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.