'Our Photos on Yahoo!' - New Link to the Right

Checkout the new link on the right hand side under "LINKS". It is called "Our Photos on Yahoo!". We uploaded all of our pictures to 'Yahoo! Photos', which gives you the following options: 1) view them enlarged, 2) print them at home, or 3) submit them to Target for printing. When viewed on the site, the photos are much higher resolution than they are on our blog. If you decide there is a picture or two you'd like to have printed at Target, simply register as a Yahoo! Photos user and follow the instructions. It's just like having a disc of the pictures in your own hands (so dad, you don't need to save them to disc anymore). This is a great site, even if you decide to use it for your own pictures. With this service, you simply send pictures to the store via the web and then pick them up when they're done. So, enjoy!

Top of the World (or at least Sasebo)

Today was a beautiful sunny day. We had plans to walk to a video store (about a 30 min. walk) to rent some movies for 100 Yen and later take a bus to Mt. Yumihari to take some pictures overlooking the city. As we made our way to the video store Nick realized that we needed our alien registration card, which we had not picked up, to get a membership. We remembered that our alien cards became available for pick up yesterday. We turned around and headed towards the city office which is a 30 minute walk in the other direction.

The alien registration cards (pictured here) will replace our passport in being the only document we are required to carry. The alien card has our address, passport #, landing and expected departure date and other personal data in both Japanese and English. We were surprised to see that these cards are valid through 2010, given that we have our work visas renewed.

The next goal of the day was to walk to the Sasebo main bus station and board a bus to Mt. Yumihari. This is a 1500 ft mountain which sits north of downtown Sasebo. On our way to the bus station we stopped for lunch at Mos Burger. Nick is quickly becoming a connoisseur of Japanese burgers. Today he ordered what he thought was a double cheeseburger, but was surprised to find out that one of the “burgers” was actually a mild marinara sauce. Thinks like this happen when you order based on a picture. Anyway, it turned out to be the best tasting burger yet. I, on the other hand, ordered a Caesar salad to be safe. I originally wanted another salad that was pictured but I was not sure what the topping was (I believe it was chicken but who knows). After lunch we continued toward the bus station and picked up some Starbucks on the way. We were going to take a picture of Starbucks when Nick realized the battery in our camera was dead. With only a half hour ‘til the bus left we had to change our plans. We opted to go home and recharge the battery and take a taxi to Mt. Yumihari.

The taxi was our first experience riding on the left side of the road, and we were glad to have taken a small car due to the hairpin turns on the mountain. 15 minutes later we were at the viewpoint and the taxi driver offered to return in 90 minutes to take us home. This, we thought, was very nice considering how out of the way our stop was. Many of the pictures speak for themselves so for the remainder of the post we will simply show you pictures with captions.

Mt. Yumihari viewpoint pavilion

Here is a panoramic view of Sasebo Bay (the two photos overlap a bit).

The two-tone, orange and gray, building in the center of this picture is our apartment building.

These are the few US Navy ships that are currently on the Bay.

These two pictures show a trail and a series of steps found around the viewpoint.

Steph sought shelter from the high winds as Nick went for a final night shot of downtown Sasebo.

Monday Stroll and a Hamburger Roll

On Monday morning we headed out for a walk around a different part of town since we didn’t have to start work until 5pm. We originally set out to walk around the bay to see if we could spot some Navy ships but after we took a wrong turn we ended up walking on the other side of the Navy base instead. On our way to the base I saw my favorite car again so this time I took a picture of it. It is called a Nissan March, this is the one that I described as a larger VW Bug.




We followed the main state road until we reached the entrance of the US Navy base. We are still a little surprised that American civilians are not allowed to visit the base. We wish they would just let us in to the supermarket and the restaurants even if just for one hour.

Across the street from the base entrance stands a Heart shaped clock. The clock stands as an “expression of a desire for [the] Avenue to become a passage with gentleness of a heart to heart contact”. It was clear to us that we were nearby the base when most people walking around were Americans (mostly white males).

