Saturday, January 30, 2010

First Impressions

The thing that I like the most about Japan so far would have to be the heated toilet seats! They are awesome. Next on the list would have to be the height advantage I have over here. I am tall, and people constantly tell me that. Japanese like to compliment people all day which is nice. My Japanese is really weak right now, but they are always saying, oh you are so good at speaking Japanese. Truth is I have a long way to go.

My apartment is way bigger than I expected, it also has a huge kitchen by Japanese standards. Japanese TV is a lot of fun to watch too, these people in Japan are crazy. I can see the mountains from my balcony too! I love being surrounded by nature and seeing mountains everyday is still a weird adjustment. I can't wait to go explore and climb MT. Daisen in the spring. I am going to go climb the local mountain today, it is beautiful and there used to be castle on top of it. So I'm off to do that!

Talk to everyone soon!
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First Week of Teaching

I just finished my first week of teaching and so far so good. I have some really smart students and I can't wait to teach them every week. They are all so funny and interesting. Some of the students are like robots, but these kids are all older and they don't sleep, they study.

The younger kids are all scared of me and run away when I approach them. It is pretty funny, they can't even look at me. Yesterday, a girl asked me if I was a monkey......She kept saying Saruka? Saruka? That means Monkey? Monkey? I said no I'm not a monkey and all the kids laughed for about ten minutes. It was great.

So overall teaching has been great, but it is only week one. We will see how it goes from here.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Japan!



So I am here and it feels weird to actually be living the life that I have been thinking about for so long. I began studying Japanese over ten years ago and never really have been able to use it on a regular basis. Now that I am doing that it feels great!

All of my experiences so far have been positive and I look forward to learning more about Tottori. Tottori is the city where I will be teaching English, it should be a good time. I will continue to post about my experiences as they arise.