Shuri Castle and International Street

I had last Monday off in observance of Columbus day, weird to celebrate Columbus day in Japan! My students had no idea who Columbus was, so I gave a brief explanation, hoping they would remember why they were getting the day off of school. Rachel and I took advantage of our free day by heading down south to Naha, the capital of Okinawa.

Our first stop was Shuri Castle. According to my travel book, Shuri Castle is the #1 must see historical spot on the island. We followed the directions from my travel book and forgot our map at home. Luckily, we had an easy time finding the castle.

A little history, Shuri castle was the palace of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, it was almost completely destroyed. In 1992, it was reconstructed on the original site. Shuri flourished as the capital, and continued to do so during the second Sho dynasty. For 450 years from the beginning of the 15th century, it was the royal court and administrative center of the Ryūkyūan Kingdom. It was the focal point of foreign trade, as well as the political, economical and cultural heart of the Ryūkyū Kingdom.

Rachel and I at the entrance of Shuri Castle

Pathway along the perimeter of the castle

Stairway leading up to the castle grounds

View of Naha from the top of the castle

One last picture before entering the castle (which is still being reconstructed).

Authentic Japanese performance by geisha's.

We had to walk barefoot inside the castle. We were given plastic bags to put our shoes in.

A Tatami mat, as shown here, is traditional Japanese flooring. Tatami mats have a uniform size and shape. Houses and restaurants have tatami rooms in which you eat on the floor. A room with 6 tatami mats would be called a "6 tatami room."

Exiting the castle. The castle was smaller than expected, we were only there an hour. It was a great piece of history to learn about.

After Shuri castle, we attempted to go to International Street, a famous street in downtown Naha that has a variety of shops and restaurants. A worker at Shuri castle was nice enough to give us a map and directions to International Street. We ended up at grocery store where a worker tried to give us directions but didn't speak English. The worker ran to a small restaurant in the same parking lot and got a chef in the restaurant who spoke English, to give us directions. We were happily surprised at the kindness of the workers and laughed about how people in L.A. would not go out of their way like this to help others. The chef told us we could leave our car in the parking lot and walk to International street which was about 10 minutes away. So, we did just that. We were surprised to see that International Street looked VERY similar to downtown L.A., minus the bums. The shops actually sell a lot of items that I've seen in the stores in L.A., now I know where they came from!

International Street

My tour book said that one of the best places to eat at on the island is this Sam's restaurant. So, we stopped to eat here and were VERY impressed by the fresh, delicious seafood and steak!

Our chef, cooked our food on the grill in front of us and even enjoyed posing for the camera =)

I ordered scallops and shrimp, Rachel had a steak. Our meal included veggies and pineapple bread and butter! It was different but delicious!

We ordered speciality drinks so we could get the souvenir cup!

After eating we browsed a little more before heading home. Neither of us bought anything, it was fun to look at but nothing worth buying.

We stopped at A&W on the way home and had root beer floats. I had a root beer float at A&W on base and it was normal....the ones off base are not normal. They put cubes of ice in the float, it doesn't sound like a big deal but it just ruins it!

We didn't end up going to the salsa club last weekend because Rachel was sick. She started getting a bad cold and stayed home all week to rest. She tried buying cough drops at the store but couldn't read the labels because they were all in Japanese. She ended up buying candy that looked like cough drops and used those ever time she coughed! Luckily, she is better now, even without taking real cough drops! =)

I finally got a few mattress for my bed here! Jessica's friend was a nanny for a military family here and the family has been really nice to us. They told me they had an extra mattress that is a brand new, American mattress. I took them up on the offer, borrowed the school van and picked up the mattress. I took off my mattress pad because I realized that was also hurting my back. I am sleeping much better now and my back is no longer hurting, thank goodness!

More postings and updates to come within the next few days. I'm so glad I'm able to use Rachel's computer until my new one arrives in the mail!

Love to you all!!!

Kristen

Laptop is Down!

Just a short update: My laptop screen went black and I think it's down for good! It made it two months for me here! The screen started flickering off and on and stayed off, so much that I can faintly see the screen. It first happened the day Rachel arrived but it worked fine the next day. Well, it happened again yesterday and it still isn't working. Luckily, I am able to use Rachel's laptop! I've been doing a lot of fun things and I'm anxious to post on here but it might have to wait a few more days.