From the main state road we made a right and continued down another street (seen above). This road curved back toward downtown, so we continued in this direction to return home. We had heard from a couple of students that somewhere along this road we’d be able to find traditional American food. Since we left home around lunchtime with only a couple of donuts in our stomachs, we were looking forward to some good ole’ American food. We spotted a little place across the street called “The Log Kit”, although looked more like a log cabin. Considering the menu, we figured that was the place the students had told us about. The menu outside “The Log Kit” showed pictures of burgers, hotdogs, fries (even chili cheese ones), tacos and burritos. The place was a cute little ‘wild west’ themed restaurant with all kinds of American paraphernalia. Can you see the cowboy hat in the picture?

Nick was craving a burger so he went for the “USA burger” and I ordered a “Cilantro Brasil burrito” (not basil but ‘Brasil’). What makes this a “true” American place is their portions. In Japan portions are small enough where you feel satisfied but not stuffed. This also applies to drinks as well. Refills are not customary and the cups are much smaller than we are used to. However this place had ‘normal’ size cups and even carried an XL cup. When we received our order, we smiled pretty big and were shocked to see the size of our food. Nick’s burger would be HUGE even by American standards (you'll see below that it's almost as big as Nick's big head). I couldn’t help myself from taking a picture as he took a big bite off his gi-normous burger. Nick compared it to a Whopper because it had lots of ketchup, mayo and mustard…..which made it super messy. My burrito was delicious although it didn’t taste very Mexican it was still pretty good.



After stuffing ourselves at lunch we decided to head back home to get ready for work. We basically made a big circle around the city and ended up at a familiar place. Do you remember the Albuquerque bridge (from the snow flurries’ day)? Now you can see it with clear blue skies behind it….a much better day to be walking outside.

It was getting close to the time for us to go to work so we continued home to get ready. I brought the camera to work and took a couple of random pictures to show you a little bit more of our office. Below is our big teacher’s room. This is where we go in between classes to fill out the students’ files and sometimes eat our lunch. We hear it is one of the biggest ones in Nova which is nice because we each get our own space. The window looks down at the kilometer long arcade where all the shops and restaurants are.



Here is Nick looking at a student’s file to decide which lesson to teach that day. The binders inside the file cabinet are the different “books” we use for the different levels. The manila folders are all the students’ files and above that is the message board where the daily schedule is posted. I took a picture of our Monday schedule (our short 5 lesson day) although I don’t know if you’ll be able to read it! Basically it shows you the name of the student (s) and what level they are. Based on that information you grab the appropriate book and look at their file to see which lessons they have not taken yet and choose one of those for that day. This process usually takes no more than 5 minutes and then you have 10 minutes to practice that particular lesson….or just talk to the other teachers.

After work we walked by the Mister Donut shop we visit quite frequently. Although we didn’t go buy donuts (because we already had a dozen at home) I took a picture to show you guys what it looked like. I’ve talked about it enough, so Mister Donut has earned a picture on the site.

All My Children

Now that we've survived kids training we have to teach kids as part of our daily schedule. As the newly trained woman, I have been appointed the "chibis" (small children). I was told by the branch manager today that she prefers for women to teach the chibiko and kinder classes. Also, she recommended that I simplify my name for the little ones, so now the chibis call me 'Stephie'. My first chibiko group lesson was yesterday. There were 2 boys (age 3) that knew each other well and this created a little problem for me because they were a little too comfortable with each other. Even though the parents sit in the class with the student, in this case, they didn't do much to control their behavior. The boys were easily distracted and were constantly in competition over who could attract the most attention. They fought over who could say the words or find the pictures faster throughout the lesson. Even though they were a little out of control it didn't make me hate teaching the class, which is good since I'll have the same kids for the next 3 months. I did see how Japanese parents reprimand their kids; they smack them in the heads! This seemed to get their attention, at least for a few seconds.

