Grade School

School has been wonderful so far this week. As I said before, the high school students are taking their exams so I am going to the grade school that is connected with St. Joseph's High School. And, I get done with school at 11:15! Unlike the high school, the grade school is co-ed. On Tuesday I met the grade school's English teacher, Sean Hashi. He is Canadian, so I am kind of following him around this week and helping teach his classes a little. We went to the 2nd grade classes and then a 1st grade class. The kids were so fun and cute! Here are some pictures.

Second Grade


First Grade


These kids were just awesome. At first they seemed a little intimidated, but once I was introduced and they got to ask me questions they were okay. They all had to say "Good Morning Abbey. How are you?" as a class. It was really cute. Then there was a question and answer session. They asked me questions like "What's your favorite color?" and "What is your favorite animal?". And then subject and food and so on. One girl asked me where I was from and the teacher had them guess. She guessed France. The next girl got it right. I answered them in English and they had to see if they knew what it was in Japanese. They were pretty good at it.

The first grade also got to teach me all the English they knew backwards. I learned how to say can I please sharpen my pencil in Japanese! That's real useful. I knew most of the phrases already, but it was fun to see what they thought I needed to know and I did learn a few new ones.

After all of that I went and sat in one of the empty desks and they all thought it was hilarious. The desk was a little small. I sat next to a boy and this girl up front turned around and made a little heart with her hands and laughed.

After class they all swarmed over to see me. Mostly to stare at me, but one girl tried to say something to me in Japanese. Realizing that I didn't know what she was saying she ran over to the teacher and then came back and said, "You're beautiful!" Ahhh, it was so sweet! And another little girl made me a paper airplane as a gift.

The whole experience made me think that I might like to be a grade school teacher. I really liked working with all the little kids.

Today was fun too, but not quite as much fun. I went to the 6th grade classes. They were a little more, well they're 11 and 12-year-olds. No offense Christy. :D The question and answer session was a little more interesting though. I got the usual "Where are you from?" and "What kind of food do you like?", but I also got "Who do you support for president, Obama or McCain?". Come on! This kid is 11 and trying to talk to me about politics! To be honest, he probably knows more about what is going on with this election than I do at this point. The only news that I have heard is on the Japanese news channel. In Japanese. I was also asked "Do you like Sean?" These 11 year old boys are pretty creative, right? Sean is twice as old as me! I said he was a good teacher. haha. Then another smarty-pants asked me if I like Jonny, an American English teacher at the high school. I said he was very kind. Then the first one asked me who I liked better! I told them I don't pick favorites. To make all this even better, Sean had to translate the questions for me.

So, that's all so far. I'll also be in the grade schools Thursday and Friday, so maybe I'll have some more stories in a few days.

Long Weekend!

Today was the last day of my long weekend. Today is Elder's Day, so I didn't have school. This weekend was really fun. Yesterday (Sunday) was pretty nice. I got to go to church again here. I really love that I get to go almost every week. It's really nice to do something so familiar and the members are so nice to me. I got to practice my Japanese talking to a lady there. She was very sweet and patient with my poor language skills. Then another lady sat by me and translated for me again.

Anyway, after church I went to my friend Ilianaa's house. She is a girl that I met at Rotary from Mexico. We went for a walk to see all the stores around her house and I had lunch then dinner with her and her host family. It was so nice to talk to have someone to just hang out and talk with.

Today, I met up with Ilianaa again. This time we went to Yokohama Station and Kamiooka Station. All the major train stations here are connected to huge department stores, so we wandered around the different shops and looked at all the ridiculously expensive brand name clothes. I would never be able to afford anything at those stores, and I honestly can't see why people would ever pay that much. Anyway, then we had lunch at this little Italian restaurant. It was really good, but I think the waiter misunderstood us when we were ordering. Go figure, right. We tried to order one spaghetti type pasta and then one pizza, and we were going to share. When the salads came, they brought 3 of them. Then, when the pasta came they brought two big plates out, and then they brought a pizza out. It was really good, but we couldn't eat it all.

After lunch, we went back to my apartment. We hung out and talked here. It is so nice to have a good friend here to talk to. I brought her back to the station at about 5 so she could go home for dinner. Once I got back, I helped finish setting the table and ate. We had this really good hot pot type thing with some little clear noodles, meat, tofu, mushrooms, and various vegetables in a broth. It was so yummy! I love my host mom's cooking. Then I helped with the dishes and took my shower.