Paul John is getting me a new laptop at home and will mail it to me here...hopefully it gets shipped to me this coming week. It was time for a new laptop anyway, plus not having access to one at all times is helping me get out and do more things. Last Monday, Rachel and I went down south to Naha, the capital of Okinawa. We went to Shuri Castle and International street. Today we went up north to Nago and took a tour of Orion Brewery and Pineapple Park. Tomorrow we will be shopping on base and going to church. Lots of pictures and fun stories to come =)

XOXO

Kristen

I'm Official....

I received my alien card, I am now a Japanese alien! I can use my alien card in lieu of my passport so I don't have to carry both with me at all times.
Rachel arrived safely on Tuesday evening. Here is our first picture in Japan together, at the Naha airport minutes after she arrived. We were a little excited to see each other!Lori's husband Daniel took me to the airport to get Rachel. We took the express way, so it was only a 30 minute ride. It was raining and super windy because the typhoon was getting close to us. I was worried Rachel's flight might get deterred but she landed right on time. By the way, the typhoon missed us and hit Tokyo instead. Maybe we'll get one soon =(
I was so happy to have someone from home here with me, I cried when I hugged her, then she started crying, then we both started laughing =)
Daniel gave Rachel a little tour on the drive home, which I'm sure she barley remembers now because of jet lag. We took her by our school, American Village and the area I live in. She said she didn't sleep at all on the plane, so she was exhausted. By the time we got home, it was 10:30 pm. We set up the air mattress, showered, talked and went to sleep. My room feels much more like a room now, I'm already sad thinking about how empty it will feel once she leaves.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday Rachel went to school with me. I introduced her to my students and they are all happy to have her in our classroom. Starting this week, I will have her working with small groups during math and reading time. She was able to sleep regularly each night and didn't experience much jet lag at all. It's been so nice to have someone from home on the other side of the world with me! We have been giving our abs a workout by laughing so hard that our stomachs are often sore from laughter.
Rachel in her new bed for the next month.
Before picking up Rachel on Tuesday evening, I had open house at school. It went smoothly and it seemed like a successful evening. The principal introduced all of the teachers, then we walked the parents of our students to our classroom. We had about 15 out of 23 parents attend, so it was a nice turnout. Sarah and I talked about our classroom rules, behavior management procedures, grading scale and explained our daily routine. Rocky was our translator, so we had to pause after every few sentences to allow him to translate for us. It was a new experience to speak in front of a room full of parents that had no idea what I was saying, until it was translated. At one point, I forgot I had a translator and spoke for about 2 minutes straight before remembering Rocky needed to translate. I informed the parents that our main focus is on language skills and that we really need their support by reading to their students each night. I talked to a few parents who have children that are struggling and gave them suggestions on things to work on. Open house only lasted an hour and the time flew by. All the parents are very friendly and supportive.
My students did very well at their first chapel last week. They were very enthusiastic and energetic while practicing in the classroom but got shy when performing in front of the other classes!
This is the video of my students performing their song during chapel.

Reciting their bible verse.

The meeting with my "difficult" students mom went well. The mom brought my students nanny with her because she said the nanny spends the most time with him. The nanny was doing most of the talking, in Japanese of course, so we had a translator. They said he did well in kindergarten and has not had any problems until this year. He does not listen to them at home and will not do anything they ask him to do. We informed them that he cannot continue at this rate because he is still not completing any work. We concluded that they will hire a tutor to teach him 3 days a week, after school. Sarah and I will make copies of all classwork we do and sent it home so the tutor can reteach him the work we have done. The mom said she will buy our textbooks so she has a set at home for the tutor to use. I was happy that they were cooperative but sad that it takes all this for a 6 year old to do his work. I'm really starting to like this kid and hope that he comes around. This week, we will hit the 2 month mark of being in school, he needs to catch on soon!
We have Monday off for Columbus day (weird that I'm in Japan celebrating Columbus day when most people in the U.S. don't get it off!). Our plan for the weekend was to head to northern Okinawa to do some exploring. On Saturday morning, Rachel and I packed our bags in hopes of staying overnight at a resort in Nago. Nago is in northern Okinawa and although it's only an hour and a half from my apartment, everyone makes it seem like it's SO far away. We looked up a few resorts online but wanted to see them in person before deciding where to stay.

Here we are in the car ready for our adventure.