Today I was supposed to have my first group 'kinder' lesson but another teacher took over, since there was a visitor coming in. The manager didn't think it was appropriate for me to have a visitor in my first kinder lesson. Visitor demos are done when a parent comes in who is interested in signing their child up in a "Nova Kids" class and want to experience an in-class demo to see how their child reacts to it. Since I was terrified of teaching kinder in the first place, I was glad that they made a managerial decision to take me out. I did end up teaching a kinder class later on in the day but it was a one-on-one with a 5 year old girl named Yuzuki. She was so cute and smart! I was glad that my first lesson was a one-on-one because it made it a lot easier for me to follow the lesson plan without having to worry about the behavioral and timing issues that come up with group classes. Yuzuki had already taken this lesson before so she knew all the vocabulary words such as "jump, clap fast, hop slowly, walk slowly, run fast". So, when I showed her the flashcards she wouldn't even let me finish saying the word; she said it and quickly acted out the action. I think she enjoyed it as much as I did.

I (Nick) also had my first two kids classes this weekend. Incidentally, rather than teaching the younger kids, I was paired up with Juniors and Seniors (I'm sure I'll get a kinder class sooner or later). First I had the Juniors class. . . and it was BIG. . . seven kids with the most diverse personalities you can imagine! The class was made up of two boys and five girls. Following the basic stereotype, the boys were very loud and full of energy (pushing, pulling and shadowing my every word). The girls, however, were mostly quiet, polite and very studious. The challenge here is finishing an entire lesson while successfully keeping everyone interested and participating. In the end, the class had fun and I'm pretty sure they learned something. . . not bad for a first attempt. Now, my second class was much different. I was supposed to be teaching two senior-level students, but only one student attended class today. Her name was Miyuki, and she was a great student. Since this was a one-on-one class, I was able to tailor the entire lesson specifically to her. We did some listen and repeat, played a number of games, and even acted out some of the vocabulary (fishing, swimming, & watching TV). All in all, she was a lot of fun to teach.

Also, we have received our first care package from Mary. It was filled with spices (which are sort of expensive here), Ovaltine and Nutella for me, postcards from FL for us to show the students and some cheese powder to put on pasta to make macaroni and cheese since we cannot find it here. She also sent powdered skim milk because the milk here tastes so different and we can't get used to it; plus it made my stomach hurt. However, we were finally able to find soy milk in the supermarket so I'm set with my soy milk & Ovaltine ....all I need to do is convert Nick into a soy milk drinker so that he can get his calcium too. I told Nick that since the milk here tastes kind of funny, soy milk might actually taste good to him. Thanks mom!

Happy Valentine's Day

Who would have known that this is a highly celebrated holiday in Japan. Granted it's a little different but it's still celebrated. Surprisingly the tradition in Japan is only for women to give gifts to their male partners. Women are also expected to bring chocolates to their male co-workers. Since gifts are given only by women on this day, we found that some gifts were geared specifically toward men. Nick's favorite one was a hot pink box with a heart-shaped window displaying two cans of Sapporo lager. Don't worry ladies, on March 14th it's the man's turn to return the favor. Fortunately for us we were out of our branch today and I was not expected to bring chocolate for everyone.

*** Interesting side note about Valentine's Day: When we were discussing Valentine's traditions, Martina, who lived in Korea, explained the tradition that she experienced while living there. In Korea if you didn't have a special someone on either Feb. 14th or March 14th then you celebrate April 14th as 'Black Day'. Basically, on April 14th, those who are still single wear black clothing, drink black coffee and eat some sort of dark food. This signifies to everyone else that you are still single. The tradition helps to "single out" the singles therefore making it easier to meet others in the same situation.

Tonight, while being lazy around the apartment (typical us), we received a call from Heather that she and Martina were having a few drinks at Playmate’s. Having spent a majority of the day grocery shopping and cleaning, this sounded like a pretty good idea. So, we bundled up and headed out on a short walk across downtown to the bar. When we walked in we were quickly greeted by the Japanese bartenders, one of which even recalled my name from last time (Tomoko). Since we had many single beers last time, we opted for a pitcher of the house beer (Suntory Magnum Dry) this time. When asking for a house draft beer, you simply say ‘Nama biru’. A single draft beer costs 550 yen ($5), and a pitcher costs 2100 yen ($18). The pitcher, containing about 6 beers, was a far better deal.

