Lauren Blogs about Tokyo

Today was one of the coolest days we’ve had so far. We split up into groups of three (I happened to be with Gabs and Jake) and began a scavenger hunt that spanned across the rather large city of Tokyo. Our scavenger hunt had us searching far and wide for items and photo opportunities and forced us to interact with native Japanese speakers. It was an incredible experience to ride subways and navigate Tokyo on our own. There were twenty items on the scavenger hunt to find and all of the groups tied for first place, although Wes, Mads, and Elizabeth got the prizes (only because they found an elusive Japanese ambulance). My group and I went all over Tokyo—Akihabara, Shibuya, Tokyo Tower—and by the time we went to our meeting place, we were fairly exhausted.
We exited our station and headed to the Tokyo Dome where we watched part of a Tokyo Giants baseball game! The stadium was pretty cool and I noticed that the baseball diamond didn’t have dirt between the bases, only surrounding them. The game was a little hard to watch because it was standing room only, but it was an excellent experience! The biggest downside to watching a baseball game was it made me miss my Dad and Cubs baseball (I wonder how they’re doing…).
Elizabeth, Gabs, and I left the game around the third inning to go ride a roller coaster. Sensei told us that it was “maybe worth the money”. What a liar. The roller coaster was one of the coolest things I’ve done in Tokyo! It was called the “Thunder Dolphin” and was right in the middle of Tokyo. The wait was long but worth every second. The first thing you do on the ride is climb 240ft and then you rocket almost straight down. The ride speeds up (as expected) and you barrel through the buildings and streets of Tokyo. You even go through a big hole in a building and go through a Ferris wheel (that has no middle—weird!). The adrenaline rush you get going on the roller coaster was unlike anything you’d get from an American roller coaster. It’s hard to compare a roller coaster in a theme park to a roller coaster in Tokyo that takes you through buildings and towards streets.
Today’s experiences were incredible and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I take pride in the fact that my group (and the other groups) navigated a massive city on our own with no guidance from Sensei. It was incredible to see a truly American sport (one of the few) played in a foreign country (not to mention the crowds!!) and it was amazing to ride a roller coaster in Tokyo.

Maddie Blogs about Miyajima

So, Japan has been amazing, Miyajima was gorgeous we left Hiroshima in the morning and arrived in the afternoon. “The guest house” was awesome, and the sites were awesome, unfortunately everything closed at like… 5pm. The Japanese style bedroom was gorgeous it was 2 story and was where the meetings for the next day were held. The Misen Mountain was way too pretty to describe I'm very excited but we are going to eat soon we are in Tokyo now and we are too busy for you all ^_-

David's Blog

The past two days have been great work and great fun. Despite Doug and Jake getting wakizashi (Japanese short swords) at Toudaiji, Wes’s chinsuko addiction has progressed to chinsuko throwing violence. Yesterday while taking what was supposed to be a quick, twenty-minute walk to and through Fushimi Inari Taisha, Sarah wandered off on her own, as she often does, and sparked a search that made us eventually an hour late for dinner. The youth hostel owner was kind enough not to ninja us to death though.









Today we went to Osaka. We did a lot of shopping and Doug, Jake, Wes, Sarah and I all went to a restaurant that served Okonomiyaki, a fantastic Japanese food. We celebrated Tanabata at a Japanese temple tonight and then met up with Sadie McDowell, surprisingly unrelated to Jason McDowell and yet equally intellectual. We came back to the hostel and had a fantastic ofuro, as we have had every night. Finally, Elizabeth just learned to burp.

This trip is fantastic.

Elizabeth's Post

Dear Iowa,

We’ve spent the past two days touring Kyoto. Yesterday morning started off at Kinkakuji, the golden temple which has been burned down twice, and then we bus’d over to the Zen garden Ryoanji, where the focus was on Buddhist aphorisms, mainly focusing on a Zen garden with fifteen stones arranged so that you can never see them all at the same time, representing reality and its reliance on perception. After an extremely delicious lunch, we went to Nijo castle, which had an amazing view of Kyoto.






