only a few lines.

Some culture shock and some relaxation

Today is my first day off in Sendai. We will have Fridays off while we are here to use as we like, in order to keep us from being overwhelmed or too exhausted by life here in Japan. I have spent today very quietly around the apartment, since the other girls have left on various little adventures, and I thought I should take the time to write something since it's been a few days.

I feel like I needed the chance for some peace and quiet, since yesterday I had my first real experience of culture shock. Stephanie and I tried to ride the bus to UpTen to meet Dustin and Samuel before the first GUYS club meeting, but we got on the wrong bus and ended up taking a long tour of a part of Sendai we'd never seen before, in the rain. When we got to the end of the line and realized that we were definitely on the wrong bus, we tried to ask the driver about it, but discovered that he didn't speak English. Stephanie handled the whole experience really well, but I cried some and needed comfort food once we got back to familar territory (pastries help with stress, I think).

It was the first time I realized just how much of a challenge it is to function in a place where I can't read, write, speak, or understand anything around me. On both of my other trips abroad, I could manage at least a few words, and I understood how to read maps and street signs. Here, the words I know don't work for directions, and many of the streets don't even have names. It's probably healthy to cope with my feelings of helplessness early on, though, because that way I have a chance to get beyond it before the end of the summer. (And I'm sure the experience will make for a fun story to tell once I get back, or even now for those of you who are reading this from the States).

In other news, we're still settling and adjusting to our schedule for the summer, since we haven't yet had a 'normal' week (I'm starting to think we won't ever have a truly fixed schedule, but I'm willing to work with that. At least I'll never be able to say this was boring.)

Sendai Tour and Shopping

Yesterday we met up with Ogawa-san (the head of the team in Sendai) and some of the students for a little tour of Sendai. We didn't go to very many places, but it was still a very fun trip. First we saw the monuments of the first three lords of Sendai. The original monuments burned down in the bombing of Sendai in 1945, so the buildings we saw were reconstructions. I was very impressed by the artistry and the details of the construction. We next visited the international center, where we saw some books and movies in Japanese that were available for people to read or watch at the center, and we got some English maps of Sendai. After that, we ate lunch at a sushi shop (one with a conveyor belt of various dishes, priced based on the color of the plates) and bought some ice cream at a grocery store. To end our tour, we walked to a nearby Shinto shrine, where we saw part of a child blessing. We have all been very tired at the end of every day, and we still haven't figured out exactly why (we hope it is mostly jet lag, and that we will soon adapt to the schedule here).

Today we met at the guys' house (called UpTen) and walked to a nearby shopping center to buy some postcards, notebooks, and groceries for UpTen. We felt very pleased with our success, since it was the first time we have been on our own for any length of time (usually we have Megan and/or Ogawa-san with us, and they can act as interpreters). At the grocery store, I bought some matcha chocolates, which I thought were pretty tasty.

Right now, we are all at Megan's apartment using the Internet to answer e-mail and update blogs, so it is quiet except for the clicking of the keyboards. So far, I think I really like Japan, although I know I still have a long summer ahead of me, and that things will probably get harder in the future. I am more thankful every day for the encouragement of family and friends.

Orientation in Tokyo and Arrival in Sendai

I arrived safely in Japan after a long plane ride from San Francisco. I had a worrisome moment or two just after passing through security in the Tokyo airport, because my plane got in early and the person who was supposed to meet me wasn't there yet. I didn't panic, though, and she soon showed up, at which point we had lots of time to wait for the other American students coming to Tokyo that day.

As a big group, we spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of Thursday at a sort of orientation at the Yoyogi Olympic center in Tokyo. We talked about a number of things, including our goals for the summer, things to watch out for in our interactions with Japanese students (not talking too fast, being patient in communication, trying to be sensitive to others' feelings and to different ways of doing things), and time management suggestions for both our time here and when we return home. We also did some team-building exercises like problem-solving, a discussion about our personality types, and creative summaries of the things we learned at orientation (my team wrote a poem and performed a short song).

The team I'm a part of consists of me, three students from North Carolina (Stephanie, Samuel, and Dustin), and three team leaders who are staying in Japan long-term. Our immediate team leader's name is Megan; here in Sendai, Stephanie and I are staying in Megan's apartment with her and her roommate, and Samuel and Dustin are staying in a house closer to the university campus. The entire team is here to help out with a club at Tohoko Gakuin University here in Sendai, so most of what we'll be doing this summer depends on club activities (including English conversation practices, meetings, shared meals, and at least one trip).

After orientation, Megan, Stephanie, Samuel, Dustin, and I took a five-hour bus ride from Tokyo to Sendai. We spent our first day here having a team meeting (to discuss plans for the summer and a little bit about our finances) and going grocery shopping. It rained off and on in a fine mist for most of the day, so I was glad for Megan's car (and her knowledge of driving in Japan). I am starting to feel pretty well settled in, which is nice. We met some students right after we got off the bus to Sendai, but we'll have a better opportunity to talk to some of them tomorrow, since we're meeting them for lunch. I'm looking forward to it; I've heard that the students are excited to meet us, and I hope they're still excited about getting to know us after we've met.

First Post

I'm totally new to blogging, so I'm sure it will take me a while to figure this out and start to make things more interesting. For now, I'll just post a basic update.

I will be leaving for Tokyo early on May 31st and arriving on the afternoon of June 1st. Altogether, I'll be travelling for about 13 hours.

Until then, I'm getting together the things I'll need in Japan and spending some time with my family in Arizona.