My last week in Japan was busy and fun! Our Kyoto trip was a lot of fun and the city is so beautiful with all the temples and shrines. It was so hot though! Despite the heat, we managed to see quite a lot. We went Fushimi Inari-taisha, Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion), the Nijo Castle, and the Gion area of town. We saw many people dressed in Kimonos and two Geisha girls.

Tuesday night my friends Jana and Uhura joined me for one last trip to Disney Sea. We enjoyed walking around and looking at the scenery and taking a boat around the park. We got to see the Fantasmic show complete with fireworks and enjoy some wonderful tasting gelato.

The other nights of the week I went souvenir shopping and ate at some of my favorite restaurants again. Friday night all of my coworkers and I ate at a Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) place. It was nice to enjoy each others company one last time and say goodbye to each other. Each person got a Sayonara doll which is a doll that goodbye messages can be written on.

During the last week of camp with kids, we did a space theme. The kids enjoyed learning about the stars, planets, moon, astronauts, rockets, and even aliens! I think their favorite topic was the loss of gravity in space. They thought it was cool that astronauts can "fly" around. Their favorite craft was making a moon with  a mixture of shaving cream and glue. They loved playing with the mixture! I loved teaching them and will really miss seeing them every week!

Saturday we got up early for a bus ride to the airport and a long flight back to the United States. It was kind of interesting how our flight left at 11:30 and got to San Antonio at 12:00 noon on the same day! It was like the trip took only 30 minutes even though it really took over 12 hours!

I have now been back in Texas for a week and have been trying to adjust to being home. The jet lag has been terrible! During the week, I have had lots of time to reflect on the whole Japan experience. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity! I am so blessed to have been able to teach so many wonderful children and work with some great people! I learned a lot about myself that I hope I will continue to develop and made some wonderful memories that I hope will last a lifetime! I'm glad that by writing this blog you all could have just a little taste of what my amazing summer experience was like!

From San Antonio, With Love,
Rachael

Sorry it's been a while since I've shared my adventures. We've been pretty busy!

We had a goodbye dinner and celebration of the summer at an all you can at Yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant. You cook the meat yourself. We had all kinds of meat, rice, and salad. We did paper plate awards for each of the counselors and helpers of camp. I got the Florence Nightingale award. I guess that's because I am always caring for other people. It was sad to say goodbye to those who were leaving, but a fun way to celebrate the summer.
 That night, Uhura spent the night at the hotel with me. We skyped my parents and sister so she got to "meet" them. Then we ate cheesecake and watched We Bought a Zoo. Well, she watched it and I fell asleep! On Saturday we were going to go to a festival, but that didn't work out. Instead we went to Tokyo station and explored character street and other stores in the huge underground mall. That night I did a taste test of my favorite drink in Japan, milk tea. I tried six different kinds and decided I like them all! The Lipton one is the best I think! Sunday I went to church with Uhura and her family and then they took me to the Aeon mall. It was fun to go shopping with her family.

 At camp this week we did a medieval theme. We talked about kings, queens, dragons, castles, knights, and wizards. The kids enjoyed learning and  using there imaginations to pretend to be kings, queens, knights, and wizards! On Friday we watched How to Train Your Dragon. One of the days, one of the girls that speaks mainly only Japanese had fun teaching me basic Japanese words. She got so excited when I got them right!

 During the evenings this week we went to the Tokyo International Forum and the Tokyo SkyTree. The Tokyo International Forum is a convention center and event center. The architecture of the building is amazing! It was fun to walk around and look at the design of the building. The Tokyo SkyTree is the tallest tower in the world! It is a beautiful structure! You can go inside and see the view from several different levels, but it is still so new that the line to enter was miles long and would have taken hours so we just took pictures from the outside and explored the many shops in Tokyo SkyTree Town. We ate at and Indian food restaurant that was very good!

Last night we went to dinner with Yoko at a Thai restaurant and then got dessert from a nearby bakery. We then took  pictures with Yoko and said goodbye as we will not see her again before leaving Japan. She gave us treats for the plane and a postcard with a personal note. She is so sweet! I will definitely miss her!

Today, I explored the electric town of Akihabara again on my own this time. It was fun to see all the amazing electrical things and souvenirs in the stores that I went to. I got some great things to bring home to family and friends.

Only one week left in Japan! This trip sure did go fast! Tomorrow we will go to Kyoto. This week I hope to go back to Tokyo Disney one more time, buy some more souvenirs, and eat at some good places one more time. We have one more week of camp with the theme being space. This will probably be the last post from Tokyo, so look forward to hearing about my final week when I get home!

