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Konichiwa. Watashi wa Kyoshi no Elphie des. Sushi ski desu. Nihon jin ski desu. Jinja utsukushi. Yama, Sakura, Sakura me utsukushi. Arrigato gozaimasu. Hajimimashte.

Good day. My name is Owen Teacher. I like sushi. I like Japanese people. The shrine is beautiful. The mountain, the cherry blossoms and trees are all beautiful. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you.

Part of this was my introduction - and similar to that of the students- that I said at each school and to almost anyone I met. The rest is what I wish I could have said.

We haven't actually seen the cherry blossoms- they are curled up poised to burst the minute we say "he bana," to our goods friends here. The mountain is a white capped volcano called Mount Iruwaki . It stands apart from other mountains, a lone samurai, due west, seemingly at constant battle with approaching weather. Smithu Sensei and I wanted to ask if it was an active volcano, but our phrase book didn't have a phrase for it. We thought a phrase book for Japan should probably include "Is that an active volcano?" But no.
Piecing things together,we determined that it is a dead volcano.

One reason I haven't written yet is that I am too busy receiving gifts from my family-especially the obaisan who gives me something about every hour that we are together. Her name is Aiko and she hands me little cloth bunnies, or small stuffed turtles, or photos of her family. We have become fast friends.

Of course highlights for me have been experiences common to all of us- the wonderful family life and cultural experiences. But other highlights for me have been watching these brave and inquisitive children we have brought with us from America. I can speak for both Smithu Sensai and myself when I say that watching them completely embrace this experience has been one of the many humbling experiences I have had here. Let me give you a peek.

Yesterday, after much practice, Lucy nailed her introduction (like the one above) in front of about 100 Japanese junior high school students. Ryan has gracefully dealt with constant expressions of awe about his height from large audiences and individuals. We have mentioned this before in this blog, but Ryan has indeed suffered some physical discomfort more than the rest of us with aplomb and smiles.

Haley has spoken about her host family with such affection and has quietly soaked in all that we have done here. Abbie's artistic skills allowed her to fully appreciate the Kokeshi dolls and the Neputa kites we painted. Abbie also has daily expressed her deep appreciation for all that we are seeing here.

I think the photos of Alaric which Smithu Sensei may have posted will portray what we have seen in Alaric here. As Smithu Sensei said, " He seems to be focusing with every sinew in his body."

Molly spent the first days of the trip seeing Japan from a different angle, as a person cared for in a different country. Then she recovered and has wowed crowds with "The Cup Song" (real title?) and her general stage presence.

Speaking of that, Julia and Alexis did a really neat thing. They have been in charge of the hand jive that accompanies "The Cup Song." In the truest spirit of cultural exchange, they taught one of our guides- an extremely winsome fellow named Seikai Sensei- the hand jive. He then went home, so he reported in his limited English, and taught the jive to his four small children. During various down times, Seikai Sensai, who was dressed in his office black business suit and tie, would practice on the floor with the kids. That is only one example of the arrestingly lovable moments we have had here.

Mariah had her birthday in Japan, as did I. At the farewell party she and I were presented with a delicious birthday cake. Mariah took Japanese before the trip and definitely has a great grasp of the phrases we are saying. Her artistic talent was well appreciated by the translators when we painted Neputa kites and Kokeshi dolls.

Lastly, our man Gavin has won our hearts with his willingness to jump into the fray. For example , he was the first to try Nato ( we will have to get back to that), he started a basketball game at our final school, and sang well and loud in our performances.

He Bana! See you soon!

Elphie

Meditation

This was written a few days ago, on friday to be precise. sorry for the delay in posting.