3 'Material Girls' (from left: Martina, Heather & Steph)

Needless to say, after a few beers the microphones came out once again. We lit it up with a little “With or Without You”, “We Are the World” and the Foo Fighter’s “All My Life”. We’re starting to realize that some songs are great for karaoke and some are not. A good karaoke song needs to have 1) a good pace, 2) few lulls, and 3) recognizable lyrics. So, for the second time in a week we closed Playmates down (3am). Luckily, we had a half dozen donuts from Mister Donut waiting for us back home. After a quick snack and a chat online with Ashleigh we laid down for the night.

Our walk home at 3am

Our Welcome Party

The day has come…we finally have internet at home. We also have cable TV, which might not sound like big news but for us it’s better than Christmas day. We are now able to instant message friends and family which means that we will be able to communicate more frequently and in more detail. Postings should get better, more frequent and most importantly for us, it will not cost us a fortune every week.

On Sunday we had our welcome dinner with the Japanese staff and fellow teachers. We went to an Indian restaurant called Hishbu (pictured above). It was great to have the Japanese staff there with us because they ordered all the food for us. We tried some new things but as Martina said: “It all tastes like curry”. We tried some sizzling curry chicken (Fajita style) and our main meal was this huge triangular piece of bread called nan (see picture below for actual size).

What makes this bread different is that it has no yeast therefore making it a flat bread and we ate it with all kinds of curry dipping sauces. This restaurant was a little westernized in the sense that we didn’t have to take off our shoes to sit on the floor and they had no chopsticks; everyone used a fork.

After dinner we headed to a nearby Navy bar called Playmate. The original plan was to go to this bar for one drink and then head to JJ Club for some karaoke. However one drink turned into a few and then Trevor and Brendan started karaoking at the bar so we decided to just stay there even though the song selection was not as extensive as JJ’s. The bar walls were covered in US dollar bills with messages from Navy men and women. We took up almost the entire bar as you can see in the picture (from left to right: Martina, Trevor, Kirk, Brendan, Junko, Motomi, Miki, Heather and myself).

The bartenders were friendly and spoke a great deal of English (Nick is pictured below with Tomoko, one of the bartenders). Their current favorite music to play at the bar appeared to be Jack Johnson while people were not karaoking. As the night progressed, Nick and I did a little more karaoke before hitting up the billiard tables.

We were surprised to see an American in the bar that was able to sing Japanese songs very well. He was nice enough to buy us a round of drinks and we soon sparked a conversation about the story of our lives and what had brought each of us to Japan. His name was Matt and he had moved to Japan 9 years ago while active in the Marines. Just a few weeks ago he completed his military service and now works as a contractor for a private company on the Navy base here in Sasebo. He and Nick had a long conversation and eventually exchanged numbers with tentative plans for us all to meet up next weekend. He even offered to get us onto the base if we ever want to visit an American grocery store or satisfy our cravings for Taco Bell.

A Typical Week at Work

Each week Stephanie and I are scheduled for a total of 34 lessons over a 5 day period. To complete this schedule, each week we work 3 full days (8 lessons each) and 2 partial days (5 lessons each). These lessons vary depending on who our students are each time.

The students all fall into the following groups:

1) Diplomat (adults; ages 13 and up), and
2) Kids (which are broken down into 4 further categories)
a. Seniors – Ages 10 - 12
b. Juniors – Ages 7 - 9
c. Kinder – Ages 4 - 6
d. Chibiko – Ages 2 & 3

So far I (Nick) have only been teaching the adults in ‘Diplomat’. However, Stephanie just went through training for ‘Chibiko’ on Saturday, and we both went through the training for ‘Kinder’, ‘Juniors’ and ‘Seniors’ last Tuesday. Soon, when we begin teaching kids classes, we will have a lot more variety in the lessons we teach each week. As Steph mentioned in a previous post, we also have a language lab called ‘Voice’ for adult students.