From Tokyo, With Love,
Rachael

Today was rough! Our kiddos decided they didn't want to listen today! So, we spent all day putting children in timeout and taking away privileges. I was so tired by the end of the day!

This week the theme is about around the world. The kids have enjoyed leaning about different countries, and some of them already know so much that they have enjoyed sharing their knowledge with the other children. So far we have talked about Australia, Egypt, and China. We will be talking about Mexico and England this week as well.

This past weekend we went to Ginza. It is another shopping area of Tokyo. Most of it is comprised of designer stores. We went to Forever 21 and the Sony showroom. That night we went to the Sumida River fireworks festival. I have never seen so many people in my life! I almost got swept away in the crowds! The fireworks were beautiful and the show lasted an hour and a half! They had all kinds of fireworks including Pikachu ones!

This coming weekend we have lots of plans! We have a goodbye dinner on Friday night because two of our coworkers are leaving early and it will only be two Fridays after that for it to be the end for everyone. On Saturday we plan on going to another festival. Apparently, Japan has festivals every weekend of the summer!

That's all for now. Check in next week to hear more about our weekend adventures.

From Tokyo, With Love,
Rachael

Since the last time I wrote, my adventures have been a little more relaxed. On Saturday Shannon and I spent all day in our room. She wasn't feeling well and so slept most of the day. I made a photo book of my daily picture album from my 28th year.
   Sunday we ate brunch at the hotel. It was delicious and we were so full afterwards! Then we went to the Brazil festival that was in YoYogi Park. Apparently there is a significant population of Brazilians living in Japan. We walked around a bit and listened to a band. After we left the festival we went to Akihabara Electric Town. This is the area of Tokyo that has many stores devoted to electronics and anime. They also have stores with Japanese souvenirs. We spent several hours looking at new and different electronic items and finish the cooking yourself. Most of the dishes include pepper rice, some kind of meat, and some kind of sauce. I tried a bacon cheese sauce with rice. It was quite tasty! 
   Monday after work I went to Shibuya (The shopping area I talked about before) with Jose and Lycell. We ate at Pepper Lunch again. LycelI really likes it! I ate beef and pepper rice this time. Then we looked at a few stores. I went to the Disney store. It looks Like Cinderella's castle outside and is decorated with different characters inside. They have a section unique to Tokyo which is pretty cool. 
   The rest of the week has so far been spent relaxing at the hotel. 
While adventures outside of work have calmed down a little in the past week, work has gotten more hectic! We now have 46 children in the 3-5 age range and 66 children in the 6-12 age range! Probably at least half of them only speak Japanese! These kids sure do keep us busy! We are so tired by the end of the day! The kids are lots of fun though! We are doing a Dr. Suess theme this week and the children have really enjoyed listening to the stories and making the silly crafts. Today we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and made a cute hand fish craft. 
Next week we are doing an around the world theme which should be fun. I'll let you know how it's going in my next post. 


From Tokyo with Love, 
Rachael 

Well, I'm halfway through my time in Tokyo. It's going by so fast!

On Friday night I went with friends to Karoke Japanese style. You pay a certain amount of money per person per hour to have a room just for your group. It was a lot of fun! Wish we could have stayed longer!

Then on Saturday and Sunday my friends and I had an adventure I know we will never forget! We attempted to climb Mt. Fuji! I say attempted because due to the weather we were unable to climb all the way to the top. The climb starts at the 5th station. There are 9 stations total, but each station has more than one station. It's kind of confusing, but basically you climb a little in between each one, but there are 4 of them say 7th station and so on. Our group got to the 4th of the 7th stations and then were told that the winds were too strong that it was not recommended to climb further. It was also not recommended to climb down, so the five of us spent 5hrs huddled together (between the two buildings of the station) trying to stay warm! The winds were fierce and it was raining for part of the time! We had emergency blankets from our work first aid kits, but even with those we thought we might end up with frost bitten toes! The sun started to rise at around 4:30 and it was absolutely beautiful! So glad we got to enjoy that after our cold night! Once it was daylight, we could have continued to climb to the top, but we were so cold and tired that we mad the difficult decision to climb down instead. Legend says that once you have attempted Fuji, but not reached the top you will return until you complete the climb, but if you reach the top you will never return to Japan. Looks like I'll get to come back some day!