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Today we went to a Buddhist temple and meditated with a monk. You had to have good posture and breathe deeply. If you did not have good posture the monk would get up and hit you with a wooden paddle. My posture was poor so I was the first one to get hit, which did not hurt at all. From then I made sure I had good posture especially when he was walking around looking at us to see if we had good posture or not. We meditated for 15 minutes twice. After that we went to a noodle factory and got to see how ramen is made. We got to see the levels of how it's made. As in how it's already thick but then it gets thinner and then it is cut and packaged. What we did not get to see in person we saw on a show that they made to tell us about different noodles and how they are made. Then we went to Hiraka East Middle school. We introduced ourselves and then had lunch. We got to learn how to play a shamisen. All we learned was the basic notes that you have to learn. We had a few minutes to relax after that, so we all went to the gym and Gavin, Alaric, Julia, and I started a game of basketball, it was pretty fun. Our opponents were changing, some would stop playing and some would start to play. After that we gathered up in the gym and did our performance and the students preformed for us and then they taught us the Japanese traditional dance. It was hard at first but the second time I got the hang of it. We all took a picture with all the students from that school and waved good bye.

In NYC

In JFK, waiting for flight to Boston. Tired but ok.

Friday photos

Today's activities included:
Meditation
Noodle factory
Shrine and foot onsen
Junior high visit

Don't want to leave

Here in Japan my experience has been amazing! I love my host family so much. Syu is 13 and he is really funny! I play wii with him and I showed him some card tricks. (Magic). Gen is 10! He plays soccer and I can't wait to pay soccer with him on Saturday.i also play with him on the wii and whenever he knows that he is going to lose he restarts the game. H is really cute as well.Kiki is 8 and she is the most aodrablest thing I have ever seen. She loves when I beat someone in a game on the wii!

Kako. O.M.G. She is something else. Kako hates is when we call her keiko so we do t all the time! She told me to call her brother gen stupid. I do it all the time! He comes up to me and says "I'm bery bery bery good. You are bery bery bery bad" (just so you know he says that he is good and I, Julia, is very bad (in case you didn't catch on).

While I have been here I have gone bowling, played ping pong (table tennis), and today with one of the other schools I have played basketball. I played basketball with Haley, Ryan, Alaric and Gavin. It was really fun!

T be honest, I don't want to leave. I love my family here a lot and I'm going to miss them so much. I hope that Syu gets to come to America next year when he's a 3rd year! I do not want to leave but I know I will have to.

I will bring back lots of high chew (candy) for all my friends! <3
- Julia

Sick, but well again.

I am ecstatic to be able to be writing this!! After two days of lying in a sickbed with the flu, I went back to my family and I have had a lot of fun. Even though my time was cut a little short, I am still having the best experience.

The first night I went back with my family, they went and bought me A LOT of candy. I have so much now! We also went in these really cool photo booths that made our skin flawless and our eyes big and bright. We could add more things like little hearts or bows to the pictures. My question is, why don't we have these things in America???

We went to dinner that night at a sushi place. Though not any old sushi place, one with a conveyer belt! There was no need for waitresses, you could simply punch in your order on this touchscreen menu every table had, and/OR you could just grab the food you wanted as you saw it going by on the conveyer belt. I tried a lot of different kinds, lots of fish and stuff. Thankfully, they understood how I would not like the sushi with nato (fermented soy beans!!).

The second night I went back with my family (last night) they took me on a long drive and I had no clue where we were going! We finally drove up to a large building. After a few minutes of walking, (when I realized that we were in a mall) we came to a place called Studio Alice. A quick look around told me this was a professional photo studio! I got to choose a kimono to wear (and all of its layers) and a Japanese hairstyle. Two women got to work on me, doing my hair and my makeup and putting on the kimono (a very long process!). My host sister, Mayu, also had this done to her. When we were finished, we went into a room with a pink backdrop and posed for a bunch of photos. After this they changed the backdrop to blue, and I we had individual photo shoots. It all felt very professional, and like I was a model! Finally, we took a photo of Mayu and me, her mom, and her dad. A great deal of time was spent picking out the photos while Mayu and I changed back into our street clothes. My host father is going to send me the photos, and I think I'm getting a photo book, too!