Our hours at the branch vary by day. In fact, some days we work at each of two different branches. In Sasebo there is one main branch located downtown (pictured above) where we spend most of our days. However, once a week we each help out at a satellite branch on the outskirts of town. So, in posts we will refer to our main branch as Sasebo (pronounced ‘sah-sey-bo’ with even emphasis on each syllable) and refer to our satellite branch as Daito (pronounced ‘die-toe’). Daito is not as busy as Sasebo, which is why we only teach there once a week. It’s a quick commute; a 5 minute walk to the train station and a 9 minute train ride.

In regards to class size, Diplomat classes each have 1 teacher and anywhere from 1 to 4 students. This creates even more variety for our classes, because sometimes we’re teaching one-on-one, and other times we have the opportunity to pair students up for learning activities. The different levels of children’s classes can also have any number of students, but most often there are between 3 and 8 students. The kids classes are taught in a much more informal environment, especially in Chibiko. Steph could tell you more since she’s already been trained for Chibiko, but I do know that, with these 2 & 3 year old students, a parent sits in with each student. I won’t say too much more about any of the kids classes until we have more experience teaching them.

Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have about our work, or you can click on the ‘Teach in Japan’ link to the right.

Cityscapes & Shinto Shrines

Now that we are able to post pictures on the site we decided to go back to the basics, What does the city we live in look like? A couple of days ago on our day off we decided to walk around town and take pictures of the city.

This first picture shows the street that we live on. The tall dark yellow/orange building that pops out on the left side is OUR building. You cant see our apartment balcony because they face the other side and we only live on the 4th floor. If you look closely in the middle of the street there`s an area with benches and trees, this is the park. Yes that`s right, you don`t need green grass to call it a park around here. The white flag on the bottom right corner is from a restaurant. In Japan, when a restaurant is open they put these flags out by the front door.

On this second picture it shows the main road here in Sasebo, Route 35. Did you notice they drive on the left side of the road? The NOVA sign is just an advertisement billboard, that`s not where the office is located at. This picture doesn`t really show any cool different looking cars but we have seen some "cute" cars. They have `American` size sedans but they also have the tiny cars that look like you could use a remote control for. I (Steph) found a car model that I loved, it`s a Nissan that looks like a VW Bug but with 4 doors and much more room, it`s the perfect size.

We`ve noticed a lot of Disney characters around Sasebo and all of Japan. This liquor store however is the most interesting depiction of Disney characters. Nick calls this picture the "Seven Drunken Dwarfs".

We took a picture of the closest church to our apartment. This is a Catholic church which we were surprised to see since Japan is predominantly Shinto and Buddhist. Interestingly this church was built in the 1920`s before large number of Americans visited the area. This area has a history of Christianity that dates back 500 years, although for 200 of those years Christianity was banned and only practiced in private. (So mom please tell Abuela that we will be attending mass and light a candle for her soon). We found out from the Head Teacher at our branch that they have a 6am mass everyday, which we wont attend b/c of the time.　　They have one at 5pm on the weekends which we`re more likely to attend.

While walking around town we randomly came across a `Torii Gate`, the entrance to a Shinto Shrine. We then noticed that they had a large detailed map that showed walking trails to a number of different buildings.

Some of these buildings around the shrine are dedicated to specific gods. The Shinto religion is polytheistic (they believe in many gods such as fertility, sun, wind, etc.). We proceeded up the stairs for the next few pictures.

In this picture you can see that people have left offerings for a couple of different gods.

Some people also choose to tie small pieces of white paper (with a written wish/prayer) to tree limbs. In this picture Nick is standing by one of these trees, which appeared to be dedicated to people wishing for World Peace. The white pole to the left of the tree has "May Peace Prevail on Earth" written in Japanese and English.

Lastly, Nick took this picture of me ascending down the stairs and back toward the entrance of the shrine. This gives you another interesting view of the structures found in and around the shrine grounds.

