Yes, we are still here!

Hey everyone! I have to apologize for the lack of blog entries lately - its one of the only unfortunate side effects of having such a busy trip! We have been getting back to the hotel pretty late every night, and are totally exhausted because our days are so busy. And now we are staying at a hotel that charges for the internet - about $1 for 15 minutes - kind of expensive actually. So there may not be any more blog entries before we get home.

But know that our trip has been absolutely amazing so far, and everything is going well. The students all seem to be having a great time, and I have really been enjoying myself as I watch them discover Japan. This is such a neat country, and I cant say how many times I have heard them say "This is the coolest ________________ I have ever seen!

We spent a day and a half in Kyoto, then a day in Nara, the older capital. That day was super fun because we rented bikes and rode between all the major sites. Nara has about 1200 tame deer roaming around, and you can feed them and pet them. We saw the worlds largest seated indoor bronze Buddha, housed inside the the worlds largest wooden building. Everyone liked that place so much that we decided to dedicate our own roof tile to the building restoration - you pay a donation and get to write your wishes on a roof tile. When the kids chose "To future travels together" as their wish, I just about cried. It was a really special moment. We also wrote RIP MJ on our tile!

But perhaps the most enjoyable moment that day was when we parked the bikes and sat next to a pond full of hungry turtles. I told the kids that they were not allowed to pick up the turtles because I thought the locals might think it was cruel, but when Adam and I went to to go get some snacks, we came back to find that our students have been befriended by two friendly Japanese guys who, in between doing handstands and asking Sasha to be their girlfiriend, were pulling turtles out of the water for the kids to hold, then throwing them (the turtles, not the students) as far as they could across the pond. Oh well, so much for respecting the animals.

We also made a visit to my old hometown and the high school where I used to teach. That was a LOT of fun! I never thought that less than a year after leaving Japan I would be able to see my different groups of students hanging out! What a trip! We had a big dinner at night and made a visit to the school to join the English classes the next day. It was great for the Japanese students to have a chance to use their English in an authentic situation, and great for the American students to be exposed to teens from another country.

Now we are back in Tokyo and today is our last full day. We fly out tomorrow evening. The journey home will be really long - 8 hour layover in Vancouver! If we have enough money we might rent a car and explore a bit.

So thats it for now - I will try to get the kids to write tonight but really cant promise anything. I know that you are all wanting to hear stories, but dont worry, there will be plenty to tell when we get home!

Signing off,

Miss Morello

1 Day At A Time

Hey People Its Toyeen Here & Im Going To Talk About The Trip & How It's Been. Well For Starters The Plane Ride Was Very Long But Actually Exicting At The Same Time L.O.L But Anyways When We Got To Japan Everybody Was Just So Exicted & Everybody Was Like Oh My God Were in Japan!

from sad to happy all in a few hours

hey everyone!!! so far this trip has been really fun!!! these past few days has been the best days of my life. i am so glad to be here, nothing can get any better then this. well i am going to start off by telling you my story from the night before leaving for japan, so keep reading. i could not believe that it was almost time to leave. so i stayed up all night saying to myself that i didnt want to go. i even had tears running down my face all because i didnt want to go. 3:00 clock arrived an i started to feel sick. it was time to meet up with rest of the people that were going. about 45 min. later i began to feel a little better. about an hour an half later we got to the air port. i was excited but i still didnt want to leave. after a while i had change my mind about the whole tirp, and wanted to go. we got on the air plane at 7:30 am. it was fun on the plane. pretty much the whole ride i was sleep, an when i wasnt sleep i was taking pics. by the time we got to canada i was in a happy mood an couldnt wait to get to japan. the plane ride from canada to japan was so long, for the most part i was sleep. soon as we arrive into japan i was taking pics from out the plane. when we got off the plane we had change our money over into yens. at first i didnt no how to work it so i didnt spend no money. now i just been spending money left and right. i no u want to here more but im really sleepy so i will finished a little later so be ready to here alot more from me. good night





the 1st day in japan was fun because i got to see things that i never see before. the streets are very clean, the paople are really quite an friendly, and very respectful. i never thought that i would ever see people getting alone and keeping the city clean. always thought that the other countries were really bad, but i was really wrong. when i got here i was really confused because people drive on the oppsite side, cars are way smaller, driver wheel is on the oppsite also, and books are open oppsite also.