That night we all went back to the hostel pretty tired from our first day of sightseeing. Lauren, Maddi, Gabby and I headed down to take a nice relaxing shower and Ofuro (very hot bath). However, when I was waiting to use Gabrielle’s towel because I forgot to grab one, one of the ladies staying in the Hostel came in. “Are you okay?” she asked me (I was leaning on a shelf with my head on my arms, just chillin’), and thus begun my first naked stranger conversation. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

Today’s schedule consisted of: Ginkakuji, Kyomizudera , and Sanjusangendo temples. Ginkakuji, the silver pavilion, was under restorations and preservations, which meant that it was both covered in scaffolding and significantly less crowded and noisy than Ginkakuji. The gardens at Ginkakuji were breathtaking. Although from the highest point of Ginkakuji you could see far across Kyoto, the real beauty was when you were closer to the earth and you couldn’t see the whole picture. Over 300 different varieties of moss grow in the gardens at Ginkakuji. Kyomizudera was a very different atmosphere, and was full of anecdotal tidbits. There was a leap of faith, with an 84% chance of getting your wish (you only get one if you survive), three fountains granting Health, Wisdom and Prosperity, but you could only choose two so as to not piss off the gods, and a path closed when it’s too rainy, because of a landslide near the turn of the century. Sanjusangendo, the site of a famous duel and incredibly impressive archery competitions, but the most powerful was the huge hall containing 1001 statues of the Buddha. Each statue had eighty-eight arms and thirteen heads. So everyone has had an opportunity to find a site that is the most powerful to them already.


Tonight after dinner at the Hostel, we went on a group trip to Karaoke, which is a much bigger pastime in Japan than in America. The Karaoke place where Julie Sensei always takes students was vacant and for lease, so we went an extra few blocks to another one. After a Karaoke session in which everyone sang at least one song (!), we had to “book it” back to the hostel so we could make it in before curfew. Lauren and Maddi both get prizes for their incredible running in heels, full out running. Currently in our room, two are sleeping, three are writing, and Sensei and her sister are doing important things.

Plz don’t miss us.

Love,
Elizabeth Matus

Jake's Blog Posting

Currently we are on a plane to Osaka, I am surprised at how few people are on the plane. Saying goodbye to the Koyo High School students was really hard and I didn’t want to leave. I am very excited to see mainland Japan though and I hope that while we are there, we get to go to Akihabara. All of our suitcases are packed really full and most of us have very little room left. We are sharing what space we can and most of the space that is being taken up is food that our host families gave to us so when we finish the food off, that should get us more room. Anyway, I really enjoyed my time at Okinawa and I hope that someday I can go back.

Lauren's Blog Day

Dear poor folks still stuck in Iowa,

Okinawa has been incredible. A little hot and humid, but beautiful! The views I see when I drive to school are of gardens and miniature mountains. The mountains are covered in dense foliage of the most vivid green I’ve ever seen!
Koyo High School is also awesome! The building is really cool because almost all of the hallways are outside. The students are all really nice and greet me in the hallway, even if I’ve never talked to them before that. I’ve made friends here, which isn’t hard to do because everyone is extremely nice!
The trips we’ve taken have been exciting and epic--I have tons of pictures!! We’ve done a lot of cool and interesting things. One of my favorite things was Churaumi, which was a HUGE aquarium. There was a whale shark, which was massive, in the same tank as a tank cleaner. I have a picture that shows them in relation to each other. It’s awesome.
Okinawa rocks!!!