From Tokyo, With Love,
Rachael

My birthday was great! It started off with me opening the card my grammy sent with me. So sweet! I miss seeing her on the weekends for family dinners! At work, my kiddos, with the help of my coworker Miss Angel, made me a card. Most of them wrote their names by themselves! At the end of the day all my coworkers sang happy birthday to me and my boss gave me a little gold crown! Shannon, Lycell, and Jose took me to get dessert at an Alice and Wonderland themed restaurant. It was pretty neat! Our dessert plate was so cute! Then when we got home I was surprised to find a bouquet of white and red roses! My sister messaged Shannon and asked her to buy them for me! It was a joint gift between the two of them. Then Shannon also surprised me with a little Duffy the Disney bear and Duffy cookies that she managed to get at Disney without me seeing! Great day!

The 4th of July was very different than any I've ever had! First of all, I had to work! If it weren't for the cute kiddos, I probably would have been upset about that! After that we tried to decide what to do. Japan, of course, does not celebrate the 4th so there were no fireworks or anything. So, we decided to eat at an American restaurant, McDonalds, and then go back to the hotel and hang out. Shannon and I enjoyed some Americone ice cream for dessert!

This weekend we went to Yokota Air Force Base to see where Shannon and Lycell used to live and where Shannon used to work. We then went to Kamakura to see the big Buddha. The town of Kamakura had lots of little street shops and food places along the route to the big Buddha. Such a neat town! The big Buddha is just that, big. Huge in fact! We ate so much the whole day! All you can eat bread at Saint Marcs, green tea ice cream, sweet bean and ice cream pancakes, and all you can eat yakiniku!

My eye started bothering me last night and pink eye has been going around camp, so when I woke up with a pink scratchy eye that I had trouble opening I freaked out! After many calls to people, a skype call to my dad, and Visine drops, it turns out that it hopefully is just really bad allergies! So, I went about my day as planned which included church with my friend Uhura and her family and lunch with my friend Yancey who I haven't seen in years. Yancey and his wife are stationed here in Yokota. Then I rode the train and subway back to the hotel by myself! Shannon and I enjoyed some pizza and cheesecake for dinner at the hotel. Tomorrow I start a no sugar and bread week so that I will Mt. Fuji this next weekend! Stay tuned for more on the climb in my next post!

From Tokyo, With Love,

Rachael

We got some new kiddos today. The numbers doubled! It was kind of chaotic! We had to figure out how to split up into smaller groups and make sure the kids were with friends and not with children they don't get along with  or that their parents don't want them with. It worked out though. Things should run much smoother tomorrow!

This past weekend, Shannon and I went to Tokyo Disney! We went to Tokyo Disneyland on Saturday and Disney Sea on Sunday. Both parks were a lot of fun! Disneyland is very similar to Disney World in Florida. One of the rides that they have that is not at Disney World is the Winnie the Pooh ride. It's super cute! The park was still set up for Easter even on the last day of June! There was even an Easter parade! Disney Sea reminds of a combination of Epcot and the MGM studios. They have different parts of the world that are on bodies of water. My favorite section as far as decorations was the Mermaid Lagoon. My favorite ride was Journey to the Center of the Earth I think. We also saw lots of shows. The night show, Fantasmic, is awesome!

Looking forward to tomorrow night. We are supposed to go to an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant for my birthday! I'll tell you more about that and other adventures in my next post.

From Tokyo, With Love,
Rachael

We have now been working with the kiddos for a week and a half. They are so cute! I am the lead teacher for the 3-5 yr olds. We have several who only speak a little English. It is so fun to learn Japanese words while they are learning English words. The first week our theme for camp was pirates. We made pirate hats, hooks, eye patches, swords, mosaic boats, and the pirates friend parrot. We taught the kids about maps, telescopes, and catapults. Every day the kids looked for a different part of a treasure map and on Friday they had a treasure hunt. The treasure included candy, pencils, erasers, and shiny beans. They loved it. Also on Friday we had a barbecue and ate hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch. In the afternoon we watched Peter Pan.

 This week the them for the week is animals. So far we have talked about zoos and safaris. The kids have made paper plate animals and a safari back pack. They have enjoyed pretending to be different kinds of animals and making animal noises.

I love seeing the children's lunches they bring. They are so creative and cute! Their moms or nannies make them with cute rice ball wrappers, seaweed faces, and animal picks. They pack them in cute little boxes and include placemats, cute silverware or chopstick holders, and wet towels to wipe their hands and face.

The lunches the kids bring are called bentos. You can also get them at convenient stores. I have had several since I've been here and they are pretty good. I also enjoy eating Ramen and rice bowls. I love drinking milk tea!

The weather has been relatively cool with just a couple of days of rain. It was only really rainy one day, the day I survived my first experience with a typhoon!