Today I finally told my host dad that I want him to stop speaking English to me. I'm really starting to feel like I should know more Japanese because I have almost been here for a whole month. I really hope that I will start learning faster now that I will be hearing less English at home and taking Japanese lessons at school. My school even got me a really nice Japanese textbook in English to help me learn.

In school this week all the high school girls will have exams, so they won't be in class. Then what will I be doing, you ask. Well, they couldn't just give me a whole week off of school, so they have me go to the only classes that are going on. That's right, I get to go to grade school this week! I get recess and everything! I was told that I can either observe or participate. I plan on participating as much as my Japanese skills allow. I am so excited for this. I just hope they get me a little bigger desk than the ones the little kids are using... But seriously, I'm excited to go. Hopefully the kids won't be too scared of me or anything. I do have, I mean get to give a presentation to the class about Halloween. I wish I would have known that earlier so I could have gotten some American candy or something. Then the kids would love me for sure!

Sorry there aren't any pictures for this entry. I'll be sure to take some this week at school though.

Update

Sorry it's been so long since I have written anything. I've been pretty busy. I made it through my first two weeks of school! The second one was definitely better than my first. I have set my schedule now, so hopefully I'll be getting textbooks soon. Here, they don't borrow them from the school, they buy them every year. However, the textbooks are much smaller and they are paperback. They're about 6 by 9 inches or so and only a couple hundred pages.

My classes are the following:

Geography, Math, Chemistry, Religion, English Writing, Physics, English, Japanese, P.E. (Volleyball), Health, Computers, Calligraphy, and my personal Japanese Lessons on Thursday mornings and Friday afternoons. I take those during the Spoken English class and the Japanese Writing class, because I already speak English, and Japanese Writing is too hard for me. As if I can understand any of my other classes anyway.

They use a rotating schedule here, so it's a little different each day of the week. My favorite classes are P.E. and Calligraphy (Shodou). I can actually participate in them. Well I try to participate in math too, but it just makes me feel dumb. I'd be doing fine if I could read the directions, had a textbook, or understood the teacher, but I don't have those advantages. I failed the test my teacher had me take and when I got it back I wanted to cry. I was good at math in America!

This week in Calligraphy we did this thing called "takuhon". First we made these stamps out of cotton wrapped up really tightly in plastic, then cloth. We took this stone slab with kanji (chinese characters) carved into it and covered it with special paper. We got the paper wet with a brush and then soaked up the extra water with a towel. Then we used our fingers to push the paper down into all the carved out areas. Once it dried, we used the stamps we had made to stamp ink over it. The ink doesn't go into the carved out areas, so the whole thing is black except for the kanji. It was really awesome. Maybe I'll take a picture of it if I am allowed to take my camera to class.

On Tuesday, I went to the flower arranging club after school. It was really nice. One of the english teachers from school went with me. She's from Canada, so she could help explain what was going on. She said I was a natural at it and couldn't believe it was my first time. I just copied the teacher, but okay. This is my arrangement:





Last Saturday was the Rotary welcome party for the inbounds (foreign students in Japan this year) here. We all gave our speeches and watched the rebounds (Japanese students that went somewhere last year) give their presentations. After that we had a little social time. It was really good seeing all my rotary friends again.

Not too much else has happened. I just have school. After school I help clean the school. I helped sweep in the homeroom this week, but I think our jobs change every week. It's actually really fun. We have 6-8 girls cleaning one room, so it's not a lot of work and everyone just gets to talk and visit during it. After that I go home. Usually I get there around 5. That's just enough time to change out of my uniform, check my email really fast, and help set the table for dinner.

Dinner is always really good. My host mom is an awesome cook. I usually don't know, okay, I never know what the dishes are called, but they taste really good. My host dad will usually tell me what they're called but I always forget before I write it down in my journal or something. One really weird thing I had this week was my yogurt after dinner. It was Aloe flavored. Like the plant you use for burns. It tasted okay, but I didn't even know you could eat aloe. The after taste was a little weird.

Today, I went to my host grandparent's house for the first time. They were very nice. I also met my host Dad's sister. They live about 40 minutes away by car, but there was bad traffic today because it is a long weekend. (Monday is Elder's Day. No School! yay!) It took an hour and a half to get there. It wasn't too bad though. Lunch was really good. It was actually a hot pot type thing with Udon and Hama fish sent from a restaurant in Osaka. I guess hama is like the one of the most expensive fish to buy in Japan. A very nice rotarian had it sent to my host family. There was also this rice with sashimi and caviar on it. It was really good.