Snow Flurries = Unhappy Steph

Today was our first day off from work after being 'official' for one week. We had a busy day today because we had to take care of business matters such as applying for Alien Registration cards and opening a bank accounts. Once we receive our alien registration cards (in two weeks) we will be able to just leave our passports at home. The Card then becomes our main photo ID. When thinking of taking care of business matters in Japan I cringe. What normally would take 30 minutes in the US takes us 2 hours here because of the language barrier. This was almost the case this morning when we stopped in a photo shop to take 2 passport photos needed for the registration card. In our orientation packet it said that we would be able to do this at the train station in a photo booth but since we have a photo shop closer to our apt we decided to stop there. We had a hard time communicating even though we knew how to say "Passport Photos" in Japanese. However, the smart sales clerk pulled up his laptop and used a "dictionary.com" type of website to translate from Japanese to English his questions and instructions alleviating our frustration.
When we opened the door to leave our apartment this morning we were surprised to see SNOW (as pictured above in a local park). Well not really, they were only snow flurries but it was still a big deal. We looked like stupid tourists taking pictures against a dark background hoping that the tiny flakes would be visible in the picture. Nick was able to get a picture of my hair with the snow flakes on it. I had heard that when it snows it's not usually really cold. This could be true for the most part but the part that's killing us is the brutal wind that's accompanying the snow flurries. We guessed that today's temperature must be in the 30's but when the violent winds come it might as well be below 0 for me.....it's almost unbearable. One thing that has surprised me especially today is the attire that school girls and even some women wear on days like this. For school girls it is not an option, no matter how cold it is they have to wear their school uniform that consists of a SKIRT, collared shirt, vest and a jacket. School girls are not allowed to wear pants even if it's snowing outside. However some women are still wearing their mini skirts with their cowboy boots even with today's 30 degree weather!
The walk to the Sasebo City Hall building where we had to go register was about a 20 minute walk which isn't so bad but with today's wind it was a little uncomfortable. On our way back the wind had really picked up as we were trying to make our way to the USO.

The USO is a place that I believe it's ran by the US Navy. It looks like a big living room with a TV and books with a snack bar and free internet access (well a donation for the troops gets you "free" access). As we walked through the blazing winds we made it to the USO only to find out that they were closed for another hour. As I quietly cursed under my breath we made our way back to the arcade and seeked refuge in a warm and cozy STARBUCKS with a hot cup of cocoa for me and a Mocha for Nick.
From there we decided to hit the bank before they closed in less than an hour to open up our bank account. This was an easy transaction thanks to the English speaking staff! After about 30 minutes we walked out with our new savings account. In Japan they do not have checking accounts like we do back in the States....they do not use personal checks. It is very much a CASH only culture. The students that we have talked to about this all have stated their dislike for credit cards due to the high interest charges. We find this so unusual just because neither of us are used to carrying cash in our wallets. Also, the ATM's here are only open until about 7pm whereas we are used to 24 hour access to our accounts.

Alright, now for some random (useless) facts from Nick:

* Joe, you will be excited to know that I had a student the other day who often listens to rap but is also familiar with Reggaeton. When I asked him who sings Reggaeton, he quickly replied 'Daddy Yankee'. (Viva Puerto Rico!!!!!)

* Dan, I found my first Death Cab For Cutie CD (Transatlanticism) in Sasebo.

* Coca-Cola makes popular cold coffee drinks called Georgia Coffee. (in vending machines).

* We ate at 'Broadway Pizza', owned by a Japanese couple that spoke excellent English. A quick note: a large pizza costs the equivalent of USD$20-35.

* All Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants have statues of Colonel Sanders at the entrance. He stands about 6 feet tall and is adorned with real glasses. There's even a baseball team in Osaka that is popular for the 'curse of the Colonel'. Basically, the team had gone 20 years without a championship. . . incidentally the dry spell began the same year that someone dumped one of the statues of Colonel Sanders into the local river. So, the 20-year dryspell began. Each year, loyal fans began to decorate the 'Colonels' in town with baseball caps and other stuff with the hopes of providing good luck to the team. Finally, a couple of years ago the 'curse of the Colonel' was snapped and fanatic baseball fans plunged themselves into the same river that the Colonel statue had been dumped 20 years prior. Long Live Colonel Sanders!!!