Sincerely,
Lauren

P.S. This would be longer but I have to go to class. xD

Doug's Blog Day

Yesterday was very interesting. For the first time in my life I attended a home economics class. It was vaguely reminiscent of what I thought an American home economics class would be except that everything was in Japanese and we were actually having fun. We made muffins and extremely strong ice tea that was incredibly satisfying. The muffins were delicious, which was very surprising since we didn’t follow the recipe and we had no clue what was really going on. Some of us stayed after and watched the practice for the Koyo-sai. It was quite impressive to see all of the kids dancing under their own discipline. While they were practicing some of us went to the tennis courts and watched them practice “soft” tennis, which is played with a soft , pink rubber ball instead of the normal neon yellow tennis ball. A person could absolutely smash the ball and still easily return it across the other side. By the end of the day we had spent nearly 12 hours at school, which seems to be fairly common for them to do. After this we took a trip to the country and visited my host father’s mother that had such a strong accent that it was hard for even her grand-daughter to understand.

Wes's Blog Day!

What, it’s my turn to do the blog? I guess I can write something. I get to cover all we did on Friday and over the weekend. First on Friday, we went on a field trip to the Chura-Umi Aquarium on the northern side of the island. We saw a dolphin show and toured through the aquarium and saw the largest aquarium tank in the world. Inside the tank are three whale sharks along with many stingrays, manta rays, and other fish.
Friday night I actually had the privilege of spending the night at Yoshiya sensei’s apartment. The only word I can use to describe that would be しぶい (read shibui). There is no English translation for this word. It would be the next level above cool. Anyways...
Saturday、 there was a BBQ at a very nice beach. Not everyone was there, but it was an odd situation... At the beach there was swimming, volleyball, yaki soba (fried soba noodles), and sumo. When we all had to get out of the water at 6:00, more games and fun ensued.
On Sunday there was a party at Lauren’s host student’s house. There was much socializing, Uno playing, eating, and some singing. Taichi, who came to Iowa last year, had his birthday yesterday. When the sun went down, we all walked down to the beach and lit off some fireworks.
Everyone had a great time on their last weekend here in Okinawa and I think all of us are sad to think we’ll be leaving so soon.

Sarah-Elizabeth's Posting

Today we pulled up to the school and it smelled really bad. It reminded me of farms in Nebraska, that is if you have ever been there. We went to the castle of Okinawa in Naha city. The castle was very large and really intricate. It took us a good hour to get through the whole thing. It was bright red and we took tons of pictures of it. That will be way better than my words. On our way out Yoshiya, like the kid he is climbed a tree and got all dirty. He is just the coolest teacher in Japan!

Then we went to downtown Naha city to go shopping. David and I got a lot of stuff, while everybody else just went sightseeing. We got a tour of the place before we split up and we went to this meat market area and saw a pig head with sunglasses on it. Then we went to a fish market and looked at all of the fish there. We were asked a lot of questions about who we were we told them as we were fed fish samples. A couple of us got really grossed out because there were pig faces near by so we left.

We then went to a mall type thing where we got some little ball with taco in it. Taco is octopus arms with mayo and lettuce in it. Elizabeth and Lauren found a anpanman and baikinman carousel ride. They got on it and put money in and rode around. Cain sensei got a video of it. It was the highlight of the store.

While I rode the city bus home for the first time ever! Every one else went swimming at the pool here. Apparently the chlorine was really high and it wasn’t that fun

Gabby's Post

June 26, 2008

Today, so far, is hot, just like every other day in Okinawa. The people in Japan, at least that I have met, are very nice and like to give us endless amounts of delicious food, such as yakisoba, cheesecake ice cream and takoyaki. Yesterday we went to Okinawa World and got to see the amazing caves where we took pictures of David posing as Indiana Jones. It was maybe the coolest place that we have gone to. We also saw really cool Okinawan dancing and deadly snakes for about five minutes. Today we are going to Shuri castle and it should be cool, otherwise I will be very disappointed. Also, we are going shopping, which should be great and also swimming in the school pool. Japan is wonderful. JAPAN JAPAN JAPAN!

先生's reflections on our tours

Yesterday we went to the Okinawan Peace Memorial Park. Just one day after the Battle of Okinawa Memorial Day, it was a particularly meaningful day to visit. The Battle of Okinawa is not very well known among Americans but it was an event that forever shaped the Okinawan way of life.