From the Old Capital to the New

Hey everyone, Ms. Morello here. It is 730 in the am here in Tokyo, and if I can get the kids out the door with all their bags packed by 8 am, it will have been a successfull morning! We are leaving Tokyo today for Kyoto - the old capital of Japan and the place to see some of the most beautiful temples in the whole world. We will be taking the Shinkansen - the famous Japanese bullet train, which the kids are very excited about.

Yesterday was one of those travel days that will remain etched in my memory forever. We visited two of the best places in Tokyo - Harajuku and Shibuya. There were so many hilarious moments yesterday, but we got in so late that the kids didnt have time to write about it. Thats the unfortunate thing about travel blogging - in order to do it, you must take time away from your actual travels, and yesterday I decided it was much more important for them to sleep! But I will get them to write as soon as possible - keep checking back!

Hey my name Im Brian aka Byron lol. When i got on the plane to Canada i was alredy missing my friends and i couldint wait to get back Toyeen felt the same...i was like what is a colombian and an african doing in tokyo? Halarious init? well after the 2 hr flight to canada we chilled in vancoover for a bit. A couple of hour later we were alredy boarding for tokyo i was crapping bricks 序J費補遺hJs不klsdfhsl字絵

(Brian started this entry a few nights ago, but accidentally hit the key that switches the keyboard into Japanese, and he couldnt figure out how to switch it back to English, so he just saved his post. I thought it was such a neat one to read that I had to post it. - Miss Morello)

Just in case you Coulnt read it before.. AMERICANS iN THE HOUSE!!

Hey everyone its Sasha reporting from Japan!
and sorry for my bad punctuation, their keyboards over here are so different, but the keys are way softer!! haha.
So anyway, Japan is AMAZING!
Everything is so different, yet strangely similar to life back home. The people are very quiet and usually keep to themselves, but they do seem to be extremely curious about us foreiners and will try their best to break their quiet shells when you attempt to start up a convorsation with them first. Prior to this trip my teacher Ms. Morello had told that out of all the age groups, teenage Japanese boys were the most shy people to try to get to talk to you, so yesterday on the subway I decided to attempt to talk to one myself using the basic Japanese that i know (and from now on that will always be one of my most memorable moments from this trip!) but once i started talking to him and asking him questions about himself he turned SO red and shy! We could all tell he was embarressedand nevous, especially since his friends were off laughing and jokily teasing him from a distance. haha. and once he got off Ms.Morello immediatlty told me "you just made that guys day! That was probably the most exciting thing thats ever happened to him!" hahaha!
Today was was a very long and eventful day. We woke up arounf 9 and hit the town. We started out by eating a traditional japanese breakfast in a place where the chefs cooked the food fight onour counter where we sat ans told us to call them "Papa" and "Mama." They were a very sweet older couple who worked their hardest to try to comprehend our broken english and laugh laugh when Brian used him newly learned pick up line on them. It was hillarious!
We also visited a temple located very close to where we're staying in Tokyo. There were many places to shop and take pictures. After we left there we hopped on the train and went to Gilbli museum where the work of Hayao Miyazaki is displayed. It was the most fun and interesting museum i have ever seen in my life! There were so many childish hands on displays! (And just in case you aren't familiar with his work Hayao Miyazaki is the creator of animated movies such as Spirited away and Howl's Moving Castle)
once we got back into Tokyo, we had some adventurous flavors of ice cream and to top it all off, we went downtown and sang kareoke! it was so fun and the first time that i actually fully participated in singing with a group of friends!! haha.
I'm so tired right now it's 12:47am over here which means its like almost 8am back home! Just had to update my thoughts in the blog. :)

GoOd Night World!
.Sasha<3

Americans in the House!!