Dinner that night was at a ramen place. Here many different dishes were brought to me (most of which I did not know the contents of). Some were gross, but some were very good!

After a long day and evening, I was very tired. My bed was very comfortable that night and I slept like a baby.

As I am writing this, it is the evening of Friday, April 19. Only one more full day until we leave for Maine! I am sad to go, but I will be glad to get back to regular customs. See you all soon!
- Molly

Volleyball, Japan style

In Japan, I have gotten the opportunity to play volleyball with Ayaka's junior high team. The first time I arrived at their practice, everyone stopped what they were doing and bowed. During the drills, they would all call out Japanese chants, but of course I had no idea what they were! I got to try on their uniform and their coach even gave me a jersey to keep! It was so great to play with them and to meet some of the other classmates! Some large differences between American volleyball vs. Japan volleyball is the uniforms, chanting, and the traditions. These traditions include bowing after a match rather than shaking hands, and saying thanks to the coaches in unison. It was amazingly fun to play with them, and at the second practice they even asked me to sign their pencil boxes, books, and a photo of all of us! They were so intrigued by cursive!
Overall, Japan has been amazing! We have all bonded with are hosts, and all believe that this experience has been the best of our lives so far! Can't wait to continue what little is left of the journey!
- Alexis

Wedding crasher

My experience here in Japan so far has been really fun. I have done a lot of cool stuff with my host family including going to a Japanese wedding, which was a really cool experience. The part of the wedding that I saw s like the reception part of an American wedding. Wen I got there the table was just coppery covered in food. There was also another table with some sort of noodle and cake on it, but then there was a chocolate fountain with strawberries, marshmallow, and pineapple for dipping. I think everyone there was expecting me to come, because there was a name tag where I was supposed to sit. Whe bride was dressed in this extremely bright orange colored dress with white dots on it and her hair was curled and braided on the side of her head.

That was only one of the fun things I have done with my family. We also went to this gym and played basketball with Gavin and his host. Hey also brought me to this Game Center with just a bunch of arcade games and I played some games with Ryota, my host, and his 9 year old brother, Kodai. I have also gone to two restaurants that were really good. One of the restaurants my family went with Gavin's family which s really fun, because his little brothers are very funny. A the other restaurant it was with his grandfather. I had this burger with cheese in it and no bun, which was very differ but still very tasty.

This trip has been such a blast and I am very sad that it has almost come to an end.
- Alaric

Two schools, hundreds of photos, one day (and the cup song)

Hi there,

Two schools today. Elementary and middle. Two blogs written already so nothing more from me except to say two things:

1) the cup song is stuck on my head. If you don't know what that is, we'll teach you when we get back. It is a great song and I'm enthralled by it, but it is looping around and around and around....

2) note the photos of students cleaning - this afternoon I watched in awe as the middle schoolers of Hiraka Nishi junior high swept, vacuumed, dusted and mopped their school into a lustrous shine. A new idea for CRMS?

Aomori Thursday

Hi all,

Below are pictures of our day. More to come in a separate post as well.

One picture is an unremarkable image of a train made interesting by the fact that everyone on it was a student bound for high school. Kids get the train a lot here. My host "brother" and "sister" bike to the train station, take a train to the next town and then bike to school. No door to door bus for them! Yesterday they got back at 9:00pm from sports - they active people!

Anyway, for now the few other photos show our student reflecting on a busy day writing in journals. Some blogged (see below) while others just wrote in personal journals. There is a lot to think about while on this trip and we are glad our group is taking the cultural lessons to heart.

I added one final photo of some delicious sushi Owen sensei and I had tonight!

Haratsui momei!

Thursday activities

So today was the day we visited most of our schools. First, in the morning, we visited Kashiwagi primary school. The children there were so "kawaii", we walked into the gym to the sound of ecstatic second graders, excited to finally be meeting the American exchange students.

W did our performance, the we headed to a sixth grade classroom to teach the kids some English. We each got a group to ask us questions about our favorite things. Next we moved on to some calligraphy, which I completely ruined, but I wasn't be only one!