Until the late 1800’s, Okinawa was its own country. At that time they were forced to become part of Japan. Through the years of build-up to World War II, Okinawan’s were treated as less than by their own countrymen. Especially during the war, those who were caught speaking in the Okinawan dialect were treated as spies. Also, as it became increasingly clear that Okinawa would serve as the gateway for an American assault on Japan, the Japanese army forced many Okinawan people to work for the war effort.

When the American army landed, part of the island was taken without much of a fight, however, the southern part of the island fought for well over 3 months. During that time, many Okinawan civilians lost their lives. In fact, nearly the same number of civilians died as did soldiers. There were many reasons for these deaths; some the fault of the Japanese Army and some the fault of the American Army. One statistic that shocked us was that for every man, woman and child on the island, there were over 50 rounds of explosives directed at the island.

While the ugliness of war is something that we can only experience second hand, the museum we toured did a good job of conveying some of the feelings that those caught in the cross-fire might have felt. One thing that seemed to strike many of the students is that instead of wanting revenge or retribution, the Okinawans have strongly sided themselves with peace. The entire Peace Memorial Park is a tribute to all people who died in the battle – Okinawan, Japanese, American, British, Korean, everybody. Also, the park is dedicated to the desire that some day we can live in a world without war.

In the photos that I will put on Shutterfly, you will see us at the memorial park and in the Peace Prayer Hall. The hall has a giant lacquer Buddha that is designed to represent all religions. Below the Buddha is a room that stores sacred rocks from hundreds of countries. This is the foundation upon which the hall is build. Also, if you look up into the tunnel that is above the Buddha, you can see stars representing the prayers of all who go there going strait to the heavens. It really is quite a sight!

I hope you enjoy the pictures and the little bit of history!

Madeline's Blog Day

Awesome stuff!
People are very nice, food is Amazing, too bad it’s a little hot. ^_^

Well, don’t really know what to say!
It’s all so much but all so amazing!
We are all happy and not sunburned. And also full of fun.
By the way, Japan was ready for Gabrielle, Madeline, Lauren, Elizabeth.
I really wish you all could experience this!
It’s beautiful here. It’s a whole different world and we are not coming home Elizabeth says get over it ^_^…
Kidding!
….
Kind of




<33333333

One Week?!?

I apologize but I am still fighting with the computers here. It seems as though the school's internet access is locked down even more tightly than Cedar Rapids'. I cannot seem to convince it to let me upload photos or videos quite yet. If I don't get it to work by tomorrow, I will start e-mailing them or searching for another solution. In the mean time... here is the post with notion of where the pictures would be.

It sure doesn’t seem like a week since we left Iowa but here we are! Starting tomorrow, I am going to have the students do our blog, but until then, I will try to catch you up on our comings and goings.

Weighing on us all is the work that we cannot join in on back in Cedar Rapids. As we flew over on our way to Chicago, here is a part of what we saw. A day does not go by when we don’t think of the clean-up efforts back home. (cr flood picture here)

Among the other things we saw from the airplane… an Alaskan glacier and Mt. Fuji!! Mt. Fuji gave us a wonderful welcome to Japan. (Alaska glacier and mt. fuji here)

Koyo is in a very beautiful part of Japan and we can see views of the ocean from many places. (Koyo ocean)

The students are all settling in with their hosts. It is quite fun to watch them interact. The negotiation of language is extraordinary and I think both are learning a great deal. I am very proud of them and it fills me with joy to see them having so much fun. Here are the students and their hosts:

David and Saaya

Sarah-Elizabeth and Makoto


Wes and Masachika

Madeline and Fuka
Doug and Riri
Gabby and Tomoyo

Elizabeth and Kanae

Lauren and Erina

Jake and Naoki


During the first couple of days, the students had a lunch with all students who have participated in the Washington-Koyo Program over the years as. Here are some photos of that luncheon.