Hey everyone its Sasha reporting from Japan!
and sorry for my bad punctuation, their keyboards over here are so different, but the keys are way softer!! haha.
So anyway, Japan is AMAZING!
Everything is so different, yet strangely similar to life back home. The people are very quiet and usually keep to themselves, but they do seem to be extremely curious about us foreiners and will try their best to break their quiet shells when you attempt to start up a convorsation with them first. Prior to this trip my teacher Ms. Morello had told that out of all the age groups, teenage Japanese boys were the most shy people to try to get to talk to you, so yesterday on the subway I decided to attempt to talk to one myself using the basic Japanese that i know (and from now on that will always be one of my most memorable moments from this trip!) but once i started talking to him and asking him questions about himself he turned SO red and shy! We could all tell he was embarressedand nevous, especially since his friends were off laughing and jokily teasing him from a distance. haha. and once he got off Ms.Morello immediatlty told me "you just made that guys day! That was probably the most exciting thing thats ever happened to him!" hahaha!
Today was was a very long and eventful day. We woke up arounf 9 and hit the town. We started out by eating a traditional japanese breakfast in a place where the chefs cooked the food fight onour counter where we sat ans told us to call them "Papa" and "Mama." They were a very sweet older couple who worked their hardest to try to comprehend our broken english and laugh laugh when Brian used him newly learned pick up line on them. It was hillarious!
We also visited a temple located very close to where we're staying in Tokyo. There were many places to shop and take pictures. After we left there we hopped on the train and went to Gilbli museum where the work of Hayao Miyazaki is displayed. It was the most fun and interesting museum i have ever seen in my life! There were so many childish hands on displays! (And just in case you aren't familiar with his work Hayao Miyazaki is the creator of animated movies such as Spirited away and Howl's Moving Castle)
once we got back into Tokyo, we had some adventurous flavors of ice cream and to top it all off, we went downtown and sang kareoke! it was so fun and the first time that i actually fully participated in singing with a group of friends!! haha.
I'm so tired right now it's 12:47am over here which means its like almost 8am back home! Just had to update my thoughts in the blog. :)

GoOd Night World!
.Sasha<3

The flight

Monday morning the first half of the group met at 4am at OAHS. Brian, Ariel and families were already there when James, Nicole, and I arrived. Some final paperwork was prepared by Nicole and James, Nicole did a bag check to make sure that bags not overpacked, and we worked out arrangements for drive down to Hayward where we would meet rest of group. Ariel's mom gave us all handmade poofball tags to identify our luggage which proved very helpful later!

This was my first time seen OAHS, it was more like a school than I thought. I knew it was small so had thought it would be more like a barracks.

We jumped in cars and then met Toyeen and Sasha and families. We ended up with a good amount of food and treats from everyone which filled in the gaps of what would be a very long day.

After arriving at SFO we said our goodbyes and were on our way. The questions began, Miss Morello do I have to take of my shoes? Miss Morello do we need our passports for this? I took some photos, finding Brian and Toyeen to be goofballs. I will be lucky to get one picture of them without Brian pointing and Toyeen throwing his arms up into the air.

Arrival in Vancouver went fine, easiest customs ever. Nicole kept on the student about proper gandling of luggage and passports, but then in an ironic twist was the first to lose her sweater :) I tried salmon jerky. It was not great. On way back I'll try maple candy which seemed to be other big specialty.

Nicole gave us lessons in Japanese which Brian and Sasha took to more than rest of us. Ariel seemed exhausted so we let her sleep.

We left Canada with little fuss and started longest flight of my life. Everyone behaved, but 8 hours is long time. We gave the flight attendants a box of chocolates to see if we get special treatment, I don't think it worked... but they were still nice.

We all could watch whatever we wanted on independant screens. I saw Gran Turino and Watchmen. First great movie, I highly recommend it. Second so so.

Finally we touch down at Narita airport.

Adam