So, I think that's about it for now. I'll try not to wait as long to blog again, but you never know. I'll also try to get more pictures up soon. You can see the ones I already have up at Michael's website. If you don't know his website, just send me an email and I'll send you the link.

More School

Well, today was my fourth day of school. It seems to be going pretty well. Yesterday I took a caligraphy class. That was pretty fun. I was assigned to write letters in Japanese to my host family and to AnnaMarie. I don't know what they are going to do with them. All the girls in my class came over and helped me translate and write them out. It seems like I am making friends, but it may just be because I am interesting and new.

Today I had some private Japanese lessons. It was good, I guess. I am getting a little frustrated because it doesn't seem like I am picking much up at all! Then again, I have only been here for like two weeks. It feels like much longer than that.

My actual classes are all pretty boring. I try to fill my time reading the Japanese history book my history teacher gave me or studying my grammer book. School feels infinatley longer when you can't even understand the teacher.

So, this has been and will be my schedule for week days. I wake up at 5:45. In the morning. It doesn't really seem that early though, because they don't have daylight savings here so the sun comes up at like 5:15. I make myself toast for breakfast and my peanutbutter and jelly sandwich for lunch. I eat my breakfast, get on my school uniform, and brush my teeth and do my hair. I don't do my makeup because it isn't allowed at school.




I leave my house a 6:45 to catch the 6:50 bus outside. That bus takes me to the station, where I get on the express train to the Yokohama Station. At Yokohama, I switch to a different train line and get on the local train that takes me to Tsurumi Station. From there I get on another bus that takes me to a block away from the school. I walk to the school, change my shoes, and go to my classes. I ususally arrive at school at about 8:05. School starts at 8:15. Well that is when the morning prayers are anyway. It's pretty wierd doing the prayers. I don't know them anyway because they are in Japanese, but still.

I leave school at like 3:30 and by 4:30 or so I arrive home. At home I help with dinner or play with my little host brothers. I eat dinner, shower, and then get to bed around 9:00.

Oh, and did I tell you that I got my phone now? It's pretty exciting.

School

Well, yesterday was my first day of school here in Japan. I can now sympathize with anyone who has ever been the "new kid". I guess it went okay. It was pretty tough though. My teachers and classmates are all very nice, and I have two teachers that are pretty much assigned to help me out if I ever need anything. They have been really helpful in getting my schedule settled. It was just really hard going to a school for the first time with all girls, in Japanese, and not knowing what was going on... at all.

People would ask how my classes were and to be perfectly honest, they are all pretty much the same to me. I don't know what the teacher is saying anyway. The only one that was different was math. The teacher gave me a worksheet that was in Japanese going over something with circles that we never got to in my Algebra II class. Luckily, the girl in front of me spoke decent English and she helped explain it to me. Like I said, everyone is so nice at school.

Today was my second day and I had to give a speech at the school assembly this morning. It went pretty well. I just read it off of my paper. Everyone clapped when I was done. Today was definatly better than yesterday. My schedule is different everyday, so today I had Japanese History, English, Japanese, and P.E. In Japanese History, my teacher gave me a book about Japan's history that was in english and japanese. That was very nice of her. I spent the morning reading that and actually learning something. P.E. was fun too.

I got my school P.E. uniform and I went to the volleyball class. All the girls were very impressed with my rusty volleyball skills. I haven't actually played for almost 2 years, but they thought I was amazing! When I spiked the ball they were all like "Oh! Sugoii!" (Wow/Amazing!) haha. And then at the water break one of the girls was like you are so skinny and poked my stomach, then yelled something to the other girls and asked me if I did sit-ups. I told them I didn't. It was kind of embarassing, but really funny. When the teacher announced that we were going to play a game of volleyball (rather than just drills) a lot of the girls were like I get Abbey!!!

So, that is school for now. I hope it continues to get better. I also hope that I really start to pick up some Japanese from my classmates.

Update!