The drive was beautiful, right along the coast with the whole way up. It was cloudy and overcast with lots of fog over the ocean.
We drove for two hours without seeing any resorts we were willing to stay at. We decided to find something to eat and come up with a new game plan over lunch. We saw stopped at an Okinawa restaurant we saw off the side of the road. The sign said it was "Slow Cooked" Okinawan food, we weren't sure and still aren't sure what that means. We ordered curry rice and Okinawan veggie soba. We loved the soba and rice but neither of us liked the curry.
It was traditional Japanese style seating. We took our shoes off and sat on a mat, there was a spot for us to put our legs underneath the table.As we were taking pictures in front of the restaurant after eating, we realized the sign in front of the restaurant was for one of the hotels we had looked up! We looked around and saw the hotel, 20 yards away from where we had just ate! It was an old looking, motel 6 type of hotel. We were so glad we didn't reserve the hotel ahead of time! It says it's a "resort" but it was not on the beach and looked nothing like a resort, by American standards anyway.
We drove down the road a little more and stopped at an ice cream hut on the side of the road. The lady working there did not speak any English. She couldn't tell us what flavors she had so she motioned us to come around, into the hut. We walked around and she gave us the ice cream scooper and two spoons to do taste tests. Very unsanitary but a nice gesture. I chose strawberry and Rachel chose blackberry.
We continued heading in the direction of home when I saw a sign for a golf resort. I drove into the resort and saw a beautiful hotel...it was actually a resort! It was nothing like the other hotel. We parked, walked around and hung out on the beach for a few minutes. By this time it was already 3:30 and it was starting to sprinkle, so we decided that we would come back here to stay in a few weeks. It's a very expensive hotel but so worth it compared to the other hotels! While looking around, we saw that we can para sail, ride paddle boats and rent jet skis at the resort! Something to look forward to in the future.
Busena Resort in Nago.

We stopped at "Nago Pref. National Forrest" which was a small forrest area that had some hiking trails and camping areas. I'd like to go back to check out the hiking trails. We ate Korean BBQ and shared a banana split for dinner on the way home. It was a fun day of exploring. The aquarium, pineapple park and Orion beer factory are all in Nago, so I'm sure I'll be back there soon!
This past Wednesday and Thursday night, Rachel and I had salsa lessons from Rocky. He has been giving lessons to my student Monica's mom. Monica's mom owns her own school and has a dance studio at her school. Rachel is new to salsa but has been doing well. I love learning something new while getting a workout in. We went to the lesson on base Friday night and bought Rocky dinner for being so kind to us. Tonight, Rachel and I are going to a salsa club with Rocky and Monica's mom. Since tomorrow is a holiday, we are going to take advantage and stay out as late as we can.
Yesterday, my mom, Lindsay, Josh, Philip, Savannah and Grace were all at my mom's house so I was able to see and talk to them all on the webcam! It was the first time I was able to see them all at once. I was very excited to talk to them, yet sad to see them all and not be there. Time is flying by though and I'll be home for Christmas before I know it.
Looking forward to only working 4 days this week =) Hopefully I'll have some interesting things to post again in a few days.

XOXO
Kristen

P.S. Some people haven't noticed this but sometimes I post videos on here. You have to click on the videos to watch them, they will not play automatically.

Getting into a Routine

I always have to include my favorite sunset pictures of the week!

My current thrilling news: My friend Rachel arrives to Okinawa Tuesday evening (tomorrow!) and will be staying with me for a month! The day seemed SO far away when I first arrived here! I'm looking forward to spending time with someone from home and getting to show off this beautiful island. This weekend, I cleared out some closet space and washed a set of sheets and towels to prepare for her arrival. She will be sleeping on an air mattress that Lori lent me. My bed is continuing to hurt my back so I may end up on the air mattress with her!

Things have finally started to slow down this past week and I feel that I am getting into more of a regular routine. I'm at school from 7:45am-3:30pm, Monday-Friday, get home around 4pm, browse the internet for a few hours (skype, facebook, email, blog), make dinner/lunch, shower. maybe watch a dvd and it's already time for bed. Unfortunately, the one American channel we are supposed to get on our TV does not work, so I have to keep up with news by reading on the internet. We do get one American radio station which plays Fox News, broadcasted from Kadena Air Base. I'm very excited about the fact that they play Dr. Laura when I'm driving home from work everyday!
We go grocery shopping once every two weeks and rarely spend money during the week, except on gas which we get about once a week. I've been able to save enough money to pay for my Thanksgiving Tokyo trip already. This week, I was able to go to the beach twice after school to lay out and watch the sunset.