Students also participated in gym classes:
(Sarah gym, david pe) and here we are hanging out after school. Can you believe this was at 6:00 p.m.!! Kids are still at school at that time of night!

Despite limited internet access on weekends and at night, I am able to access e-mail during the school day. From that I was able to print off an e-mail from Wes’s mom telling him that he is now an uncle!! You can see here that not only was he excited about the news, but he was also overjoyed to share with Masachika.

(wes uncle photos here)

This week we will be doing a lot of touring. Undoubtedly, you will be seeing many photos of Okinawan historical and tourist sights.

Until then…. じゃね！(see you later)

In Okinawa

Leg 1: Cedar Rapids to Chicago - 1 hour
Leg 2: Chigago to Tokyo - 13 hours
Leg 3: Tokyo to Okinawa 3 hours

We arrived in Okinawa to the smiling faces that have become familiar over the last 2 years. My former hosts showed up to greet us along with our hosts this year. After just 10 hours with our hosts, we came to school already today. Here, we discovered that our performance for the school is this afternoon!! With such short notice, the students prepared a `dance` that they performed. Here is a video of it:



I am so proud of them, they threw that together in just 4 hours!! Way to go WHS kids!!

Starting tomorrow, I will hopefully have the students start writing the blogs. I think you will find them interesting.

More tomorrow!!

Fun In Classrooms

During their stay, the Koyo students have spent a lot of time in a variety of classrooms. They have been in a photography class, the Japanese classes, middle school classes, their hosts math classes and soon they will go to a sign language class!






Visiting the 4th year Japanese class. Brandon and year-long exchange student Sena talk with their new friends.








Suhaib and Ian talk with Yuki, Mizuki and Serina














In the Photo class, students were given camera and taken around school to take photos. I don't know about you, but I think you need to have your eyes open to take photos!










Kazuna is writing Japanese for a McKinley Middle School student.











Yuki teaches a McKinley student how Japanese people pose for photos.










This is a quick video of the students eating lunch with McKinley Middle School Students.


Jan Keene is a great sport playing fruit basket upset with the exchange students and McKinley students. Meiko is such a kind hearted person! She let's Jan take her spot!

House Parties

There have been several parties hosted by families. Here are a few photos from some of those:



Lauren playing ping-pong with one of the students.












Yeah!! Smiles - an international language.












Fooseball?!?! Soccer players without arms... ick.














Hoshino and Serina preparing food for the host students at Mr. Ray's house.













Aya and Kae preparing cabbage for okonomiyaki.













Eric, Ryan, Wes, David, Lauren, Katharine and Amber all try the Japanese food that the exchange students made for them. Better than Sushi House?





























Yoshiya and Randy - always at odds? Was the bet to let Yoshiya drive?











Yuki dresses up like an Iowa Pig. I can't think of anything much more adorable.

Assembly Photos!!

I have not been able to get our video camera to work and so I am resorting to photos. I won't quit trying but I thought it was time to move on...

The exchange students from Koyo usually have a full week at Washington before they stand up in front of the entire school and introduce themselves. This year, they did it with just 3 days!



The students practiced for 4 hours during the day and for 2 hours after school!! That is dedication!











They also practiced at Mr. Ray's house on Sunday after the bowling party















All of the students lined up to introduce themselves! They are wearing their school uniforms.









Yoshiya Sensei presents Dr. Plagman with the give from Koyo High School to Washington High School.












The girls all look like princesses as they get in formation for their dance.












Don't they look great? It was a really fun dance!













Everybody dance!












I think the crowd's favorite part was the candy!


I'm adding more photos tonight!!
The students leave us on Thursday and we are trying to cram in as much fun as possible... stay tuned!

What happened to Monday?

Since I only have video of Monday and I still need to work with it to put it online, I'm going to start with today, Tuesday. It was an exciting day for the Koyo students! They started first with visiting the Washington High School Student Senate. We enjoyed bagels, juice and great conversation. Okinawan students taught the student body representatives about a new culture and helped further international understanding. Here are some photos:





Yoshiya Sensei shows Lemi, a native of Ethiopia, some magical gadget from Japan.
