I'm doing well here. I am starting to get over being so homesick now. :D

My host family is great. My little brothers are really cute and they like to play "trump" with me. It's matching using a deck of cards or the nice animal cards Dad got for them. They always get really excited when I say more than 2 words to them in Japanese. My host mom is very sweet. She is very helpful and kind. I can't wait to learn more Japanese so I can get to know her better. My host dad is a huge help. He acts as my translator when we are shopping for cell phones and at the Rotary dinners when people ask me more complicated questions than is the food delicious? Haha. It was nice to have an English speaker while I was settling in. I think he will stop speaking English to me in a few weeks though. That's good I guess.

At my welcome party I will get to see all my Rotary friends again. Since I am done with my class now, I won't see them very much. All that I really know about it is that I have to give my speech that we worked on in our class.

The class was really fun and I think I learned quite a bit. It gave me a good base to work off of so hopefully I'll be able to start making better sentences soon. I'm really glad I took it, but you've gotta tell AnnaMarie that she was wrong. I am definitely not the best one here at Japanese. Haha. I'm pretty sure that I was put in the dumb group. Our group wrote our speeches in romaji (english alphabet). The other group wrote theirs out in hiragana! They can all read and write hiragana and katakana really fast. Oh, well. Our group had a lot of fun with our lessons. :D And, yes, we bow to our sensei. Everyone bows to everyone here. Every time I meet someone we bow.

My house. It's really nice. I now have my own room. It is just a little smaller than Christy's room I'd say. Minus the closet. There are two other rooms about the same size, then another one with the sliding walls that I can't remember the name of. Then we have our toilet room, our bathroom (which are totally separate, by the way) the little changing room next to the bathroom. It has sinks, a mirror, a little closet, and the washer/dryer. We have a nice little kitchen, which is smaller than AnnaMarie's. The last room is the living room. It has a couch and the table that we eat at and the TV. Then, pretty much every room has a little balcony outside of it. The main balcony has a nice hammock I like to sit in sometimes. And our toilet is a western style one, with the bedet (how do you spell that?) built in. It took me like 3 min to figure out how to flush it my first night. Our bath is Japanese style. There is a little shower thing on the wall that you wash off with, then you can take a bath to relax if you want. The bath has a heater so it will stay at whatever temperature you set it at.

My room is nice. It has two little balconies off of it, and I have a bookshelf and computer in it. I also have a little set of drawers for my clothes and a part of the closet is for me to hang my stuff up in. We are still working on the bed. Right now I am sleeping on a futon, which is fine with me. They had ordered me like a 100 dollar bed and it broke when we were assembling it. So, they had it sent back and I guess they are going to get another one at some point. Until I get my bed, I'm not really sure what to do with my suitcases. They are just in the corner for now, but I want to store them under my bed once I get it. I'll work something out in the next few days.

Sometimes I help make dinner. I helped make curry the other day. It was pretty good. All the food here is good. The only thing I didn't really like was sashimi, but I’ll eat it. It tastes fine, but the texture is weird. I'll just have to get used to it I think. For dinner I have had everything from Beef stew to sashimi to curry to Udon My host mom is a really good cook. I do miss Italian food though. I eat rice at least twice a day. Usually for breakfast I make myself shokupan (toast).

There are very few foreigners here, so EVERYONE stares at me. Some try to be sneakier about it than others. My host dad keeps apologizing for it, but I was like, hey, if a 7 foot tall girl walked in to my school at home, everyone would stare at her too. Haha. I am taller than almost everyone. I haven't met or seen any girls taller than me yet. Once in a while I will see a foreigner on the street, and I have realized that I stare at them. Haha. Usually I am just trying to figure out why they are here. I think the majority of them are from the navy base, but sometimes you see one with a Japanese wife or something.

Yesterday I went to my school for the first time. I met the American teacher named Jonny and another teacher who speaks very good English. They are kind of assigned to me to help me get settled into school. I start on Monday. I'm pretty nervous, but everything will be fine. My building is really complicated though. Good thing I just have to follow my homeroom classmates. I'll take pictures with my uniform once I get it. It is going to come on Sunday. They just finished it. I am going to get sooo many more stares when I am wearing that. And, it's okay, you can laugh.

After going to the school, I went to a Rotary dinner. They are at this really nice hotel called Camelot Japan or something. The food was really good Japanese food. The Rotarians are all very nice (and rich). One named "Sammy" own a whole bunch of restaurants. I went around introducing myself to each table, and at his there was a lady wearing a kimono. He asked me how I liked it and I said it was beautiful. Then he said that he is going to have one made for me! That is so nice of him! My host dad said that he will probably get a really nice one made (like 3,000 to 5,000 USD) Yikes! And there was another lady in a kimono who gave me this beautiful Japanese fan. It is purple silk and bamboo. Probably expensive. The other Rotarians like to come around to my table and watch me use the chopsticks and ask me how I liked the food. I'll be going to these dinners about once a month I think.