There is a mall with delicious pastries, across the street from the beach. I went to the mall, stocked up on pastries (the chocolate filled croissants are the best, and I'm not even a chocolate lover!) and bought some sushi. I have never done this before, but I ate the sushi on the beach! It was delicious and cheap which made it even better.

Kinda random: You can't really tell from the picture but the apples here are the size of grapefruits!
We have open house at school Tuesday (tomorrow) night from 7-8:15pm. We received no guidelines about what is required, so I will just display student work and handout our grading scale/specialty schedule. So far, all of the parents of my students are very friendly. I have had to talk to a few parents about student behavior issues (just minor things) and they have been very cooperative.

I have a meeting with the mom of my "difficult" student tomorrow. Today, I brought him to the side table to help him with his work and he just started crying. I told him he wasn't in trouble, I was just going to help him and he sat there for 45 minutes not doing a thing. He is failing everything but math. I found out that his mom is Russian and his dad is Japanese. His mom does not seem to understand any English and never looks at me, even in the direction of my face when I try to talk to her. A translator will be there for tomorrow meeting, thank goodness. Hope it goes well, I really want to help this child.
Things at school are going better. My students did significantly better on their second phonics test. I did grade it easier and really drilled them on the test material. I'm really focusing on their oral language skills by having them repeat and spell lists of words with me everyday. It's still challenging, but I'm realizing I can only teach one thing at a time. There is no way I can teach everything in the curriculum, especially with English Learners. A little stress has been relieved, realizing that it's okay if I don't get to EVERYTHING. It's better that my students thoroughly learn the basics before moving on. So far, I am still in my classroom and have not heard anything more about being moved to pre-k. At this point, I like where I'm at but it wouldn't be the end of the world if I got moved.

In math, I'm teaching my second graders about American money. I have a bulletin board set up with dollars and coins, their values and their names. We go over the bulletin board and sing a money song during calendar time after each morning. My second graders were asking a lot of questions about dollars, they wanted to know whose picture was on it, why his hair looked funny and what things on the dollar meant. I asked them if they've ever held American money and they all said no. Luckily, I still have dollars in my wallet, so I brought a few dollars out and passed them around.

It was an awesome teacher moment, seeing my students stare at the dollar bill in awe and pass it around with caution. One student even said "I'm too scared to hold it!"
Here they are holding a one dollar bill =)

A typhoon is supposed to be coming our way this week! The buildings here are made to withstand typhoons and most of the typhoons that hit Okinawa are very minor. I'm hoping one hits us so I can experience it =) The weather has been very humid still during the day but has cooled off significantly in the evenings. Today it was raining off and and all day. When I walked into my classroom this morning all the desks and papers were literally wet from the humidity. I had my sheets up drying on the clothesline yesterday and had to run outside to take them down when it started raining. Luckily they were dry enough to finish drying inside.

Car Update: I realized I never gave an update on our car that broke down a few weeks ago. We have Guppy back and it seems to be running fine. Apparently, a belt had broke causing the breakdown. They replaced the belt and now the car is running fine. I'm pretty much used to driving on the left side of the road now, every once in a while I'll drive on the wrong side of the road for a second before catching myself.

Here is the picture of us in front of Guppy, while we were waiting to get picked up after our car broke down. There of course was a vending machine within 20 yards, so we enjoyed juice and coffee while we laughed about this adventure:

I finally got a pedicure this past week, my first since being here! Pedicures are one of the things I keep up with regularly so I'm so happy I was able to get one. Japanese nail designs are very extravagant and detailed. Because of this, it costs $50 for a pedicure! The mom of one of my students owns a nail salon that only charges $35 for a pedicure so I went to her salon.

It was an adventure to get there, but after 2 hours, we finally found it! It was a cozy, clean shop with comfortable reclining chairs and a big screen TV, which they played American movies on. They gave us American magazines and served us iced tea and cookies. Excellent service!
My students aunt did my pedicure and told me that my student was sleeping in the car the whole time! When I was getting ready to leave, she had just woken up and came inside. I thought it was really weird....in the United States, parents would be get arrested for letting their kid sleep in the car for hours a time!
I caught up on my celebrity news in magazines while sipping tea and watching a movie. They worked on our feet for 2 full hours! It was so relaxing, it didn't feel that long at all. I chose a very simple nail design but I think next time I will brave a more detailed design. They took a picture of my toes after they were done and put it on their website. Since you do not tip here, the price of the pedicure was really not that much more than in the states. I will go back here every month. I enjoyed the American movies, magazines and tea as much as the pedicure!

