Fukushima Mid-Year Conference

[frellnik]

Tuesday morning I got in a taxi at 6:35am.  I met up with a bunch of other Iwaki JETs at Kashima Sakana Centre. There we got on a charter bus that made a stop at the Iwaki Board of Education to pick up a the rest of the Iwaki JETs and then we headed off to Fukushima City.  We left the BOE at 7:40 and got to Fukushima city around 9:30am.  There were 240 JETs at this Conference, so it was quite large.  We signed in and got our lunch tickets and then headed into the large lecture hall to begin our day.  The day went by quickly enough, lunch was not the greatest, but it was ok. I had a Japanese style box lunch, but from what I saw, the American style lunch was still Japanese lol.  This is what my lunch looked liked:



The first day finished at 4pm with the FUJET meeting where I had to hand over a large sum of money for various activities (dinner that night and a 10,000 yen deposite for the Snow festival trip in Feburary).  Due to the large amount of money I spent, I will no longer be going to the Disney Land trip on the 27th :(

Next we headed out to our Hotel (after we figured out which hotel Iwaki JETs were going to be in, noboy seemed to know lol). Then a group of us headed out to Jupiter, a store located in the Fukushima station that has only imported goods.  I got TIM TAMS!!!  and a small Toblerone bar, 3 cans of Canada Dry, a small bag of mini Rocky Mountain Marshmallows, a jar of skippy crunchy Peanut Butter and a box of Van Houten Hot Cholocalte.  All of under 20 bucks! So happy!!!

Then about 90 of us met up in the hotel lobby (we stayed at the Sunroute Plaza Hotel, which is the same place I stayed last time I was in Fukushima City) and we boarded 2 Charter buses to go to the Asahi Beer Garden.  All you can eat and drink restaurant just outside of Fukushima City. I made a new friend with a really different name (Shasta) who is from Australia but whose father is American.  We sat next to each other on the bus and at the restaurant.  I also met a a nice guy names Nick from New Zealand, whom I had met once before.  We talked quite a bit through out the evening.  I got some pretty good pictures too. I'll post a few here but the rest will be on facebook.

Kanpai!!!                                                                                                       yum.....dinner!


Me and Shasta                                                                                                                       Me and Chelsea.


The rest of the pics will be on facebook.

None of us slept well that night because the hotel had the rooms way to hot.  My room temp was set at 25C and I couldn't turn it down.  So I had the window open for a while.  I remember when I got back to my room I had the impression that someone had been in my room while I was away. I didn't know why I thought that, but I did. Nothing was missing or anything.  

The next morning I left my window open while I went to breakfast because it was too warm and I would be in my room for a bit when I got back. Breakfast was good.  It was buffet style with both Japanese and American style foods.  When I got up to my room, my window was closed. So I guess I was right about someone having been in my room.  I checked all my things, but everything was there.  So, not impressed but whatever. Japanese customs are weird!

The second day went by quicly as well. We went straight into workshops until lunch and then after lunch we had a 90 minute lecture on intercultural Education in the classroom.  It was really good!  I'm going to end up using a lot of the stuff I learned in that lecture in my classes.  I'm planning lessons already for that!  Really useful!

 

The day ended at about 3:30 and we got our bus at 3:40pm and made it back to Iwaki by 6pm. Tomoko met me in front of LATOV and we went to a restaurant for Ramen.  I had a big bowl of ramen with a plate of gyoza and ice cream for dessert.  Then we went to a local SGI discussion meeting where I gave a short self-intro speech and everyone was amazed by my Japanese and asked me some questions and it was fun.  Then 2 of the girls at the meeting did some Hawaiian dances for us.  One of them was really good and the other was very mechanical...but it was fun to watch!  After the meeting one of the ladies gave me a bag of magazines that I had forgotten there the last time I was there.  Then she took the bag back from me and told me to wait a minute.  She came back a minute later and the bag was much heavier!  She gave me 3 apples!! These apples are HUGE!!! here look!
  biggest apple I have ever seen!!!  And so goood!!! lol

Then I got a ride home and crashed...hard!   Turned my heater on because my aparment was only 14C and I woke up in the middle of the night freezing.  And today it was off to school.  I woke up with a sore neck.  It's still sore. I hope it gets better soon.  

There, now I'm all caught up. I think. lol

Take care everyone!!! *hugs*

Comments

[defined.livejournal.com]

The fact that someone came into your room and closed the window is really creepy!

[trewestriandta.livejournal.com]

if hte hotel has the usualy staff, someone might have complained about the breeze from your room and had hte staff go in and close it. I had it happen in Italy and Greece, so I got into the habit of putting a note on the door saying I did not want any service in my room. Though when it happened to us, some of our stuff did go missing. I always kept my valubles well hidden or on me so I was fine but my friend Jen lost jewelry and cash

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

Damn. You should start putting a note on the door about staff staying out and you probably should complain to the manager next time it happens to you, even if it's a different hotel.

Your food. Damn, I'd lose weight if I came to Japan. Sorry Chica...

That apple. DAMN. Just.... DAMN.