Area that we had lunch with the kids and then we sadly left them to go to Hiraka Nishi junior high. We each got a student chaperone to escort us throughout the school. First we went to the gym for a performance from the school, and we did our performance. The kids did a karate demonstration, which a amazing, and a unicycle routine. Th unicycling was absolutely amazing and beautiful. Are, we went down the the music room to play the koto, a large Japanese string instrument. Then we said goodbye to our chaperones and got on the bus back to our hosts.

- Mariah

Life in Japanese schools

This trip so far has been full of fun encounters with small Japanese children. In my hosts house there are two small boys. One of them is seven years old, and his name is Rin. The other boy is ten years old, and named Ryusei . They are both hilarious, and really talkative. They love to play the wii and board games, and they are both competitive. It is very funny when the little kids win, because the start running around with huge smiles on their faces.

So far we have traveled to three different Japanese schools filled with energetic students. The first was Kuzakawa middle-elementary school which had only nine students. We had a great time with them. The second school was called kashiwagi elementary school, which we went to in the morning. While there we practiced calligraphy with the kids, and tried mimicking there beautiful writing. After that we had lunch with the kids and exchanged name cards. A great moment was when the kids asked for our autographs. After this we went to the Hiraka-Nishi school where the kids were really nice and talented. We tried to play a Koto which is a Japanese instrument with the kids. In my case this was a bit challenging, compared to the Japanese kids whose hands were flying. All in all the kids have been extremely accepting, and nice and I have had a great time.
-Gavin

Kyoto sensei

I have become used to people gasping when they find out I am an assistant principal, or Kyoto as it is called in Japan. Being my age and being an assistant principal just don't go together, like fomented soybeans and an American palette. This is just one cultural difference we are experiencing in Japan. I have to keep remembering to take shoes off as I enter my bedroom made of tatami mats and when I enter the living room. I try to remember to say "itedakimas" before eating and "ittekimas" before leaving home.

In fact, Mrs. Owen and I are desperately trying to get to grips with some Japanese. It is hard, but we are having a blast trying. I fact, one of the best things about Aomori, the prefecture where Hirakawa is located, is using local dialect - tsuagru. Say "hebana" when you leave someone's house and you are bound to get a laugh. Say "haratsui" and look upwards in a pained "I just ate too many pancakes at Moody's" kind if way after you finish a meal, and you will be greeted with roars of laughter. This is the thing about traveling - you just don't know where the next laugh, the next moment of reflection, the next great view, the next new delicacy or the next moment of humbling kindness will come from. It is spontaneous, taxing and wonderful. Tavel is a joyous thing and truly, the people in Hirakawa are heartwarming in their welcome.

On a more logistical note, I am pleased to report that our group is now back at 12. Molly is back in the fold and we are glad to have her. Hopefully tomorrow she will be back with her host family.

I have posted some photos of the last few days. You will see some of Tokyo from our last morning - I took a 5:30am walk and enjoyed the city as it woke up and as golfers jumped on a bus out of town.

You'll see a few photos from the bullet train (or Shinkansen). W just missed cheery blossom season in Tokyo and are about two weeks too early in Aomori but we saw some from the train, which sped by at 200mph. I added a few of our trip to the neputa float, the tea ceremony and our visit to the mountain school (via a dam - I couldn't resist taking a dam tourist photo). At the mountain school, you can see us doing calligraphy, cooking and origami (a well as seeing their cool principal). We then painted kokechi dolls, which took a lot if skill.

Today, due to poor weather, we were given an impromptu tour of the fire dept. before visiting a neputa museum, hearing some great music, drumming a little and painting some samurai. We ended the day wi a trip to hirosaki castle before Owen sensei and I were given a tour of a local shrine and temple by my host mother.

Sorry the following photos are in random order and a few are duplicates. I'm not sure how to fix it on an iPad.

More updates tomorrow - hebana.