When we aren't working with kids, we've been out doing more sight seeing. This past weekend we went to Tokyo Tower, the Imperial Palace, the Zojoji Temple, and the Meiju Jingu Shrine. We also saw a different perspective of the Shibuya intersection and the Tokyo skyline at night.

Off to Tokyo Disney this weekend! I'll let you know how that is in my next post. Hope all my friends in Texas are surviving the heat! Praying for those in Colorado enduring the wildfires. 

From Tokyo, With Love,
Rachael

I have now been in Tokyo for a week, and what a week it has been! On Tuesday we went to work and planned for the rest of the weeks of camp and practiced playing games that we will teach the kids. There was a lot of drama because our working hours changed and several people got upset. We stayed until 5:30 when originally the plan was 4:30. The schedule will all work out though. For lunch that day we went to a pretty neat hole in the wall Japanese place. I got some friend fish and rice, miso soup, and green tea. After work it was raining and we were tired and so we went back to the hotel for dinner and just hung out there the rest of the night.
On Wednesday, Shannon woke me up early because she was hungry and wanted to eat. So we went to breakfast and had the delicious buffet at our hotel. This day at work, we had to meet about the hours and smooth things out.  Then we played another game, and worked on crafts the rest of the day. For lunch we walked to 7/11. The 7/11's here have so much more than convenient stores at home! I got a rice bowl with cheese and shrimp. After work we rode the subway to Shibuya which is the busiest intersection in the world! There definitely were a lot of people! We took a picture with the famous Hachi dog statue and people watched. Then we rode to Harajuku and ate at the Mc Donalds where I got a shrimp filet on a bun. After dinner we had crepes!
Thursday was another day of crafts at work. We ate dinner at a British pub and then came back to the hotel.
Friday we went over drop off and pick up for the first day with kiddos, worked on more crafts, and then had a practice barbecue because we will barbecue every Friday. After work, we hung out at the hotel for a bit and then went to get Yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick) and grilled rice balls. We had dinner reservations at a Ninja themed restaurant, but ate first so we wouldn't be tempted to buy to much that we couldn't afford at the restaurant. The restaurant was pretty cool! A ninja greeted us and took us through a tunnel like maze to get to our seat. He did some tricks, such as hanging on the ceiling, on the way. We ordered some appetizers and our ninja waiter did a trick with each one!
Saturday was a long day! We woke up and had breakfast at the hotel and did laundry at the same time. Then we walked from 12 to about 9ish! It was raining all day, but we still managed to have fun! We went to Shidome City Center and had lunch on the 41st floor! Then we went through the Panasonic Live Center. It shows all the improvements you can get for your home from Panasonic. Then we walked and looked through some shops. We went to the beautiful Hama - rikyu gardens! Even in the rain it was gorgeous! After the gardens we went to the area of Tokyo known as Shinjuku had dinner at Sukiya which serves rice bowls. This area is a big shopping area so of course we walked around and mainly looked at Forever 21. We got crepes for dessert and then headed home.
Today was another long day! We headed out at 1ish and got back about 9:30. We went to Odaiba by subway and train. This is a newer shopping section of Japan. Here they will soon have and Old Navy. They also have a huge Hello Kitty store! Outside the building, they have a huge Gundam robot statue.  We also walked through the Mega Web Toyota City Showcase which has the newest Toyota models.Then we rode a boat all the way down Tokyo Bay! It was beautiful! We walked from the bay through an area of Tokyo called Asakusa. This is an older part of the city. There we saw the Sensoji Temple. It is one of Tokyo's oldest temples.
Well, that is all for tonight! We have our first day with kiddos tomorrow! More to come soon!
From Tokyo, with love,
Rachael

Today was my first full day in Tokyo. I woke up almost every hour from two until 6:15 when I got up. The sun comes up at 4am! We met most of our group that will be working at the camp in the lobby of the hotel and rode the subway one stop away. Then we walked what seemed like forever before we got to the embassy compound where the summer camp is taking place. We got uniform shirts and met up with the rest of the group. We walked to the actual embassy and had briefings from the medical division, American Citizen services division,  Community Liaison divisions, and the Regional Security Office. Then, we had lunch at a Hawaiian restaurant. We went back to the compound and worked on organizing the supplies and making sure we understood the schedules. After work, some of my coworkers and I (Shannon, Lycell, and Jose) went to the Miro Tower. The tower has a skydeck where you can view all of Tokyo! After the tower, we went and ate dinner at a Ramen place. Pretty good for the first day!

 From Tokyo, with Love,

Rachael