Here is the picture of my finished toes from the salon's website:

Check out their website:
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/sweetnails2008
You will see how detailed their designs are and that my design really is a simple one!

I went to "Obligatos" a Mexican restaurant Friday night. It was okay, not as good as Mexican food in SoCal but the margarita helped make it a little better =) I was excited to find out that they sell large, homemade tortillas in the restaurant. I will be going back to buy packs of tortillas (check that off my list of things I miss!).
On Saturday night, we attempted to find a cafe that I looked up that serves gormet pancakes. We couldn't find the cafe and ended up at "Mike's Tex-Mex" which we heard was better than "Obligatos." So, we ate there and it was delicious! There is no tax on food here and since you don't tip, eating out isn't really expensive at all.

Saturday night, I went to the pajama party on the Marine base. We didn't get there until 10:30pm and the visitor pass we got said we could only stay on base until midnight. My friend asked about it and they told him that was the latest we could stay. I guess they had changed this rule before and he was not aware they just changed it back. Needless to say, we went to the party for an hour and it was quite entertaining people watching.

Here I am getting a dance lesson at the pajama party, as Jessica snapped pictures of me so she could get out of having to dance! =)

Jessica and I at the pajama party

I once again enjoyed mass last night. At church, I found out about a women's group that meets twice a month. They meet for a few hours on Monday nights for bible study and dessert. I hope to go sometime and hopefully meet more people that can sign me on base. At one point in mass, I was thinking about being so far away from home and imagining all the military people that are alone here. It made me realize how thankful I am for being taught about and exposed to religion. My dad never let us miss church, he made sure we knew going to mass was a priority and nothing came before that, I am so thankful for learning that lesson. I don't know what I would do here if I didn't have my faith, it's an amazing thing.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, in the morning we have class pictures, in the evening we have open house and I'm leaving straight from open house to pick up Rachel at 9pm!

Happy fall (I hear it's finally fall in SoCal =)

XOXO,

Kristen

Exploring Nature in Okinawa

Last Saturday, Rocky (Japanese teacher), Lori (kinder teacher), her two daughters, Izzy and Carolyn (Carolyn is in my class), Dennis (a 3rd grade student from our school who Lori was babysitting), Michael/Sara (the couple from Georgia), Jessica and I went to Taa-Taki waterfall. It's about an hour and a half drive up north from my apartment (I live in Chatan Town). It was a beautiful morning and I was excited to get some exercise in.

Here we are starting the hike

We trekked through the water most of the hike, it didn't get more than a few feet deep. Luckily, Lori lent me a pair of water shoes.

Perfect picture spot! You can barely see the water but it's there.

Izzy, Dennis and I leading the way

After an easy 20 minutes of hiking, we arrived to the waterfall...BEAUTIFUL!

I was the first to brave climbing under the waterfall....liberating!
Sitting under the falls. The water was cool but felt perfect!The area in front of the falls was deep enough to swim in.

Jessica, Dennis and I....he looks a little cold!Roommate pictureI wish I was wearing my swimsuit instead of my hiking gear!

I can't get enough of the sky here! View of the sky, from the waterfall area.We ate a picnic lunch, swam under the falls and laid out to dry off our clothes. It wasn't really a hike, hike, more like a nature walk. It was beautiful nonetheless and I can't wait to go back before the weather cools down.

After the falls, we quickly showered and headed to Camp Foster, where Lori signed us in to go bowling. I got a 103, woohoo. Sad that it was the highest score of the night. haha.
Jessica and I putting on our game faces.

Friday night, Rocky took us to a free, salsa dancing lesson, at camp Foster. I told him I liked salsa dancing and found out that he is a salsa instructor! One of the best on the island at that! I was a little nervous about the lesson, unsure of the style of salsa in Okinawa. Since the lesson was on base, it was mostly Americans with an American instructor. The style of salsa the instructor taught, is very similar to the style I learned in the states. The men rotated around the room so we got a chance to dance with a variety of people during the lesson. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a nice little workout and the people were all so friendly. I will definitely be going back, being there made it more evident that I have a lot of practice to do!

Sorry if you got your hopes up for the salsa video I promised in my last blog...I didn't like the video so I decided not to post it. I will post a video when/if my moves improve =)

Looking forward to October 1st tomorrow =)

XOXO

Kristen