* Not suprisingly, food portions are smaller in Japan. The first couple of days Steph and I thought we were never going to be full. However, one week later, we are now able to be satisfied with these new, smaller size portions.

* Fans of the movie 'Lost in Translation' will be happy to know that Suntory is everywhere. They make whisky, beer, water, juice, and soda. There is a large Suntory Whisky billboard around the corner from our apartment. So, "For Relaxing Times, Make It Suntory Time"

The New Teachers in Town

Here we are, back in Sasebo. It`s funny how a place can become your `home away from home` so quickly. After only a few days we were truly happy to be back in our apartment, and sleeping in our own futons. Eating out was getting a bit expensive, so cooking at home will become a frequent thing for us. Never before have we been forced to choose all foods based on the picture on the package. Really, I mean in Titusville or Orlando we can read `A B C` but here most everything is in one of three Japanese scripts. So, here`s my homework assignment for everyone: Next time you to the grocery store, focus only on the pictures and see how easy/hard it is to decide if something looks edible or not. You may be able to see a frozen dinner of vegetables and meat in a cream sauce. However, without knowing the language you`re left wondering what that white cream sauce is even made of. Let`s just say we`ve liked about 1 out of every 4 things we`ve bought at the grocery store.

Alright, enough about food. Let`s talk about what has made the first week of our job so enjoyable. . . our students! They are amazing. . . so studious, so dedicated, and so much fun! The classes are taught 100% in English (obviously), so much of the time is spent going over new vocabulary, practicing pronounciation, and creating much more typical conversations than they are used to. You see, most of our students have a good vocab and grammar foundation from school (English is a required subject in Japanese public schools). What they haven`t been taught, however, is how to truly speak the language. That`s where we come in. For now our students fall between the ages of 13 - 70. However, next week we will begin training for teaching `KIDS` classes, where the age range is 2-12. In addition to practicing speech, many students enjoy simply learning about foreign cultures. There has been a good amount of interest in both the U.S. and Florida, so we`ve had fun teaching them about things familiar to me.

The other night we went out to a local Japanese restaurant here in Sasebo with some of the other teachers. It was a fairly small restaurant with low tables, tatami mats and cushions to sit on, and a friendly serving staff. We weren`t hungry, but the other people in our party ordered a number of different types of `yakatori` (kabob). There was chicken, pork, beef, squid, green onions, and tofu. We just ordered a couple of bottles of beer (Kirin and Asahi). They were approx 24 oz bottles and cost ￥500 ($5). On another note, here`s some interesting info about beer in Japan. At the store, beer is often sold as individual cans and sometimes bottles. The price of an average can at the convenience store equates to between $1.50 and $2.00 each. Therefore, 6 packs are often $10 or more. Those interested in dark beers (Aaron) would be happy to know they enjoy dark beer in Japan. You can find dark and light beers domestically from companies like Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, and Suntory. The most common imports have been Budweiser (no american light beers, sorry Dad) Corona Extra, Heineken and some foofy drinks like Skyy, Zima and B&J. If you have any specific beer questions (Aaron, Dad, Paul, Ron, Joe, Dan, Tim, Sam), please ask away. You know I love beer. But enough of my babbling. I`m passing the torch to Steph now.