Sakiko LOVES bagels!!













A truly international experience. Piluka, an exchange student from Spain, is part of the Student Senate welcome party.











Kae leads a conversation about her native island. She goes to school so far away from home!











Mizuki helps Sarah and others understand more about the Japanese school system.










Another very exciting event of the day was ice skating at the CR Skating Arena. Thanks to Jan Keene for the photos and a ton of thanks to both Jan and Dawn Stephens for driving today.




Ice Skating!! I think they are like me... afraid to leave the security of the wall!












Working together, you can stay up longer.










We're getting better!











Yeah!!!












I think we may see this maneuver at the next Olympic pair skating competition!










Watch out world! Here we come!










Well, maybe. I think you're supposed to be upright to skate.


Tonight's meal cooked by the Japanese students for the host students is likely to be very eventful. Feel free to share photos with me, I will put them up here!

Bowling Party

Today we went bowling at Westdale Bowling Center. It was a great time for families and new friends to get to know each other better.




Aya, Madeline and Lucy get in some sister bonding.

あやとモドリンとルシー、三人姉妹。









Mizuki, Sarah-Elizabeth and David finally pose for the family photo.


みずきとサラとデビドです。ニーン！









The Davenports are figuring out their bowling order with Kae.


ダベンポートの家族はボーリングの順番を決めているところ。かえはもう、はめている！








Ben and Akino seem to be fast friends.

ベンとあきのはもう友達になってな！










Maddy and Hoshino hamming it up for the camera. (^_^)

マディとほしの　ー　ニーン











Like an Olympic bowler, Yoshiya Sensei has gold in his sights. He really wants to know if anyone beat his score of 172. Shall we declare him the champ for the day?

よしや先生はオリンピックのチャンピオンみたいに注進している。いいフョームだな！









Someone must have hit a perfect gutter ball for these kinds of smiles!!













Yoshiya and Andy show the way Iowans wear their glasses. We're way cooler than most Americans!

よしや先生とアンディはアイオワのメガネのかけ方を見せてあげる。アイオワの人は他のアメリカ人よりかっこいいよ！






This Hi-5 is NOT posed!!

Lauren and Sakiko celebrate a near strike!

Day 2 at Washington High School ワシントン高校の二日目

Well, I asked for anecdotes and I sure got some fun ones!!!

Here is the best:

The picture to the left has a former student, Maggie John who went to Japan on the trip in 2003. It is posted on the Washington High School Japanese Facebook group. Elizabeth was showing her student, Yuki, the website and wouldn't you know it, she said whe is in the photo!! Directly across from Maggie you can see a student from Gushikami Elementary school. She has short hair and you can see her head and her white shirt. That is Yuki!!

Elizabeth also shared a moment at sushi house when she pointed at the chopsticks and said "oshiri," meaning to say the Japanese word for chopsticks, "ohashi." Imagine how red her face got when after Yuki looked at her puzzled, she realized she had said the word for rear end!

I'm also fond of hearing about Andy Mitchell getting a huge pair of pruning shears to cut a little ole' lock off of a suitcase. I imagine Sakiko thought something scary was going to happen!

This is such a fun time and I hope that all families are starting to settle in and having fun with each other.

I'd like to share with you a few photos and a video from Friday at school. Every day we have a student or 2 go on the announcements to teach the school a new word. Here is a video of yesterdays announcements:





Here, 4th year students Ian and Suhaib give a tour of Washington High School to our new exchange students.












Have you ever...? Another one of Sensei's dorky games with cards!! Lauren and will show Sakiko how to play.











Japanese 2 students type up letters to "host families" and the exchange students type up e-mails to the Japanese 2 students. Lucas and Scott look on as Kazuna and Mino type.










Can they pull it off?!?! Here not even 24 hours and the students are practicing their performance for our assembly on Monday. They sure are brave!








See everyone at the bowling party tomorrow!!