I’ll be getting pictures up soon. Probably tomorrow. Today we are going to go shopping for my rice bowl and chopsticks. :D This is pretty exciting.

First Few Days in Japan, and I Only Got Lost Once!

From my first few days here in Yokohama:

August 22:
The flight went well. Sorry about the typing. this keyboard is confusing. I`m having a really good time here. My host family is very nice and the boys are so cute. I am learning the most from them.

Yokohama is beautiful! The city is really really big and busy, but I am slowly starting to understand the train system. It feels like I have been here a lot longer than I have been. Tomorrow I am going to go to my Japanese class all by myself. I really hope I don`t get lost! The other exchange students are cool and funny, especially this kid from Brazil and the girl from Mexico.

Today I got tailored for my school uniform.. haha. They are custom making it, and it will be shipped to me next week. I also got shoes. My feet are so big here! Mie (my host mom) was like “ookii” (big) when she saw my shoes. Then the lady at the store`s eyes got all big when they were telling her my size. +D

I also went to the Rotary lunch and gave my little speech. One thing about the Rotarians here is that their cars are soo nice! I saw a few Mercedes, Porches and even a Rolls Royce! And they all seem so willing to help me. They said to just let them know if there was anything I wanted to do or see.

Hmmm.. oh, parking here! The parking place for us is in this really cool car elevator thing. It actually moves the cars down so you can drive in, then moves it back up. Cars are parked 2 or 3 cars high! I`ll take a pic at some point. My house here is really nice too. I love you all and I miss you all. I am having a lot of fun though. Don`t worry about me.

Love, Abbey--
USA ---> Yokohama, Japan
Rotary Youth Exchange
08-09



August 22:
So guess what? Today I am going to ride the trains all by myself. I really hope I don`t get lost. Today I will be going to my Japanese Class, then touring Yokohama with my friends there and some Rotex students.

Right now I am waiting for breakfast, which is going to be Udon noodles and rice I think. I tried to help, but Mie gave me the computer. I think I just get in the way... oh, well.

I miss you lots, but it is really awesome here. I have this train pass card, like a plastic credit card ish type card, and there is this scanner and you just put your wallet over the scanner and it detects the card and will charge you whatever the ride costs. Crazy! You dont have to atually get out the card. And the key to my house has an electric sensor in it too, so you don`t actually use the key part at the front door of the complex building. My whole complex, by the way, houses 6,000 people! and they have an eye scanner that you can use too, but Im not registered in it, obviously.



August 24:
Hey_Everyone!

Guess what? I really did get lost yesterday. haha.

Yeah, so I got to my bus okay. I got to the correct trains okay. After the trains is what turned out to be the tricky part. I had to find the Washington Hotel and then from there I would take a right, down that street to my japanese class. The Washington Hotel is just straight from the station, right? Well, these roads are not grid system, and I took the wrong road to go strait on. After a while, I started asking people for help....

Me: Sumimasen, Eigo ga wakarimasu ka? (Excuse me. Do you speak English?)

Them: iie (No)

Me: umm, Washington Hotel?

Them: Washintonu Hoteru? blah blah jdklj jklejwkafdskfjfj djifjkdsl.

Me: kinda blank stare.. this way? (pointing)

Them: hai. (Yes)

Me: Arigato Gozaimasu. (Thank you)

I was lead through a subway a little ways (not on a train) then back up, because it was too dangerous to go on the street. yeah, that was definatley not the way I went the day before. Finally I get to this building they are leading me to. It was a DIFFERENT Washington Hotel. At this point I am 30 min. late for my class and trying really hard not to cry. I go into this hotel and find a phone to call my host dad, who calls rotary and sends someone to pick me up at the front desk.

Everything worked out eventually. I was 40 min late and all the other kids had a good laugh, but Rotary took care of me. Today I got there all by myself with no mistakes. and home, too. That was my big adventure.

I love you all!!!


-Abbey

August 24:
Tonight i am going to go to one of those Sushi restaurants with the rotating belt things... mmm. I`ll tell you about that when I get back. I should get going now though. I will post pictures when I get my room set up.