Well, so far Nick and I have had similar experiences with the students and with our co workers. However one thing that sets me apart from the other teachers is that I am from Puerto Rico and they have never had a teacher from there. Most teachers at the Sasebo branch are from Australia and Canada (The teachers at the Nagasaki branch that we went out with were British, Scotish and Australian). Therefore whenever I mention to the students that I`m from PR they are very curious and eager to learn about the little island in the Caribbean. Most of the students have never heard of Puerto Rico so I just point it out to them on the world map we have on the wall. In addition to the standard lessons we also do "VOICE" sessions. The VOICE room is where students can go in before or after the lessons to practice their English. Each teacher chooses a topic to discuss during the 40 minute session. So far Puerto Rico has come up at every session that I have done. The students can tell that I am American because they say I have an American accent but they think that I look a little different. So, most of them are not surprised when I tell them that I`m not only from continental US, but also PR. In my VOICE session today we were talking about Puerto Rico and then somehow we began talking about games children play (that`s what happens in VOICE you start at point A and end in XYZ). I was explaining to them a game that I used to play in PR when I was younger called "1,2,3...FISH" (this is a literal translation from the actual Spanish name: "1,2,3 Pescao`") and to my astonishment they played the same game here in Japan except they call it "Damarasunga Koronda" but it has the same rules. It was funny how I was explaining to them how everytime I mentioned this game to someone in the US they had never heard of it. And here on the other side of the world Japanese kids have been playing the same game. It truly is a small world!

On the Job Training (OJT) in Nagasaki

For the past three days we have been training in the city of Nagasaki. Nagasaki is about a 1 hr. 40 minute train ride south of Sasebo. Our main reason for coming down here was to do the main part of our training with Japanese students. To our surprise it happens to be Festival time in Nagasaki. They are celebrating the Chinese New Year with a Lantern Festival. To commemorate this event, they lined the streets with lanterns, it is really pretty. I wish we were able to download some pictures so that you all can see it, maybe in a week or so. The pictures would look very "Chinesey" so keep in mind it doesn`t always look like this.

Regarding our training, although the first day was a little scary, each day got progressively more comfortable. By the end of today we had each made some very good interactions with some of the students. We both were able to teach students in all skill levels. Personally, I (Steph) had only one lesson that was a real challenge and a test to my patience. I did a one on one lesson with a student that is in the lowest skill level and did not have enough vocabulary to answer simple questions so I had to re-phrase nearly every question. I am still not sure if he learned something which made my confidence drop but other students in other lessons made up for that one. Nick has improved a lot in simplifying instructions for the low level students, this was one of his"weaknesses". However as I mentioned earlier by the end of today we were both pretty confident and comfortable with the students and the lessons. After today we are "teachers"....on probation period of course.

At the end of the day (today was our final day of the initial training), the teachers took us out to a traditional Japanese restaurant. This place was great. . . all tatami (rice) mats where you kneel on small pillows in front of a table the height of a normal coffee table. We tried some new and interesting foods and Nick had enough beer to feel a little on the tipsy side. Nick also tried something that Andrew (our trainer) ordered by mistake thinking they would be like chicken kabobs but turned out to be more like seasoned chicken fat on a stick. For the record it did not look like that to the naked eye. Nick was brave enough to try it...not knowing what it was...and it almost did not make it down his throat. After two quick gag reflexes he was able to just swallow it whole and save face in front of the group. Anyone that knows Nick knows that we should be proud of him for doing this. Then, after a few more drinks and hours at the restaurant, we ventured out to a typical Japanese karaoke. This is not a karaoke bar like in the US, but rather a booth/small room that you rent for only you and the friends you`re with. So, without hesitation, we spent a good 2 hours singing our hearts out to familiar tunes like `Hotel California`, `Mony, Mony`, `New York, New York`, `Bittersweet Symphony`, `Under the Bridge` and `Billie Jean`. It was good fun!

Tomorrow (actually later on today) we will head back home to Sasebo where we will both start work full time on Saturday. It might be a while until we post again since we wont have access to internet freely like we did here in Nagasaki at the hotel. On Friday we will work on going to the City office to apply for our alien registration certificate so that we can then open a bank account and get internet access through cable at home. Hopefully next time we post it will be from the comfort of our tiny couch!

P.S. To answer Justin`s question on a previous post, we do have sliding doors in our apartment. We have sliding doors separating the bedrooms from the living room and also between each of the rooms. They don`t really go into the wall they just slide from one side to the other. They are not made of the thin paper that we would think of, but sort of like very light wood panels (very light) so that you cannot see through them.