May 8, 2008

Sooo, I experienced 2 of Japan's earthquakes last night. One was at about 1 am and it didn't last very long. I had been still awake. The second hit at a little after two, and lasted almost a minute. Crazy huh? Well, we were supposed to meet in the lobby at 7 am because we needed to check our bags to be sent to our apartments. So, being responsible I am there about 5 minutes early. I wait and wait. I called Jon and Reina. No answer. So I wait some more. Brandon shows up and he's not sending his bags. So I talk to him for a moment before he decides to leave for training early. He has to fight the trains with his huge luggage. Lol, fun times. Well, it's almost 7:20 when I get a call from Jon saying that he just woke up so he'll be down soon. Then Yoshi shows up. So, I ask her to help me get my bags all ready to be sent. So, she helps fill out the forms in Japanese for me, which is super sweet. I'm kinda nervous though, cuz the dude at the hotel looked up my postal code and said the one I had was wrong. That would be no bueno if my stuff got lost...anyway, so Jon finally shows at about 7:30 and Reina like 5 minutes later. They ship their bags and off we go to training. So, we get to the train, and I keep my little carry on bag full of 2 days worth of clothes so I could send the rest to get to me by Saturday. Well, I have that and my laptop and my purse with me trying to get through the craziness of Tokyo rush hour on the train system. Lol! I get down to the train and it's super full. Reina and Yoshi push themselves in one car and Jon and I chose to get on another one. Well, the door was trying to close on me, there wasn't really enough room in the train, and Jon kept trying to help by keeping his foot in the way of the door. Well, this security guard at the train station came up real fast and pushed me and my bag in the train and the doors shut. I was literally up against the glass til the next stop. Jon and I were laughing so hard. Thankfully at the next stop some people got off so we were good the rest of the way, lol. My presentation wasn't bad, I don't think. But, I'm not a natural at it. I was, however, the only one who did my lesson slow enough though. So, that's good :D We also got to meet this head dude of the company today. He is super nice. I guess Jon served in his ward while he was on his mission. Well, the guy gave us these cool books all about Japan that are written in Japanese and English. I guess he's the PR person for the church in Tokyo. Kinda cool. He knows the president of both Idaho and Provo BYUs and is a super nice guy. I liked him. :) After that we came back and more people presented their lesson. Brandon did the best, I think. He'll do great in elementary schools. Then this guy came and talked to us. He's the head guy over training the teachers. Another super nice guy. He was trying to be frank with us about things. Like, he said that the worst time to call home is when you're homesick. He was telling us about the milk here, and how it's safer to eat raw eggs here as well. I asked him about ground beef, and he said you'll only find ground beef/pork. He said that finding a comfort food helps a lot. He also said that we'll all probably experience culture shock at some point. He said that you get that when something that usually doesn't bug you a lot suddenly gets you super mad. He said it's usually something different than what you're used to at home. But he said it's normal. We'll see :p After our meeting with him we went to lunch with Yoshi. We tried this place called Mos Burger. Kinda odd...but not bad. TONS of onions. Jon actually had me order my own burger in Japanese. He stood behind me and told me what to say. It was funny though, cuz the dude knew I was using Jon and started to talk in English. Lol. Eh, someday I'll learn enough Japanese to order something, lol. After lunch we said goodbye to everyone. That was sad. I actually got to meet 2 more interns today. Both from Canada. The one didn't have even the slightest accent. It was funny. Super nice guy though. I liked him. So, the 4 of us left with an escort to the train station. We were with Brandon and our escort until the main station in Tokyo. There we (Jon, Reina and I) got on the bullet train. That was cool. It's super quiet and wicked fast. I dunno, I was kinda expecting more though? I was impressed with how quiet it was though. :p Once at our stop, in Okayama, we were met by this other escort and her way cute daughter. The lady had great English skills. We were all impressed. She took us to our hotel and said we'd meet someone else tomorrow at about 9am. Now, our hotel room was SO much better than the one in Tokyo. This one had a huge bed, a separate desk...it was like a hotel in America, almost. The only weird thing was you had to stick your key in the entry way light thing to get the light in the room to work. It was weird, but whatever. Super nice room. And the elevator was totally off of the movie "The Grudge¨. I video taped it, cuz it was that cool, lol. Well, for dinner that night we walked around Okayama and decided to just eat at one of those places you order your food from a vending machine type thing then give the people a ticket with your order on it. I decided to try this thinly sliced beef and onion thing on rice. It was actually good! I enjoyed it. It came with mizo soup, and I usually give it to Jon to eat, but I was like "I don¡¦t know how you two eat that stuff. It smells awful.¨ Then Jon asked if I'd ever tried it. I admitted I hadn't. So, Jon looked at me and said "I'm not going to eat it unless you try it. You'll just have to waste the food.¨ I was like "Eh, I MIGHT try it if I had a spoon, but all I have are chopsticks and I suck at using them, so too bad.¨ Well..Jon got up and found a spoon. Seriously, I was like..wow. So, I had to try it. I'll admit, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't like it, but it wasn't awful. Then we went to this cool electronics store. We needed to find alarm clocks. So, we all got the same ones. It was funny, cuz we were playing with this electric trumpet, which is a pimp idea then the cool rhythem clocks (I found my new favorite one) when this worker came and said the store closed 15 minutes ago. So, we hurried and bought our alarm clocks and had the whole store bowing to us as we left. Lol, never would that happen in America. After dinner we all met in Jon's room to watch a movie. Now, funny story. Jon sent his bags to be delivered on Saturday to his apartment. It's Thursday. Jon didn't pack any clothes in his backpack that he brought with him. Ok, so he's stuck in a suit for 2 days as well as using the same undies. I laughed so hard when I heard that. So, for being in his pjs to watch the movie he used this flippin huge sleep shirt that the hotel provides. It was so funny. Lol, anyway. We watched Hot Rod. Kinda funny, mostly dumb movie. But, eh, it was fun. Well, I should go. Super late and I'm way tired.